EMERGING SCANDAL, with more fairly prominent Mendocino-area people also
about to be rounded up. Arrested last week by a task force raid team led
by the DEA but including U.S. Marshals and back-up from the Mendocino
County Sheriff's Department were John Paul McMillan, no relation to the
famous drug guy of yesteryear who built that huge house at the mouth of
Big River. At the time, McMillan Sr. ran Catch-A-Canoe. Also arrested was
Erin Keller, McMillan's wife. She maintains a gift shop at the MacCallam
House and, at one time, was part owner of the Caspar Inn. Jeff Wall was
among the arrested. And Hank McCusker and Rick Smith were also taken into
custody. They've all been held in federal custody in Alameda County since
Thursday, November 8th. Several of the accused own property allegedly
purchased with drug money. Our sources say they all graduated from
Mendocino High School in the 1980s and are all in their forties.
THE ARRESTS of the Mendocino people began with a huge DEA bust in Kansas
involving 35 people charged with 101 federal counts of dealing drugs,
transporting, trafficking, money laundering — not just pot but cocaine and
other drugs. The Kansas end of the business goes to trial next year. The
Kansas people apparently gave up the names of the Mendo people, although
press accounts of the Kansas raid indicate that the feds had been watching
the operation for years, since 2005, and, by 2012, probably had a clear
idea of who was involved on the Mendocino end and how all the money was
being laundered. One transaction is said to have involved more than a ton
of pot that sold for 16.9 million dollars.
THE FEDS are calling it an organized crime ring and are poised to take
down more Mendocino-area people.
IT'S ALL HUSH-HUSH so far because, it seems, the feds don't want to alert
those Coasties still to be arrested, but we can be sure a lot of people in
the fog belt aren't sleeping much this last week. The cops are saying some
of the arrested are looking at very long sentences.
MAJOR PROB in Willits as revealed by some excellent reporting from Linda Williams of the Willits News. In a nutshell, the Willits Unified School District has been jobbed by their bond handlers and by the profligate way a majority of the school board awarded contracts, First, Willits hasn't gotten the kind of school buildings the community was promised when they passed the bond measure and, second, suddenly the district is looking at a $5 million dollar balloon note from the bond company for “debt service.” It was Williams who read the fine print on the deal, she alone apparently, where she discovered the $5 mil promise.
IN THE STRONGEST editorial we've ever seen in the Willits News, the writer begins, “We find the missteps by the Willits Unified School District and the school board regarding the 2010 school bond to be tantamount to fraud. Taxpayer assessments are running substantially higher than even the top rate advertised on the ballot, contracts are being awarded to out-of-area contractors which contributed substantially to the campaign to pass the bond, millions have already been squandered on studies and drawings of facilities we could never afford-and now a $5 million balloon bond payment due in 2014 has just been discovered…”
A READER WRITES: “You seem to have forgotten the efforts made by Mr. Bassler to warn the police, social services etc regarding his schizo son. Bassler cared about his son, and also lived in fear for him and of him. I think he behaved in a very responsible manner, and his warnings were consistently ignored by what passes for a legal system here. So, who can blame him for becoming cynical about receiving any respect or credence from these establishments??? If he had alerted law enforcement that his son was in the vicinity of the Coleman murder, do you honestly believe he would have been taken seriously? I certainly do not. He suffered at least as great a tragedy as did the Melo family. Melo chose to put himself in harm’s way, and found what he was looking for---big trouble.”
THIS VERSION of Bassler events, widely assumed on the local list serves and among the Blue Meanie types, does not match the known facts. The cops did not know that Aaron Bassler was armed and had been dropped off by his mother in the immediate vicinity of the Coleman murder. If they had known that, Aaron Bassler would have been the subject of a large-scale manhunt two weeks before Melo was killed and, if Bassler was still on loose, it's unlikely Melo would have been at work doing his job, which was to manage property. That function included keeping, or trying to keep pot growers out. The Coleman murder mystified the cops and everyone else because it made no sense. There were no suspects because no one, except his parents, was aware of the menace presented by Aaron Bassler. Of course the cops would have taken Jim Bassler seriously if Jim Bassler had told them that his armed, troubled son had been in the immediate vicinity of Coleman's murder, a fact the former Mrs. Bassler had relayed to her former husband two weeks before Melo was cut down. The cops aren't as stupid and as uncaring as you seem to assume they are. All this retroactive hand-wringing by the local libs about how it all could have prevented if the Blue Meanies and their court system had listened to Jim Bassler and had gotten Aaron Bassler mental health help, and how Melo had it coming because he was a tool of the timber industry and so on, seems to me not only inconsistent with the known facts but even more callous than any criticism of Jim Bassler might be. The local expression of a justice system, as everywhere in the land anymore, is broken. We all know that. Bassler Senior's efforts to get help for his son occurred in a context of No Help Available. But he and his ex-wife still bear major responsibility for Melo by not warning law enforcement of Aaron's unhinged, armed presence in the woods north of Fort Bragg. By Mendolib's lockstep standards, Melo somehow had it coming. A guy doing his job deserves murder? Repeat: Both Basslers, Jim and his former wife, should have told the cops that their troubled son was loose in the woods with a gun, that their son had probably killed Coleman because Mom dropped him off, armed, at the gate of the property where Coleman was shot a month before Melo was shot and killed. Jim Bassler knew all this two weeks before Melo was murdered. Surely you can't be saying the cops would have ignored the information that an armed Aaron Bassler, a mentally ill Aaron Bassler, was at the site of the Coleman murder?
EMINENT HISTORIAN David McCullough was on 60 Minutes last Sunday speaking about, among other things, the woeful state of education in the United States. “We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate,” said McCullough. “People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively because they're often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing. McCullough's remarks could have been referring directly to Mendo's “lead educator,” Superintendent of Schools Paul Tichinin or any other Mendo or even national school administrator for that matter. According to his biography, “Paul,” as Tichinin calls himself rather than “Mr. Tichinin” or Superintendent Tichinin, received his BA in Social Science/Economics from CSU Hayward and his MA in Administration/Vocational Education from CSU Long Beach. He has two educational publications to his credit and says he has worked on numerous county, regional and state wide grants and projects including, as I recall, the County Office's purchase of the video equipment Tichinin's colleague, Hal Titen, set up in the back room of Titen's downtown Ukiah bar where Titen filmed pornographic films of underage girls, a voc-ed project our educational leadership does not include on its lengthy roster of conjured triumphs. Continuing with Tichinin's underwhelming cv, “He has served as a special and vocational educational consultant and has been appointed to a wide range of community board positions. He currently works closely with the First 5 Commission, the Fiscal and Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) and the CCSESA Technology and Telecommunications Steering Committee (TTSC).” All of which explains 1. why Mendocino County ranks very low compared to other counties on standardized tests, 2. the listed projects employ lots of Nice People but do very little for young people; 3. Local educational funding is in a constant state of crisis, and 4. Why we still don’t have broadband in most of Mendocino County.
IN OCTOBER, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office initiated an investigation after receiving information that a man later identified as 40-year old Michael Sparks of Richmond was attempting to make contact with a 14-year-old Mendocino Coast boy through Craigslist for what is quaintly still described as “immoral purposes.” Deputies posing as the 14-year old exchanged steamy e-mails with Sparks that eventually lured the pathetic seeker of teen flesh to Fort Bragg where he was arrested “in possession of items that would be used to facilitate that act.” An autographed picture of Justin Beiber?
THE LAST TIME we knew of an adult male driving to Fort Bragg from afar to rendezvous with an underage youth, it was the year 2001, a few days after 911. That adult male, Donald Perez, got himself hit over the head with a rock, dragged into the brush alongside the upper Noyo River where his throat was cut, and he was hanged from a streamside willow. Perez hung there for a month a mile from the Fort Bragg Police Department before the three young men who put him there were revealed by one of their friends as Perez's killers. One of the killers, Tai Abreu, was defended by Linda Thompson to life in prison without the possibility of parole. (Abreu got a one-day jury trial during which Thompson called zero witnesses on his behalf.) Abreu's confederates, Aaron Channel and August Stuckey, plea-bargained to prison terms that will see them back in Fort Bragg when they are in their early forties. Abreu, 19 at the time of his crime, will die in prison.
MONDAY CRIME ONE: On 11.12.12, at approximately 2330 hours, Mendocino County Sheriff Deputies were patrolling the Township of Mendocino when they observed a black Dodge Neon occupied by three persons parked in the dirt lot behind the Presbyterian Church, 44831 Main St., Mendocino. The deputies contacted these persons and initiated a drug possession investigation due to the smell of marijuana emanating from the vehicle. This investigation ultimately revealed that one of the passengers in the vehicle, Brenden Shine, was in possession of 257 grams of Psilocybin Mushrooms. Shine admitted possession of the mushrooms, stating that he intended to share the mushrooms with people at parties because he “likes to have fun.” Shine was arrested for violation of 11378 H&S and lodged at the Mendocino County Jail with bail set at $25,000.00.
MONDAY CRIME TWO: On 11.12.12, at about 1730 hours, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a report of an assault taking place at 21584 John Hyman Rd., Fort Bragg. At that location deputies contacted Matthew Jones, who was suffering obvious physical injuries, and declined emergency medical attention. Matthew explained that his father, Mark Jones, was attacking Matthew's mother and he had intervened. Mark turned his attention to Matthew, punching him and kicking him about the head and upper body. Deputies also interviewed the female victim and she stated that she had been physically assaulted by Mark Jones and suffered pain as a result of the attack, and declined emergency medical attention. Mark Jones was arrested for violations of 245(a)(1) PC and 273.5 PC and subsequently lodged at the Mendocino County Jail with bail set at $30,000.00.
A COAST READER CALLED last week to tell us that Pixie's “road dog,” Mr. Donald Jordan, was really a very nice guy who didn't deserve the implied criticism in our recent reports about Pixie's aka Goldilocks aka Jacqueline Audet's encounters with law enforcement. Pixie, if you came in late, is the waif-like alcoholic who, at age 22, gets herself repeatedly arrested for being drunk in public. The caller said she had had periodic contact with Jordan over the years and that he has always been friendly and polite. We explained that we had nothing against Jordan but he had to have been doing something besides just being drunk for the cops to arrest him and take him to jail. “Drinking in public is illegal,” the caller said, “so that's what they (the cops) do, they arrest people.” Lots of people drink in public, we explained, but only the troublesome get taken to jail because their behavior leaves the cops no alternative. Which is why Pixie keeps getting busted. Drunk, she does crazy stuff like walking out into traffic on the Noyo Bridge, as she did last week, or otherwise makes a nuisance of herself in public places. Most local businesses don't want a screaming meemie posted at their front door, do they? Arresting a drunk or a street nut on the Mendocino Coast represents hours out of a cop's workday. He or she has to haul the drunk, yelling and vomiting the whole way over the hill to Ukiah. “So what do you think he's doing to get arrested?” the caller asked. Don’t know. Typically, it’s either mouthing off to a cop who asked the drunk to move along, or being so obnoxious and rude that somebody or lots of somebodies complain. We know lots of drunks who are swell when they're sober. Also, call us old fashioned, but the relationship of 22-year-old Pixie and 50-year-old Jordan, both of them homeless and alcoholic, doesn't strike us as particularly wholesome, not that wholesome is much regarded anymore as a social standard. “I guess I don't know the whole story,” admitted the caller.”
SPEAKING of Mendocino County's favorite street person, a reader writes: “Not sure if you still track her, just a heads up that the hell bent on self-destruction 'Goldilocks' was with the creepy-looking Donald Leroy Jordan at Safeway in Fort Bragg this afternoon.” Which was Saturday, November 10th. Peter Sears also reported that he “spied ms Audet sitting outside Safeway's doors with a large healthy good looking dog. She was very sober. I bought her dog some chicken jerky treats.”
ONLY LAST WEEK, Goldie and Love Beast were in jail for a couple of days, but here they are again, thanks to the Mendocino County Superior Court's Catch and Release Program.
WAY TO GO, NATALIE! On November 6, 2012, at about 3:40pm Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to Walnut Lane in Redwood Valley regarding a missing elderly man. Deputies learned that an 86 year old male with Alzheimer's had gone for a walk with his dog and was possibly lost. Approximately one hour later the dog returned without his master. Family members conducted a search of the immediate area but were also unable to locate the gaffer and called the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies then called Redwood Valley Fire Department and Ukiah Ambulance to assist. While deputies were searching the area they were advised the missing person may have been located on Road “A.” Sheriff’s Deputies, Redwood Valley Fire and Ukiah Ambulance responded to the Road “A” location and found the subject stuck in some brush. While at the Road “A” location deputies learned that six-year-old Natalie Wildberger was outside playing when she heard noises coming from the brush. Natalie said she thought she heard someone calling for help. Natalie got her father and they both found the old man unable to free himself from the brush he'd somehow wandered into. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank Natalie for a job well done!
READER MICHAEL SLAUGHTER ASKS: “All print media is on the ropes. (Excuse me unwashed grammarians, but ‘media’ is plural.)” … So is ‘media’ plural — or aren't they?” They is, bro, they is.
MENDO MAKES A COOL $130k. According to the following press release, “Tuesday, at approximately 9:45pm, deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s office were on routine patrol when they observed a vehicle traveling on Highway 101 near Laytonville. The vehicle had illegally tinted windows in violation of vehicle code section 26708. Deputies conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle at MPM 76.00 on Highway 101 and contacted the male driver, 36 year-old John Denney of McKinleyville. Sheriff’s K-9 Deputy “Ben” was on scene and alerted to the exterior of the vehicle, indicating the presence of drugs in the car. During the search of the vehicle, deputies located four, very large, empty, rubberized “sea bag” type of duffle bags, often used to transport marijuana. Also found was one pound of bud marijuana, numerous documents that showed marijuana sales and transactions, a TASER, and more than $130,000 in US currency. Denney was arrested without incident, transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail for possession and transportation of marijuana and possession of money intended for a drug transaction. Denney posted bail and was released prior to this press release.
IT'S LOOSE ALL OVER. From the Richmond District, SF, police log: “On 11/03/12 at 4:20pm, officers were sent to a parking lot off of 19th Ave and Geary regarding juveniles who were tampering with vehicles. Officers located the juveniles as they were walking south on 19th towards Anza. As the officers approached, the juveniles, seeing the officers, threw objects into a nearby planter box. Those items turned out to be brass knuckles and a long metal pipe. The juveniles were also found to be in possession of folding knives, a wrench, narcotics and alcohol. The officers determined that there had not been any damage to vehicles. The juveniles, two 16 year olds and a 13 and a 14 year old, were charged accordingly and released to their parents.”
THURSDAY'S Press Democrat story by Brett Wilkison about the paper's new owners contained plenty of whoppers, including (predictably) these from ringleader Doug Bosco, “It would be unconscionable for the owners to try to influence people whose profession it is to look at the news and editorials objectively,” which would make Bosco's media group the only media owners in the country not to monkey with content. The story veered into outright hilarity when it revealed that Bosco, a bagman for the Northcoast's most rapacious business interests, said he would function as his own company's “salaried general counsel.”
IT ALL GOT FUNNIER. “I want to win awards,” said Darius Anderson one of the paper's new owners. “If the story is about me, bravo.”
BOSCO AND DARIUS ANDERSON have already been revealed over the years, and mostly by other papers as, well, ethically flexible, and even the PD, where Bosco has always been deeply beloved, had to mention Bosco's contribution to the S&L scandals of twenty years ago. As Wilkison chastely puts it, “Both also have been touched by scandal and taken what Bosco called ‘their lumps’ in local news coverage. Neither will serve on the editorial board.”
IN 2010, ANDERSON paid $500,000 to settle claims by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo “that he had acted as an unlicensed broker to win investments for a Los Angeles private equity fund. The case was part of a year-long investigation into pay-to-play practices in public pension fund investment partnerships. Neither Anderson nor his lobbying firm, Platinum Advisors, admitted any wrongdoing. He said Thursday he was not connected to the ‘improprieties’” that cost him half a million dollars. I guess he just paid up “to get his life back on track,” as our contemporary crooks often put it.
THE PROBLEM with the paper since Art Volkerts retired has been at the editorial level. The reporters are reporters. They write what they're assigned to write whoever they're working for, trimming their sails according to the parameters of the publication, and the PD maintains a whole closet full of no-go subjects beginning with the wine industry, their major advertisers. To create even a tentatively respectable Rose City daily the boys and girls in editorial have to go. Names? Sweeney, Gullickson, Barnett. You'll need someone with brains and at least a residual sense of what a newspaper is supposed to be in their jobs. Names? There are several right here on the Northcoast who know the territory intimately: KC Meadows of the Ukiah Daily Journal; Hank Sims of the Lost Coast Outpost; Frank Robertson right next door in Guerneville; Mike Geniella, former ace reporter based in Ukiah, shafted by the paper when he tried to report honestly on timber issues.
THE SUPES’ AD HOC committee of McCowen and Pinches will invite the two warring veteran's groups to meet with them to try to resolve the ongoing enmity between Veterans For Peace, a Mendo group heavy on non-Vets, and the traditional VFW. The dispute is centered in Ukiah where the VFW, or at least its most vocal member, Robert Parker (a blustery top official in Mendo’s Transportation department) doesn't want Vets For Peace to use the VFW hall for its meetings. In Feb. of 2011 Parker told the Board of Supes that he was “adamantly against” allowing the VFP to use the Ukiah Vets hall because it would be a “desecration” of the building.
THE ISSUE has been simmering for almost two years since then, even though “staff” was supposed to be working out resolution. Both McCowen and Pinches have expressed disappointment that this seemingly intractable but relatively trivial and essentially political problem has even come up and they deserve credit for trying to sort it out. But Parker and his allies (not all of the VFW members are against the VFP) not only oppose the VFP use, but have taken a very hard stand and have threatened to take the matter to higher authorities (State? Federal? Courts?) if they don’t get their way.
FOR THE RECORD, Bruce Anderson, USMC, and Mark Scaramella, USAF, of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, support the right of Veterans For Peace to meet in VFW halls.
WITHOUT EXPLICITLY SAYING SO, the Superior Court’s announcement of the cutbacks in Fort Bragg implied that the cutbacks would be restored if Governor Brown’s Proposition 30 passed. Now that Prop 30 has indeed passed, it will be interesting to see if Their Honors in Ukiah reconsider their decision in light of the increasingly obvious pushback they are getting for thinking that nobody’s budget but their own matters.
ARCATA VOTERS went strongly for the “excess electricity tax,” voting by more than a 2-1 margin with only a majority vote needed for approval. Measure I will impose a 45% tax on excessively high residential electricity usage. The tax would be imposed only on residential usage which exceeds the established “baseline allowance” by 600%. The measure is intended to deter use of residential homes as cannabis grow houses, and to help get Arcata back on track with its greenhouse gas reduction goals. Besides keeping homes from their intended purpose — housing people, not pot plants — the growhouses have thrown those energy goals off track by the more than 600 Arcata homes consuming electricity far in excess of normal residential use. Some provisional and hand-delivered mail-in ballots remain to be tallied, but it’s unlikely the outcome will change. While those last votes for Measure I are added up, everyone in the Emerald Triangle will be watching. For Eureka, whose city council voted unanimously in September to study a similar tax for a 2014 vote, Arcata could be a living laboratory. If there are legal challenges over privacy or other issues, Eureka can see how they are sorted out, while being poised to prevent a “domino effect,” said Eureka Councilwoman Linda Atkins. She brought the issue to her city earlier this fall, worried that unless Eureka acted defensively, growers pinched by the tax up the road would abandon Arcata and resettle in Eureka. “My hope is that it will shut the large-scale grows down,” said Arcata Councilmember Shane Brinton. “But if they stay, at least they’ll be paying for some of the damage they’re causing. Either we’ll have safer neighborhoods, or additional revenue, or more likely, some combination of those."
COMMENT OF THE MONTH: Let me get this straight: “Fannie Mae sold nearly 700 homes, appraised at $81.5 million, for a measly $12.3 million upfront”? Whatever for? These are precisely the low-end, bargain basement-type homes that everyone’s looking for, and yet, Obama’s shunting them off to his tycoon buddies in “sweetheart deals.” Why? The truth is that the banks don’t want to list their distressed inventory because that would drive down prices and slam their balance sheets. So Obama is just giving them a hand. That’s what the Foreclosure to Rental program is all about. It’s another backdoor bailout for Wall Street. But there’s more to this story too, because the administration could have settled on a different policy altogether that would not have only kept people in their homes, but also made tons of money for US taxpayers. With simple principal reductions and low interest refinancing, many of these people could have been spared the humiliation of foreclosure. They would have been in a position to pay off their mortgages on time while turning a hefty profit for Uncle Sam. Instead, the homes have been passed along to investor fatcats. And that’s why housing prices are going up, because investor mucky-mucks are piling into the market en masse to take advantage of Obama’s “Handouts for Honchos” jamboree, the latest round of bounteous under-the-table corporate welfare perks for ravenous speculators. Some experts figure that investors may now comprise 30% of the market. Absent that Bunyanesque infusion of speculator capital, housing would still be circling the porcelain. So the question we should be asking ourselves now is this: How long will it be before margins shrink and the speculators pack it in? (Mike Whitney, CounterPunch.org)
UPDATE. A head-on crash south of Leggett killed a 70-year-old Fairfield man and sent his wife and the driver of the other vehicle to local hospitals Thursday afternoon, according to the California Highway Patrol. The driver who died at the scene was identified Friday as Robert Leroy Crosby, of Fairfield, who was driving a gray Ford Taurus with his wife, Karen Crosby, in the passenger's seat. They were headed north on Highway 101 about a mile south of Leggett when a white Toyota Corolla headed south crossed the two sets of double-yellow lines and two feet of asphalt strip separating the lanes and hit the driver's side of the Ford, according to the CHP. “The road was really icy and it was hailing, so the road was extremely slick,” Garberville Area CHP spokesman officer Matt Harvey said. “She lost control.” The Toyota's driver, identified Friday as Heather Anne Parker, 62, of Hydesville, was taken by ground ambulance to Howard Memorial Hospital in Willits with moderate injuries, according to the CHP. Her condition was unknown Friday. Robert Crosby was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife was taken by ground ambulance to Jerold Phelps Hospital in Garberville with moderate injuries, and has since been released, according to Harvey. The CHP does not believe excessive speed, alcohol or drugs were factors in the collision, Harvey said.
FROM the comment line of Lost Coast Outpost: “Colorado and Washington state voters did the right thing, in both cases their new laws seem like a significant step in the right direction. I hope California, and other states, follow suit in 2014 or 2016. Hopefully here in CA we can do even better, and avoid some of the weaknesses in the CO and WA laws (for example, they allow any adult to grow six plants, but only allow them to possess a maximum of one ounce of bud at any given time…which makes no sense). Meanwhile, here in cannabis country, sooner or later, one way or the other, we're going to have to adjust to the fact that more and more of the out-of-state customers who are currently buying our farm products at a premium price, are going to have more options for sourcing their product more locally, and with less risk. The sooner we start adjusting to this coming reality, the better. It seems likely that we'll have at least a few more years of large amounts of cash flowing into our region from the cannabis trade. If enough of those who are making a good living at this today reinvest enough of their profits into other profitable endeavors that bring income into the county and don't rely on the cannabis industry, the transition could be relatively smooth, though of course still not entirely painless. In the long run, there is no reason why Humboldt County, and the North Coast in general, should not be able to flourish with a diverse mix of industries, built on a foundation of sustainable agriculture and forestry, tourism, fishing, aquaculture, manufacturing, internet-based businesses, and including all manner of service-providers, artists, artisans and all the rest. Those who are here for the long haul — not just the get-rich-quickers with a Hurwitz-like exit plan of “just take the money and run” — would be well advised to increase the amount of investment they put into other promising local economic endeavors, rather than putting all their emphasis on increasing the size of their current cash crop to make up for falling prices. The latter is a strategy for short-term individual gain that may have worked well for the last few years, and may even continue to work for a few more years, but the former is a strategy for long-term prosperity for both individuals and for the community as a whole. All eggs, one basket, bad idea.”
AND “NOT A NATIVE” responds: “What in God's name would ever lead anyone to believe that pot growers, as a group, have the knowledge, business acumen, information, or ability, to wisely invest money in anything other than illegal pot growing? That's as ludicrous as believing that because Romney made a fortune in financial arbitrage he has the ability to manage the nation's finances and economy. Well, he doesn't and pot growers don't either. The best successful pot growers could do is place their money with someone who does know. But they don't even have the talent to select a skilled and honest money manager. What you'll get is a bunch of harebrained schemes that all lose money because they're a pot grower's idea of what people want. And the only thing they know about people is that they want pot. Most ‘businesses’ pot growers start don't make money, they only launder illegal profits.”
HOPE FOR THIRD PARTIES? On November 6, the Liberty Union Party of Vermont polled 13.4% for Secretary of State, its best statewide showing ever in its 42-year history. It has been on the ballot in all Vermont elections continuously starting in 1970. This year, its nominee for Secretary of State, Mary Alice Herbert, was the only candidate on the ballot against the incumbent Secretary of State, James C. Condos. The party’s previous best showing for a statewide office had been 10.3%, for Treasurer, in 1978. The only parties in any state, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, who have been on the ballot continuously for a longer period are the New York Conservative Party (starting in 1962), and the American Independent Party of California (starting in 1968). The Liberty Union Party usually chooses a presidential nominee from among the various presidential candidates of parties of the left. Its presidential nominees have been: 1972 Benjamin Spock (Peoples Party); 1976 no nominee; 1980 David McReynolds (Socialist Party); 1984 Dennis Serrette (New Alliance Party); 1988 Willa Kenoyer (Socialist Party); 1992 Lenora Fulani (New Alliance Party); 1996 Mary Cal Hollis (Socialist Party); 2000 David McReynolds (Socialist Party); 2004 John Parker (Workers World Party); 2008 Brian Moore (Socialist Party); 2012 Stewart Alexander (Socialist Party). The party was barred from the ballot for President in 2012 because of a new law that requires qualified minor parties to submit their presidential nominee no later than June, whereas qualified parties that nominate by primary have until September to make their choice. Because Liberty Union polled over 5% for a statewide race in 2012, it now has “major party” status again, and its own primary. It had last had that status after the 2006 election.
STEVE TALBOT WRITES: Friends, My sister Margaret's wonderful book, “The Entertainer,” about our Dad (actor Lyle Talbot), Hollywood and our family was published this week. She starts a national book tour today. Here she is being interviewed on NPR about it. If you are free, please join us at one of her readings next week in the Bay Area.
• The Green Arcade, San Francisco, 1680 Market Street, Wednesday, November 14th, 7pm. (Featuring wine and tasty treats)
• Books Inc., Berkeley, 1760 Fourth Street, Thursday, November 15th, 7 p.m.
• Book Passage, Corte Madera, 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Friday, November 16th, 7pm.
Advance Praise for The Entertainer: “New Yorker staff writer Margaret Talbot debuts with an affectionate biography of her father, stage, screen and TV actor Lyle Talbot. Mingling memoir and relevant social and cultural history, the author shows how her father’s career in many ways paralleled the changes in the 20th-century entertainment industry… A thorough, lovingly researched paean to a father and a way of life.”—Kirkus. “What a wonderful, loving, beautifully researched and touching story this is! Lyle Talbot lived a charmed life—a player's life—from the final days of vaudeville to the golden years of American television. Somehow through it all (the glamour, the hardship, the stardom, the rejection and the many transformations of modernity) he comported himself with a dignity that feels very much out of time to a contemporary reader. His daughter's tender yet clear-headed remembrance of him is a gift and a treasure—and a top-notch documentation of Hollywood history, besides.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love. Marg will also be appearing in LA next Saturday at 4pm, Nov. 17 at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset, West Hollywood.
CRIME OF THE WEEK: ON OCTOBER 26, 2012, deputies responded to the Mendocino Coast District Hospital where they contacted Tonya Scheurich and Andrew Jacobsen. Both reported that they had been kidnapped, held against their will and assaulted at 22190 Rivers End Road. Scheurich and Jacobsen told deputies that they had been at that location when they were assaulted by James Lawson and/or Rachelle Sutherland with an unknown weapon(s). After being assaulted they were taken inside the residence at that location, restrained and interrogated for numerous hours. During that interrogation, both were either tormented, terrorized and/or threatened with death. At one point Scheurich and Jacobsen were freed from their restraints and were able to flee the location. Both fled to safety and law enforcement was notified. Both Scheurich and Jacobsen had visible injuries consistent with an injury caused by a blunt object. Deputies later proceeded to the scene and recovered a weapon believed to be used during the assault. At about 2100 hours, deputies located and arrested Sutherland at 29700 Highway 20. Sutherland was ultimately transported to and lodged at the Mendocino County Jail where she was booked on the listed charges. On 10/27/2012 at about 2050 hours, deputies located and arrested Lawson at 21600 Bald Hill Road. Lawson was ultimately transported to and lodged at the Mendocino County Jail where he was booked on the listed charges. Both Lawson’s and Sutherland’s bail was set at $100,000. — Mendocino Sheriff’s Press Release
MR. LAWSON, one of the alleged perps, responds from the County Jail with his version of the hijinks described by the Sheriff's press release: “I was surprised to see that the AVA didn't jump right into writing untrue things about the alleged FB kidnapping. Thank you, because the truth will come out that no kidnapping occurred. They (Scheurich and Jacobsen) were on private property and were robbing the house. They were caught taking things from Kathryn Cummings' house, and other things from her mother from where her mother's ashes were stored. No one was tortured or threatened, but instead offered food, cleaning supplies and we all did drugs together. After the incident they stole my dog. The MCSO obviously don't care about the truth or justice. Now I feel myself as a victim. Thanks MCSO. Please come interview me. — James Lawson.”
DEAR MR. LAWSON: I happen to have known Kathryn's late mother, Aura, and I'm aware of the general pathology attached to the family back to the marriage of Aura to family patriarch, Jim Cummings, himself a murder victim as was his son James Jr. not long ago in Maine. 'Dysfunction' might be the word we want here. I think you can be confident that once the DA's office sorts out the events you describe it will all be busted down to a slurry of misdemeanors. I don't understand, however, that if you caught someone robbing Kathryn's house (where was she?), and you were offended by it, why did you all sit down together for a drug party? There are so many of these drug-induced idiot sagas in bucolic Mendocino County that they've become a major drain on the public purse. But this thing hardly amounts to the Lindbergh Kidnapping, and I'm sure that's the way the DA will see it. On the other hand, if you're represented by Public Defender Thompson you're looking at Life Without.
WE ONLY TARDILY RECEIVED the Mendocino Superior Court Press Release concerning the proposed cutbacks at Ten Mile Court in Fort Bragg. According to the Press Release the Mendocino Court system will be cut next year by almost $770k, a 17.3% cut, which is on top of prior smaller cuts which were made in 2009. “Over the past three years, the Court was able to implement required cuts in programs and other areas without reducing actual courtroom and counter services,” says the unsigned press release, continuing, “With a budget of approximately $5,348,462, however, the Court is not able to absorb the latest reductions without a reduction of salary and related personnel expenses (which together currently cost $4,783,251, constituting approximately 89% of the entire court budget). Personnel layoffs may occur at both the Ukiah and Ten Mile Court locations.” The Ukiah-based judges proceed to announce that Ten Mile Court will be have to be reduced to three days a week, fewer hours each day, with the elimination of felony and juvenile matters there as well as jury trials and “in-custody matters.”
THE NEW PART of the announcement is that the cutbacks are apparently not quite a done deal. (Although the timing of the meeting indicates that it is.) “Public comments regarding the changes are welcome and may be submitted by mail to: tenmilereductions@mendocino.courts.ca.gov or by regular mail to the attention of: Court Administration, 100 N. State St., Ukiah, CA 95482 no later than 5pm, Dec. 30. The Court will conduct a public meeting on Thursday, Nov. 29, beginning at 5:30pm, at its Ten Mile Branch, 700 S. Franklin St., Fort Bragg, to discuss the local court budget and the reduction in court services.”
THAT MEETING is already shaping up to be tense. Lots of people on the Coast think there are much better ways to save money besides major cutbacks at Ten Mile Court. In addition, now that Proposition 30 has passed, the Court’s budget cuts may be revised by the State.
NOT MUCH of interest has been happening at the Board of Supervisors lately. However, on October 23 the Board stumbled into an interesting discussion of demolition permits. The question was, Should the County simply follow the state building code or should the County add a local requirement for a demolition permit?
WHEN IT CAME TIME for the vote on demolition permits, this exchange ensued: Board Chair John McCowen: “I don't see how an arm of the state can criticize us for adopting an ordinance that is more stringent than what the state requires, as this is, since it applies to all demolition permits whereas the state applies to none.” Supervisor John Pinches: “I think we are missing the whole point on this because I know up in my country there is a tremendous amount of unpermitted buildings. So if they are not going to get a permit to build their house, they are sure as hell not going to get a permit to tear down their woodshed. And that's just the way it is out there. Until you address the enforcement side of any law — I mean, people come up here and give this board hell, asking why aren't you enforcing your marijuana 25-plant limit? They have a good point. No matter which side of the fence you fall on on marijuana — why have these ordinances and laws if we have not only no money to enforce them, but no intent to enforce them. So it really makes the person who wants to comply — he gets penalized and the guy who just goes on and does whatever the hell he wants is fine. The law has no impact on him. I would like to support this because I think —”
Supervisor Kendall Smith: “You can!”
Pinches: “It's probably — I don't know. I can…”
Supervisor Dan Hamburg: “Go for it, John.”
Pinches: “I'm — you know what? I'm just not for putting another law on the books that we have no way, no money to enforce, no intent — actually there is no intent to enforce this. There is no intent to enforce it!”
McCowen: “Supervisor, that's not true.”
Pinches: “It’s just that I do not want to be called a lawmaker.”
McCowen: “Well then you are in the wrong position, probably, because we do it all the time.”
Pinches: “I think about that every morning.”
McCowen: “A no vote on the action before us will be a vote to keep in place the deposit requirement of $.35 per square foot and —”
Pinches: “Everybody knows that it's my intent to do away with the law completely. I already stated that. So don't try to put me in a corner.”
McCowen: “Thank you, Supervisor. But the issue of enforcement is a separate issue from what the law says.”
Pinches: “I don't think so.”
UPSHOT: It seems like Pinches is right; there is no intention to enforce the permit requirement. But his position would translate into zero dollars for the County in demolition permit money. And since the County is broke and the Board wants the money, they want whatever permit fees they can get — so enforcement becomes irrelevant, as it obviously is. If there was real enforcement, 1. Fewer people would demolish old buildings, 2. People would have to go to extra trouble to ignore the rules, rather than as with this permit requirement which they can ignore with impunity.
THE BOARD VOTED 3-2 to require the demolition permits, Supervisors Pinches and Carre Brown dissenting. Brown wisely said she was against going any further than state requirements.
LOWBROW GOES HIGHBROW. I climbed aboard the 2 Clement and headed for SF MOMA, knowing I'd find a whole building of provocations beginning with the building itself with all its wasted space and its dependably overwarm, recirculated air. Chinese Senior Citizens occupied all the Senior seats on the bus where, at Presidio and California, there was a stare down between a standing Russian woman and a seated Chinese woman, both of them clearly seniors. The Russian woman seemed to assume that the Chinese woman was not a Senior and should, therefore, give up her seat to the Russian. The Russian was dumpy, aggrieved-looking and muttering martyred Slavic exhalations, all the while staring at the Chinese woman who was so short her feet didn't reach the floor. But, as Muni riders will tell you, elderly Chinese women can be absolute boulders of intransigence. They are also absolute geniuses at Not Seeing You. A knife fight in the aisles would be none of their business. Apologies for these stereotypes and the implicit sexism, but I'll bet SF readers will agree with me that that both live up to the generalization. Sure, the Russians have much to be aggrieved about given their experiences in their mother country, and Chinese, whose loyalties and affections begin and end with their own families, have much Not To See in this unhinged, anything goes country. The bus rumbled east, the Russian woman sighed and grumbled and stared curses at the Chinese woman, until at Post and VanNess the Chinese woman, suddenly brandishing a California ID card, stood up and said to the Russian. “You sit. I stand, but I older than you.” I got off at Union Square where the giant plastic Christmas tree was up and being festooned with buoy-size ornaments. I was headed for MOMA at 3rd and Mission. Counting the mendicants as I went, I'd seen eleven in the time I walked to MOMA, maybe six blocks from Union Square. Opposite the entrance a black guy, age maybe 50, was selling a crumpled- beyond-readability Street Sheet. I gave him a dollar, not bothering to ask for my purchase. “That five you got looks pretty good,” he said, hanging on to the paper that in theory he'd just sold to me. He wasn't getting the five he'd glimpsed, but he'd earned my admiration, a dollar's worth, for immediately asking for five more. Inside the most annoying museum I've ever visited, a teacher was saying to a group of inattentive high school students, “Architecturally, this building is very cool…” Which it is not. It's a big atrium with a pile of stuffy rooms stacked on its east side. Up the stairs you're confronted with a Disney like cartoon panel of laughing mushrooms, and on to Rafael Lozano-Hemer — something like that, with the hyphenated name putting me on full pretension alert. Mr. Hyphen's exhibit was called, “Frequency and volume.” No thanks. I know the two frequencies I frequent and I can turn a volume knob with the best of them. Next was an exhibit by a teacher at Mills College described as “fiercely independent.” The worse the art at the MOMA the fiercer the artist. These abstracts looked like the back ward project of a heavily medicated depressive, shades of gray slapped up on the canvas. Richard Serra took up a whole room with a pile of metal splashed with concrete, and darned if this particular fraud wasn't called, Splash: Night Shift. Night or day it's a swindle MOMA probably paid a couple hundred grand for. Jaspar Johns was the big draw, and if you're thinking of going just to see him, don't bother. It's his worst stuff. I was hoping his big American flag painting would be included, but no, there was one nice abstract and then things like a mounted tooth brush and a slice of bread glued to black cardboard. Before Johns this month, the big MOMA draw was a photographer who changed her look 20 times and blew each photo up into big pictures. It costs $13 for a senior ticket to see this stuff. What redeems the MOMA is its permanent collection — the Klees, Riviera, Arneson's truly radical sculpture of George Moscone and, my favorite two paintings, Intermission by Hopper and the San Francisco painter Robert Bechtie's Potrero Hill. There's some good things but they just barely outnumber the fakes.
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