Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022

Warm | Haunted Library | 128 Delivery | First Bazaar | Philo Rental | Quiz Night | Halloween Carnival | County Employees | MCHCD Meeting | Weed Rulz | Caspar 1925 | Upcoming Election | Tech Support | Wildlife Program | Westporters 1907 | Seismic Retrofitting | Baptist Backslide | Arts Champions | Career Training | Oxymorons | Native Gardens | Yesterday's Catch | Past Mistakes | Elizabeth Clark | Offshore Wind | Logjam | Crown Act | Vivian Maier | Oil Slick | Psychos | TV Food | Donna J | Beastly Bourgeois | Octoberfesters | Ukraine | Tarzan Shy | Pundits | Lifeboat | NATO War | Birdman | Proxers | Fireball | Endless War | Football Fan | Last Regret | Orbits

WARM AND DRY conditions will persist throughout the work week. A cold front is expected to move across the region on Saturday bringing cooler temperatures, northerly winds, and light rain. (NWS)

HUNKERED DOWN IN THEIR CAR, A Mother and Father Deliver Their Baby on the Shoulder of Highway 128

On Sunday, October 15, 2022, an Oregon couple was driving south and somehow ended up on Mendocino County’s Highway 128, a road of twists and turns running east to west from the Mendocino Coast to Anderson Valley finally terminating in Cloverdale…

mendofever.com/2022/10/18/hunkered-down-in-their-car-a-mother-and-father-deliver-their-baby-on-the-shoulder-of-highway-128/

STUDIO APARTMENT FOR RENT in Philo. Available November 1, 2022. Call 895-2865 for more info.

BOONVILLE QUIZ THURSDAY NIGHT: Yes, it’s that time again… The Quiz is back and the first question will be pitched to the assembled teams at 7pm this Thursday (October 20th) at Lauren’s at The Buckhorn in downtown Boonville. Dinner and drinks served until 9pm. Hope to see you there - you know it makes sense. Cheers. (Steve Sparks, The Quizmaster)

CONTEMPT OF EMPLOYEES

Statement to the Board of Supervisors by County Employees Union Representative Patrick Hickey, Tuesday, October 18, 2022:

Mendocino County is at a turning point. County employees had reason to feel optimistic a few years ago when the Board set them on a path to parity and stability. But over the past six months the board has frittered that away. In the coming years, some counties will excel, others will fall behind. The decisions you make, the actions and inactions, will determine if we will thrive or slide into becoming a backwater. You should be working with your employees, not against them. You each pay lip-service to County employees but that doesn't pay the rent. Inaction over time is seen for what it is: contempt. Instead of negotiating in good faith the county administration continues to hide information. Do we have to file charges with the state every time we want to access public information? You have brought in a high-priced San Francisco attorney to negotiate, but you have given him no authority to bargain, even on such glaringly obvious things like agreeing to pay more than the minimum wage. We have provided the board with multiple ideas for identifying funds. Recently we have been identifying areas where the county has been wasting funds. You could ask nearly any employee in the county and they could point to multiple ways that they could save the taxpayers money. But again, we see no action. Just more circular discussions and going-nowhere ad hoc committees. When the county employees look to the board for leadership they see stagnation. Trust your employees to move the county forward. It is a risk that will pay dividends and provide stability and resilience as we move forward.

* * *

Supervisor Williams responded: 

Just to be open here, I really struggle. I recognize that at almost 9% inflation, not giving a significant COLA is a cut. That's a fact. Yet last year it appears we spent more than what we had coming in and this year we are projected to have $3 million less. My personal take is there needs to be a significant restructuring of the structural deficit. Everything that has been pointed out is true. If we don't keep up we are going to lose workers. We need both more staffing and we need to pay everyone a living wage. I think it's despicable that a county has staff living in cars. I'm with you. It's a question of how do we get there? As one supervisor I cannot initiate a discussion. It will take at least three supervisors to decide if we want to do this and be more open than we have. I think we have a real significant financial problem. I don't think our CEO has been trying to hide anything. Behind the scenes I see her struggling trying to get the information just like I'm trying to get it, just like the negotiation teams on both sides are trying to get it. We have a problem and it's nowhere near as transparent as it should be. Everything we learn is more alarming. These are not excuses. I'm just trying to share some of what I am going through. I want to pay our employees more. I want them to have a living wage. I think that should be the milestone. We need to work backwards and figure out how to get there. Not slip behind. But my colleagues are in the position of we don't have the money, we have $3 million less than last year. Staff is telling me and I tend to believe them that we could give a significant COLA but that would trigger further layoffs. Do we want to go down that path? Do we want to decide that it's more important to have living wages for all if it means an overall reduction in the workforce in the years to come?

* * *

Leif Farr, Shop Steward, Long Time County Mapping/Computer specialist: 

This has been hashed out in many meetings with the negotiating teams. It's kind of disheartening when we are told that, oh yes, we will give you a COLA, but you have to find the money. You have to find extra revenue. Well, we have found extra revenue. I think a really telling situation is when you have unfilled positions — and we brought all this information to the county, we didn't get all the information we needed, but some estimates. But if you look at every year you have several million dollars that you have not spent [on vacant positions]. The tricky part is, what happens when you budget this money, general fund money, and it's not spent, then the following year it goes into special categories, one-time money. So what was general fund money that you didn't spend, becomes this one-time money that you have decided not to spend on salaries. You can point to a lot of things going on around the county. On my coffee break I walk outside here and I see the fantastic parking lot being built out here between General Services and the Administration building. Boy, that sure is one Class A parking lot. What was the priority in spending money on that? As opposed to spending money on employees? That's the kind of thing that is disheartening. So there are avenues. It's also very disheartening to negotiate with a negotiating team that can't make any decisions. First thing off the bat, they say that the county is broke, they have no money. Well, how did they hire you? Right? It's disheartening. I have worked for the county for a long time and it's been awhile since this problem has happened. In the past our employees would sit down with the CEO and the Human Resources Director and negotiate a contract. They did not hire outside firms. They say, this is what it is. And we reach a compromise. But the whole structure of negotiating now is you are talking to people who have no stake in the matter. They will get their paycheck whether we get a contract or not. It's a filter, its diffusion, between the people we really need to negotiate with and our team. There are a lot of problems in the structural negotiating process as well as in the structural part of how we work our budget. I do not think that it's right that every time we come up to the board and ask for a contract, that requires maybe a COLA or some type of increasing monetary value, we are told that we have to find the money. That's not our job, and we don't have the resources or the information to craft a budget for the County. We do our best and we have shown that there are avenues where a modest COLA could be achieved.

* * *

Williams: I appreciate your words.

No other Supervisors commented. 

As the County employees dejectedly filed out Tuesday morning, many of whom had made similar and familiar comments about their worsening financial difficulties and the impact of the Board doing nothing time and time again, we couldn’t help but notice County Employees Union President Julie Beardslee's expression of near hopelessness at the continued deafness of the Board. 

— Mark Scaramella

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The issue the legal mom-n-pops have is not being able to sell directly from the grow to the customer. If the state and county would get the fuck outta their way with needing the other bullshit permits and allow them to market their product to the customer they’d kick the shit outta corporate cannabis. The corporations knew this and the best way to stomp out your competition is to control the supply chain, which they do. Just one tincy-wincy issue, lol, the above mentioned logic has been the dominant weed supply chain force for the past 50+ years. It’s what happens when the government declares war against its very own people. It’s our plant, it will always be our plant! The traditional market dominates the cannabis industry and it is not gonna change for the next 20 years easily.

Rosin will never be a high revenue generating product. Most users get to a point they stop using because the euphoric effect diminishes with frequent usage. As far as your worldly view of the market it has existed for many decades and the Emerald Triangle growers are the best in the world and the world knows this. Nobody does it better, nobody!

ELECTION & TAX PROPOSALS

Editor,

We are getting ready for another November election cycle. With it comes usually different tax proposals and this election cycle is no different. We live in a state with some of the highest/if not the highest taxes of any state (i.e., gas, income, property, sales, business) to name a few examples. 

We have two ballot measures proposing addition sales tax increases this November.

Measure P. This is a quarter percent (.25%) hike in sales tax for county fire departments. If you read the ordinance it states “Nothing in the ordinance shall prohibit the county from entering in agreements with the Cities of Ukiah, Fort Bragg, Willits and Point Arena to share a percentage of the increase of the voter approved tax proceeds.” Furthermore, “The funds from the tax are not legally restricted and may be used for any valid county purpose.” Basically these funds will just provide additional moneys for the county to spend as they see fit at our expense.

Measure O. This is a quarter percent (.25%) hike in sales tax for the county Libraries. The libraries current tax of (.125%) percent is set to expire in 2027. However they wish to revoke the sunset clause and make it a permanent tax along with (.125%) increase. Most people today have cell phones/computers so Libraries aren’t as vital as they probably once were. Why doesn’t the library system establish user fees for the different services they provide? That way those who use the library would pay directly for the different services they are requesting. Public transportation, some bridges and museums charge a fee (to name a few) for use shouldn’t libraries do the same? This shouldn’t be a tax payer handout. Libraries provide a service to some and should charge those that they are providing the service to. 

With all the different taxes we currently paying do you think it is a good idea to just continue to raise your families cost to live in this state? How do other states get by with fewer/lower taxes? With the way our cost for everyday living is sky rocking do you really want to pay an additional .5% added on the current 9+% sales tax you currently pay on purchases? Sales tax is approximately $10 for every $100 dollars you spend now. When will this insanity end?

Dale Briggs

Willits

SPITZING AT THE MAJOR

Editor,

Spitz and Haschak Attacked by Scaramela…

It’s funny how AVA columnist Mark Scaramela chooses to respond now to a critical letter to the editor I wrote to the AVA eight months ago about their coverage of the County’s new non-lethal wildlife management program, especially since the AVA didn’t even have the balls to print my letter in the first place. 

OK, fair enough, I’ll now respond to this latest bit of drivel emanating from Scaramela’s paper, even if the AVA doesn’t print it.

The basic gist of Scaramela’s complaint is that the County has not followed through on its promise to provide a non-lethal wildlife management program to replace the barbaric USDA Wildlife Services program that was terminated by the County, and he blames Supervisor John Haschak and myself for this failure. 

It’s interesting to note that Scaramela references me, Supervisor Haschak, County Counsel Christian Curtis, and job applicant Traci Pellar, to make his case, but he never makes mention of County Animal Care Services (ACS) Director Richard Molinari who is the person actually in charge of administering the County’s new non-lethal wildlife management program. As a result, Scaramela’s report has no legs. You’d think a good reporter might consider going directly to the source to get their story straight. Instead, for Scaramela, it’s much more fun to attack Spitz and Haschak.

It is not for me to comment on hiring decisions made by the County, and I was not at all involved in the hiring process for the County’s wildlife exclusion technician contractor. I am as frustrated as anyone that the County has failed to set up this new non-lethal program, but failure is only a speed-bump on the road to success, and I know that Supervisor Haschak and ACS Director Molinari are working diligently to set up a program that will serve the needs of county residents.

Jon Spitz

Laytonville

* * *

Bruce Anderson Replies: Spitz seems to think his tiresomely self-righteous letters are prose dynamite. We didn't get the letter bomb he claims we deliberately didn't print, but we printed his next missile, and of course will print this tactical nuke of a communique, at the very risk of our lives! PS. Scaramella is spelled with two ells, but our best to both of those much misunderstood martyrs, Haschak and Spitz.

* * *

Mark Scaramella replies: I do not “blame” Spitz and Haschak for the absence of a wildlife exclusion services contract, nor was my recent update on the situation any kind of a response to poor Spitz the Victim. Although for the life of me I don’t understand why a person of obvious interest and capabilities like Ms. Pellar isn’t on the job. I just find their repeated empty assurances that “work” is being done, like almost everything else (not) coming out of the County these days, to be laughable. Mr. Spitz is understandably defensive about nothing being done on his pet program so he continues his rash insistence that something is being done when it’s not. I suppose that a year from now when I quote Spitz as having said that “I know that Supervisor Haschak and ACS Director Molinari are working diligently to set up a program…” and there’s still no “program,” he’ll still think that I’m “attacking” him. PS. They can’t even get their promised wildlife exclusion library assembled. 

SEISMIC RETROFIT GRANT FUNDING Is Available To Eligible Zip Codes In Mendocino County

Seismic retrofit grant funding is available to eligible zip codes in Mendocino County! Registration for the “Earthquake Brace + Bolt Program” opens October 18, 2022, and continues through November 29, 2022.

The Prevention, Recovery, Resiliency, and Mitigation Division encourages homeowners in Fort Bragg, Mendocino, Redwood Valley, Ukiah, and Willits to take advantage of grant funding to offset the cost of seismic retrofitting of their primary residences.

The Earthquake Brace + Bolt (EBB) Program, jointly administered by the California Earthquake Authority and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, offers eligible homeowners grants for up to $3,000. The grants help offset the cost of seismic retrofits that brace the cripple walls of older homes, when present, and bolt houses to their foundations, making them less vulnerable to earthquake damage.

Eligible homeowners can apply online for grants during the registration period, October 18 through November 29, 2022. Thanks to additional FEMA funding that is administered by Cal OES, EBB grants will be available to homeowners in 521 ZIP Codes in more than 270 cities and communities. In Mendocino County, zip codes eligible for EBB grants are 95437 (Fort Bragg), 95460 (Mendocino), 95470 (Redwood Valley), 95482 (Ukiah), and 95490 (Willits).

Income-eligible homeowners may also qualify for available supplemental grants. The amounts vary depending on the region and type of retrofit completed. These supplemental grants, which are available for households with an income at or below $72,080, may be able to provide up to 100% of the funds needed to cover a seismic retrofit. Grants are contingent upon meeting eligibility requirements and available funds.

For more information on the EBB grant program please visit: https://www.earthquakebracebolt.com/How-Our-Program-Works/See-If-You-Qualify

THE ARTS COUNCIL OF MENDOCINO COUNTY ANNOUNCES 2022 ARTS CHAMPIONS

The Board of Directors of the Arts Council of Mendocino County is pleased to announce the 20th Annual Mendocino County Arts Champion Award recipients.

Each year, nominations for Arts Champion Awards are solicited from the community at large. Honorees for 2022 were selected by the Arts Council of Mendocino County Board of Directors at their annual retreat and were formally recognized with an official proclamation from the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors on October 18, 2022.

The 2022 Arts Champions are as follows:

Artist: Yoli Rose

Educator: Molly Dwyer

Individual: Nick Schwartz of Cider Creek Collective

Arts Organization: Deep Valley Arts Collective / Medium Art Gallery

Business: Gallery Bookshop & Bookwinkle’s Children’s Books

Musician, songwriter, artist, jeweler Yoli Rose is always up to something! She writes uplifting social/political songs, with humor and a danceable beat, that she performs with her rock-reggae-blues-psychedelic-and -punk band Redbud, a local favorite for over 2 decades. Redbud’s motto is “Think globally; dance locally!” Besides playing all around the county and beyond, they often play at benefits for non-profit groups. Yoli and her husband, Eagle Rose, create jewelry art and sculpture shown in fine galleries in California, Oregon and New Mexico, as well as at the Grace Hudson Museum, and was featured in Lapidary Journal. Yoli has taught at the Mendocino Art Center, and paints ceramics at Jan Hoyman Studio. Yoli is very supportive of the arts and music scene in Mendocino County.

Molly Dwyer has been an educator for over thirty years, teaching English composition and critical thinking in community colleges. Molly is currently adjunct faculty teaching creative writing at Mendocino College. She’s the founding president of Writers of the Mendocino Coast, and her debut novel, Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, was shortlisted for the 2009 Northern California Book of Year. In 2010, the Mendocino County branch of the National Women’s Political Caucus honored Molly for “Writing Women Back into History.” Her nonfiction work, From Maidens to Mavericks: Mendocino Women, was published in 2017 by the Kelley House Museum. Her most recent novel, The Hall of Lost Footsteps, is a family saga based loosely on the ancestry of her birth family. Molly also coaches writers, edits manuscripts of all stripes, and facilitates workshops and critique groups.

Nick Schwartz was born in Manhattan, NY to a family embedded in the music industry, and was surrounded by artists for much of his childhood. After discovering clay in high school, he studied at a small liberal arts school in Florida, including traveling abroad for independent study in ancient cultures and their ceramics. After graduating, Nick traveled to Japan for an apprenticeship and then moved to Northern California and received a grant to build a community wood kiln. He founded a circus, made ceramics, baked bread, and developed and operated Flynn Creek Pottery for over a decade. Nick currently lives and works with his wife Jessica Rae Thompson, who is also a formidable ceramic artist. Together they are organizing a new art business known as Cider Creek Collective. The board of the Arts Council wishes to particularly honor Nick and the Cider Creek Collective for their support of emerging artists.

The Deep Valley Arts Collective formed early in the pandemic. They started with online exhibits to keep artists connected, and then created a physical space for that with the Medium Art Gallery in Ukiah. Resources and outlets for rural artists are often few and far between, or mired in steep commission fees. Medium Art Gallery supports artists by holding juried bi-monthly exhibitions without submission fees, hosting First Friday opening events where artists and art lovers are able to connect, and paying artists the full list value of artwork sold. Artists are also featured on their website and social media. They have fostered a welcoming space for artists of all backgrounds and levels of experience. In the words of an Arts Council board member, “They are doing an outstanding job, and filled a big gap.”

The Gallery Bookshop was established in Mendocino’s historic Jarvis-Nichols Building in 1962. Three expansions, four owners, and six decades later, Gallery Bookshop & Bookwinkle’s Children’s Books serves local residents and visitors from around the world with an extensive inventory of current titles, plus a large selection of eclectic volumes seldom found elsewhere. In addition to a deep selection of classics and new releases, the bookstore prominently features sections on local history, science, ocean life, mushrooms, the arts, and books and artwork by local authors and artists. Its dedicated, book-loving staff, led by owner Christie Olson Day, provides an extraordinary community service as a team effort to connect readers to books through recommendations, personal service, community events, subscription boxes, book giveaways, and outreach programs.

The Mendocino County Arts Champion Awards are annually announced in the fall to coincide with National Arts and Humanities Month, a coast-to-coast celebration of culture in America. A reception for the 2020, 2021, and 2022 honorees will be held in Spring 2023. To receive an alert about the reception and other Arts Council of Mendocino County programs, including a county-wide calendar of cultural events, visit www.artsmendocino.org and sign up for ArtsWeekly.

— Alyssum Wier, Executive Director, Arts Council of Mendocino County

MCOE ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for Phlebotomy, Medical Assisting, and Dental Assisting Programs

The Mendocino County Office of Education (MCOE) is accepting applications for career training in the medical field. Three different programs start in January 2023: Phlebotomy, Medical Assisting and Dental Assisting. Applications are available online at https://bit.ly/2022InstituteCareerEducation, due Monday, November 14.

The Phlebotomy Program runs from January through May 2023. Classes are held in Ukiah on Monday and Wednesday, 5 — 8 PM. The program requires 99 classroom hours and 40 hours of clinical externship. The program is limited to 12 students and costs $2,800, which can be paid in two installments. Upon successful completion of the 99-hour course, students will receive an application to apply for their state phlebotomy certification. California requires all phlebotomists to be certified.

The Medical Assisting Program runs from January through August 2023. Classes are held in Ukiah, Monday through Thursday, 4:30 — 8 PM. The program requires 460 classroom hours and a 180-hour externship, which includes 40 administrative hours and 100 clinical hours. The program is limited to 22 students and costs $4,500, which can be paid in two installments. Medical Assisting Program graduates will be prepared for state certification testing with the California Certifying Board for Medical Assistants.

 The Dental Assisting Program runs from January through May 2023. Classes are held in Ukiah on Tuesday and Thursday, 5:15 PM — 9:15 PM. The 18-week course prepares students for front and back office dental assisting, including chairside and Dentrix software training. At the conclusion of classroom training, students must complete a 120-hour externship with a dental practice. The program is limited to 8 students and costs $4,000, which can be paid in two installments.

Successful applicants in this competitive process will have earned high school diplomas or the equivalent. These are college-level courses. Medical assisting students must undergo a medical screening, a background check and a drug test. Phlebotomy and dental assisting students must also undergo a medical screening.

A phlebotomist is a medical professional who is trained to perform blood draws. Phlebotomists draw blood for tests, transfusions, research, or blood donations and may work in a variety of clinical settings, including hospitals, medical and diagnostic laboratories, blood donor centers, and doctors’ offices. Employment of phlebotomists is projected to grow 10 percent from 2021 to 2031, faster than the average for all occupations.

Medical assistants work alongside physicians, mainly in outpatient or ambulatory care facilities, such as health clinics and assisted living centers. They have both administrative and clinical responsibilities, including updating medical charts and scheduling appointments, as well as preparing patients for a doctor’s examination and collecting laboratory samples. Medical assisting is a fast-growing occupation, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it can be an entry point for people aspiring to become a nurse.

Like medical assistants, dental assistants are also in high demand and perform both administrative and clinical duties. Dental assistants often work in dental clinics or dental offices preparing patients for treatments and teeth cleanings, processing x-rays, and working with patients on billing issues. Becoming a dental assistant is the first step in becoming a registered dental assistant and obtaining additional specialty certificates.

For more information about MCOE’s workforce development programs, call 707-467-5123 or email snevarez@mcoe.us.

NATIVE GARDENS

Mendocino Theatre Company opens their last play of the 2022 Season on November 5, with playwright Karen Zacarias’ hilarious comedy, “Native Gardens”. Ms. Zacarias, a Latina playwright was born in Mexico in 1969. She is one of America’s most produced new playwrights and has a knack for wading into complex social issues without making her audience uncomfortable The play is directed by Lynn Sotos and stars Maria Ramos, Alex Bravo, Kaye Handley and Steve Jordan. Performances are held at the Helen Schoeni Theatre, 45200 Little Lake Street, Mendocino. 

In this brilliant comedy, cultures and gardens clash, turning well-intentioned neighbors into feuding enemies. Pablo a rising attorney and doctoral candidate Tania, his very pregnant wife, have just purchased a home next to Frank and Virginia, a well-established DC. couple with a prize-worth English garden. But an impending barbecue for Pablo’s colleagues and a delicate disagreement over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out border dispute, exposing both couple’s notions of race, taste, class and privilege.

Ms. Loreto Rojas has served as a cultural consultant on “Native Gardens” providing insights into the Latinx culture in the production of the play. She has helped the director and actors understand the playwright’s viewpoints which allows the story to be told with cultural authenticity. It is part of MTC’s Mission to build bridges between our diverse communities through storytelling. “Native Gardens” does this in the spirit of shared laughter and fun. 

"Native Gardens" is directed by Lynn Sotos, a familiar face at MTC having recently appeared in “Luna Gale” in MTC’s 2019 Season. The “Native Gardens” hyper-real set, depicting neighboring houses and their front yards, is designed by Ft. Bragg’s Diane Larsen. Lighting design is provided by Dave Gealey, costumes by Susan Collins and sound design is by Marco McClean. 

Performances run Thursday - Saturday at 7:30 PM and Sunday at 2:00 PM from November 3 - December 4. Previews are November 3 and 4 at 7:30 PM. An “Opening Night Gala” ($45) is held November 5 beginning at 7:00 PM. There will be no performance on Sunday, November 6. 

Admission is $15 - $30 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with $7 - $15 discount tickets available for previews. November 5, Opening Night Gala, (including complimentary food and drinks) is $45. For more information and to order tickets call: 707.937.4477 or visit online at: mendocinotheatre.org 

Covid safety protocols: Masks are required inside the stage house but proof of vaccination is no longer a requirement for admission to Mendocino Theater. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 18, 2022

RAMON AVALOS JR., Willits. False imprisonment. 

JESSE BLANTON, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

CATHERINE KNIGHT, Clearlake/Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, resisting.

VINCENT MITCHELL, Lucerne/Ukiah. Domestic battery, battery on cohabitant.

JONNIE MIZE, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

MICHAEL PARKER, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, defrauding innkeeper by not paying (under $400), trespassing without consent.

KNOW BETTER NOW

Editor: 

Our evolution in the early 20th century from horse-drawn wagons to autos included dumping waste into rivers, lakes, oceans and air without any thought of the consequences. We know better now and are left with little time to fix the mistakes of the past.

Corporations are concerned with providing a return on investment to their stockholders and offer only lip service to environmental concerns. Yes, the grid will need improvement to support electric vehicles, and once the industry understands the rules have changed, it will be no different than the auto industry complying with California’s rigorous emission standards — a long-standing and successful mandate.

As an aside, one of the U.S. auto manufacturers now has a fully electric, four-passenger auto with a range of 300 miles for $42,000. Sounds like they’ve been paying attention.

Svetlana Artemoff

Cloverdale

IT’S ON: Humboldt Offshore Wind Leases to Go Up For Auction on Dec. 6

by Hank Sims

The Biden Administration announced this morning that it’s ready to proceed with putting two swaths of the ocean off Humboldt County up for lease to potential offshore wind developers.

Leases for the two areas, which together total more than 206 square miles, will be sold at auction on Tuesday, Dec. 6. Three areas near Morro Bay will go out for auction on the same date. These will be the first offshore wind leases on the Pacific Coast, and the first in the nation to support what the Department of Interior is calling “commercial-scale” offshore energy.

In all, 43 separate entities have qualified as potential bidders for the five lease areas. They include well-known energy giants like Shell, all the way down to the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, an intergovernmental agency representing Humboldt County and its municipalities.

Offshore wind is one of the many large-scale economic projects in Humboldt County at the moment, and potentially one of the most transformative. Boosters believe that the Port of Humboldt Bay could someday serve as the West Coast hub of a nascent offshore power industry. As for the local project, though, the Schatz Energy Lab has raised questions about the number of infrastructure upgrades that will be needed to connect the windmills off Humboldt County into the national grid.

In a press release, Rep. Jared Huffman celebrated the announcement of the upcoming auction.

“I’ve always advocated for a swift transition to clean energy to meet our climate goals, and offshore wind meets the mark – not only with clean, green energy production, but also boosting our local economies and creating jobs,” he wrote. “I’ve worked with community leaders and stakeholders to identify an agreement that would directly benefit the constituents of California’s 2nd Congressional District, and this final sale notice thankfully includes many of our goals. I’ll continue to work with the administration to make sure our constituents are getting a deal that’s good for them and the planet,”

Press release from the Department of the Interior:

In a new development in the pursuit of a clean energy future, the Department of the Interior today announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold an offshore wind energy lease sale on Dec. 6, 2022, for areas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off central and northern California.

This will be the first-ever offshore wind lease sale on America’s west coast and the first-ever U.S. sale to support potential commercial-scale floating offshore wind energy development. This sale will be critical to achieving the Biden-Harris administration’s deployment goals of 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.

“The demand and momentum to build a clean energy future is undeniable. I am proud of the teams at the Interior Department that are moving forward at the pace and scale required to help achieve the President’s goals to make offshore wind energy, including floating offshore wind energy, a reality for the United States,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “Today, we are taking another step toward unlocking the immense offshore wind energy potential off our nation’s west coast to help combat the effects of climate change while lowering costs for American families and creating good-paying union jobs.”

In May 2021, Secretary Haaland and California Governor Gavin Newsom joined Biden-Harris administration leaders to announce an agreement to advance areas for wind energy development offshore the northern and central coasts of California. The California sale reflects the leasing path announced last year by Secretary Haaland and last month’s announcement of a new deployment goal of 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.

BOEM will offer five California OCS lease areas that total approximately 373,268 acres with the potential to produce over 4.5 GW of offshore wind energy, power more than 1.5 million homes, and support thousands of new jobs.

“Today’s announcement represents years of close coordination and engagement with the state of California, Tribes, ocean users, local communities and all interested parties to move us closer towards achieving the administration’s vision to fight climate change and realizing California’s clean energy future, while creating a domestic supply chain and good-paying union jobs,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton, who will deliver remarks this morning at the Offshore WINDPOWER 2022 Conference. “BOEM remains committed to ensuring transparency and active engagement with stakeholders throughout the post-leasing process.”

To date, BOEM has held 10 competitive lease sales and issued 27 active commercial wind leases in the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

The California Final Sale Notice (FSN), which will publish in the Federal Register later this week, provides detailed information about the final lease areas, lease provisions and conditions, and auction details. It also identifies qualified companies who can participate in the lease auction.

The FSN includes three lease areas off central California and two lease areas off northern California. It also includes several lease stipulations designed to promote the development of a robust domestic U.S. supply chain, advance flexibility in transmission planning, and create good paying union jobs. Among the stipulations announced today, BOEM will offer bidding credits for bidders who enter into community benefit agreements or invest in workforce training or supply chain development; require winning bidders to make efforts to enter into project labor agreements; and require engagement with Tribes, underserved communities, ocean users, and agencies.

On May 26, 2022, the Department announced the Proposed Sale Notice for offshore wind energy development located offshore central and northern California. During the 60-day comment period, BOEM received valuable feedback on several lease stipulations that reaffirmed BOEM’s commitment to create good-paying union jobs and to engage with Tribal governments, underserved communities, ocean users and other stakeholders.

More information about the FSN and lease stipulations, a map of the area, the list of qualified bidders for the auction, and auction procedures is available on BOEM’s California website.

END HAIRISM

Editor,

Everyone should have the right to choose whatever hair style they like. This should include braids, lacs, twists and bantu knots. For example, I'm nearly completely bald and proud of it. Rep. Barbara Lee (D), Oakland, is advocating passage of the Crown Act which would ban racial-discrimination on the basis of the way a person wears his or her hair. This bill is now before the Senate after twice passing the House.

Young brown and black girls or boys must not any longer be coerced into using hair straightening products to look different or to get into college or to get a job. A recent medical study of uterine cancer has shown a greater incidence of this deadly disease in Black patients as opposed to whites. If there is a connection of such hair straitening products to uterine cancer, the FDA should step up to ban such cosmetic products.

Frank Baumgardner 

Santa Rosa

VIVIAN MAIER: From the 1950s until a few years before she died, in 2009, destitute at the age of 83, Vivian Maier took at least 150,000 pictures, mostly in Chicago, and showed them to nobody.

Now she has earned her place alongside Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Lisette Model, Garry Winogrand, and other giants of the American street. See her vivid photos, which might have languished in obscurity if not for a chance acquisition: newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/what-vivian-maier-saw-in-color

NEW OIL SLICK DISCOVERED off Long Beach highlights lack of real marine protection in California

by Dan Bacher

Long Beach, CA — As offshore drilling continues off Southern California in a state portrayed as the “nation’s green leader” by the state’s politicians and media, an oil slick was discovered off the coast of Alamitas Beach in Long Beach near the four THUMS islands on Saturday, October 15.

These are artificial islands formed by five oil companies to produce tens of thousands barrels of oil every day, according to a press statement from Sierra Club California.

The four THUMS islands are owned by the State of California and the City of Long Beach and operated by the City and California Resources Corporation. This spill comes just over a year after the 126,000 gallon spill in Orange County that was caused by a ship's anchor at the port of Long Beach.

“This slick highlights the fact that fossil fuel production has no place, anywhere in California, but especially offshore and near our beaches,” said Nicole Levin, Sierra Club Campaigner for Dirty Fuels in a statement. “How many more oil spills and fossil fuel accidents do we need until the city and the state begins to prioritize public health and the environment?”

“In January the Long Beach Sustainable City Commission made recommendations to ban new oil drilling and study the phase out of existing oil drilling, but Long Beach City Council has yet to adequately act on these recommendations. Long Beach City needs to follow the lead of surrounding cities and work to phase out and clean up their oil wells as quickly as possible to protect public health and the environment,” she stated.

According to CBS Los Angeles, the Long Beach Fire Department is currently working to contain the 200 by 300 feet across oil slick off the city's coast. It is near the dock slips off of the 400 block of East Shoreline Drive.

“Authorities are unsure how the slick originated but will continue to monitor it. Long Beach fire has set up booms to contain the slick as hazmat teams continue to clean up the spill,” CBSLA noted. “No marine or wildlife were damaged by the slick.”

Contrary to the “Green California” myth, the Southern California Coast is NOT protected from offshore oil and gas drilling, due to deep regulatory capture by Big Oil and Big Gas. There have been two major oil spills off the SoCal Coast — the Refugio Beach Oil Spill of 2015 and the Huntington Beach Oil Spill last October — since the highly touted “marine protected areas” created under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative went into effect in January 2012.

In an apparent conflict of interest that state officials have refused to discuss, Western States Petroleum Association President Catherine Reheis-Boyd chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” off the South Coast from 2009 to 2012. She also served on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast from 2004 to 2012.

As the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and Big Oil spend millions of dollars every year lobbying the Legislature and other state officials, California oil and gas regulators have continued to approve new and reworked offshore oil well permits under existing leases off the Southern California Coast.

Governor Jerry Brown approved over 200 offshore oil well permits in state waters from 2011 to 2017, according to data analyzed by Food and Water Watch and Fractracker Alliance.

Governor Newsom’s oil and gas regulators have continued granting offshore oil well permits also. As of October 1, 2021, there were a total of 150 reported permits issued for offshore wells since January 1, 2019, according to an analysis of permits approved through October 1, 2021 and posted at www.NewsomWellWatch.org by Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance.

“Five of these permits were for new drilling and the remaining 145 for reworks (including sidetracks and deepening operations). Half of the total were issued for idle wells that should be plugged and properly abandoned to reduce the risk of blowouts, leaks, and other accidents. Over the first three quarters of 2021 there have been 17 offshore permits issued,” according to the groups.

Currently, 19 oil and gas leases in California’s coastal waters allow drilling up to three miles off the state shoreline and represent 1,200 active wells.

A bill to end all offshore drilling in California state waters failed to move forward in the Legislature this year, due to fierce opposition by the Western States Petroleum Association and the oil industry. In May, Senator Dave Min’s Senate Bill (SB) 953 failed to pass out of the Senate Committee on Appropriation and was held on the Suspense File.

WSPA, the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in Sacramento, alone has spent over $17.5 million lobbying the California Legislature and other state officials over the past three years.

In the first quarter of 2022, WSPA continued its lobbying spending spree, dumping $952,366.91 into lobbying California officials, according to the California Secretary of State’s website. Chevron spent even more money than WSPA in lobbying, $1,016,168.17, during the quarter.

However, it wasn’t either WSPA or Chevron that topped the fossil fuel lobbying expenses in the first quarter. Sempra Energy and Affiliates, including SoCalGas and the San Diego Gas and Electric Company, moved into first place with $1,961,178.39 in expenses in just the three month period.

Altogether, WSPA, Chevron, Sempra and other oil and gas corporations and trade associations pumped a total of $6 million into advancing the fossil fuel industry agenda in 2022’s first quarter.

Over the past four years, fossil fuel companies paid almost $77.5 million to lobby lawmakers in Sacramento, reported Josh Slowiczek in Capital and Main on May 14.

“Oil and gas interests spent four times as much as environmental advocacy groups and almost six times as much as clean energy firms on lobbying efforts in California between 2018 and 2021, according to a Capital & Main analysis — reflecting the intensity of the industry’s efforts to influence policy in a state whose leaders have vowed to build an energy future free of fossil fuels,” Slowiczek wrote.

WSPA and Big Oil wield their power in 8 major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) serving on and putting shills on regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups; (5) working in collaboration with media; (6) creating alliances with labor unions; (7) contributing to non profit organizations; and (8) sponsoring awards ceremonies, including those for legislators and journalists. 

I DON'T DISLIKE GUY FIERI. I realized that after many viewings of his cooking shows, much soul-searching at my personal ashram, and many doses of prescription hypnotics. I just dislike — really dislike — the idea that somebody would put Texas style barbecue inside a fucking nori roll. I was and remain angry that there are genuine pitmasters who have made a calling of getting pork shoulder just right — and sushi chefs who've worked three years on rice alone before being deemed worthy to lay hands on fish. And here some guy on TV blithely smashes those two disciplines together like junkers in a demolition derby. A pre-chopped onion is not okay, no matter what Rachel or Sandra tell you. The shit in a can is not anywhere near as good and almost always more expensive than stuff you can often make yourself just as quickly. It's just wrong to tell people otherwise.

It is of course ludicrous for me to be insulted on behalf of strangers who would probably find my outrage completely misplaced, embarrassing, and maybe even deranged. I don't claim to speak for them and am unworthy in any case of doing so. I'm just saying that some of the shit I see some people doing to food on television causes a physical reaction in some deeply buried reptile part of my brain — and that makes me angry. It makes me want to say mean things. It probably shortens my life every time it happens.

One might expect Thomas Keller, of the French Laundry, who famously insists on storing his fish in their natural "swimming" position, to feel this way about food being mistreated. But me? Where do I get off, one might well ask?

It's more an affliction than the expression of any high-minded ideals.

— Anthony Bourdain, 'Medium Raw'

HOW BEASTLY THE BOURGEOIS IS

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species —

Presentable, eminently presentable —
shall I make you a present of him?

Isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he healthy? Isn’t he a fine specimen?
Doesn’t he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn’t it God’s own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn’t you like to be like that, well off, and quite the thing?

Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man’s need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species —

Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable —
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life than his own.

And even so, he’s stale, he’s been there too long.
Touch him, and you’ll find he’s all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.

Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty —
How beastly the bourgeois is!

Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp England
what a pity they can’t all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.

— DH Lawrence (1929)

UKRAINE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18TH

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 30 percent of Ukraine’s power stations were “destroyed” in the past eight days, causing “massive blackouts across the country.”

Bottled water and rolling blackouts are part of daily life amid the attacks.

Russian officials hint that their hold on Kherson is shaky.

Brussels proposes further emergency measures to address Europe’s mounting energy crisis.

Kyiv should cut diplomatic ties with Iran, Ukraine’s foreign minister says.

Germany sacks its top digital cop over possible links to Russia.

Denmark says ‘powerful explosions’ caused the Nord Stream pipeline leaks.

Russian forces detain two more senior officials at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine says.

The death toll in a military jet crash in southern Russia rises to 14.

A SANE SOCIETY would chase off anyone who advocated nuclear brinkmanship and drive them out of human civilization. In our society we give them punditry gigs on mainstream media platforms and lucrative jobs at influential think tanks.

— Caitlin Johnstone

US / NATO IN UKRAINE

"On March 11, 2022, President Biden reassured the American public and the world that the United States and its NATO allies were not at war with Russia. “We will not fight a war with Russia in Ukraine,” said Biden. “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.” It is widely acknowledged that U.S. and NATO officers are now fully involved in Ukraine’s operational war planning, aided by a broad range of U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis to exploit Russia’s military vulnerabilities, while Ukrainian forces are armed with U.S. and NATO weapons and trained up to the standards of other NATO countries.

On October 5, Nikolay Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, recognized that Russia is now fighting NATO in Ukraine.” - Medea Benjamin, Code Pink

"I think it is important to clearly state something which needs to be repeated almost constantly: what we are witnessing today is not a war between Russia and the Ukraine, but between Russia and the united, consolidated West. In practical terms this means that Russia is at war with the United States and NATO, the latter being no more than a docile, if ineffective, instrument for the latter. Furthermore, since some NATO countries are now playing a crucial role in the war against Russia (UK, Sweden, Poland and the Ukraine, the latter being a de facto NATO member), I submit that the best and simplest way to describe this was is to say that it is a NATO Crusade against Russia.

As for Ukraine, it is already a full NATO member state with about the same rights as all the other NATO members states besides the US: none. Right now, the so-called “Ukrainian forces” are already composed of anywhere between 40% to 80% of foreign fighters (depending on the importance of the location) and include plenty of actual NATO personnel.” 

— The Saker

THE ONLY PEOPLE who support western proxy warfare in Ukraine are those who deny the extensively documented ways the western empire has provoked, sustained, manipulated and exploited this war.

— Caitlin Johnstone

THE ENDLESS PROXY WAR, BY DESIGN

While privately conceding that its ally Ukraine is not "capable of winning the war," the Biden administration keeps fueling it.

by Aaron Mate

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has presented the White House with a geopolitical crisis that it played a critical role in creating. In February 2014, Victoria Nuland, a current senior State Department official and former Dick Cheney advisor, was caught on tape plotting the installation of a new Ukrainian government – a plan, she stressed, that would involve Biden and his then-top aide, and current National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. Weeks later, the democratically elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted and replaced by Washington-backed leaders – including a prime minister selected by Nuland.

The regime change in Kiev made Biden the most influential US political figure in Ukraine, as underscored by the lucrative Burisma board seat gifted to his son Hunter. While the Biden family and other well-connected players profited, Ukraine fell into civil war. In the eastern Donbas region, Kremlin-backed Ukrainian rebels took up arms against a fascist-infused coup government that cracked down on Russian culture and countenanced murderous assaults on dissidents. Rather than promote the 2015 Minsk II accords – the agreed-upon formula for ending the Donbas conflict – the US fueled the fight with a weapons and training program that turned Ukraine into a NATO proxy. Influential US politicians left no doubt about their intentions. As the Donbas war raged, lawmakers declared that they were using Ukraine to “fight Russia over there” (Adam Schiff) and vowed to “make Russia pay a heavier price,” (John McCain). In February of this year, Russia invaded to bring the eight-year fight to an end, leaving Ukraine to pay the heaviest price of all.

The Biden administration shunned multiple opportunities to prevent the Russian assault. When Russia submitted draft peace treaties in December 2021, the White House refused to even discuss the Kremlin’s core demands: a pledge of neutrality for Ukraine, and the rollback of NATO military forces in post-1997 member states that neighbor Russia. At the final round of talks on implementing Minsk II in early February, the “key obstacle,” the Washington Post reported, “was Kyiv’s opposition to negotiating with the pro-Russian separatists.” Siding with Ukraine’s far-right, which had threatened to overthrow Volodymyr Zelensky if he signed a peace deal, the US made no effort to encourage diplomacy. Emboldened to escalate its war on the Donbas, the Ukrainian government then massively increased shelling on rebel-held areas in the days immediately preceding Russa’s February 24th invasion.

Looking back at the pre-invasion period, Jack Matlock, the US ambassador to the Soviet Union under Bush I, now concludes that “if Ukraine had been willing to abide by the Minsk agreement, recognize the Donbas as an autonomous entity within Ukraine, avoid NATO military advisors, and pledge not to enter NATO,” then Russia’s war “probably would have been prevented.”

For Washington, preventing the war would have interfered with longstanding objectives. As US policymakers have openly recognized, Ukraine’s historical, geographical, and cultural links to Russia could be used as a tool to achieve regime change in Moscow, or, at minimum, leave it “weakened.”

As Ukraine enters another winter of war, this time facing an intensified Russian assault, the Biden administration is apparently in no mood to end a crisis that it helped start.…

mate.substack.com/p/the-endless-proxy-war-by-design

PEOPLE DON'T SEEM TO GET that nuclear annihilation is the one mistake we could make that we can't ever fix. There's this unquestioned assumption that if it happened there'd be some kind of course correction afterward, but there won't be. No one will be here to do it. No takesies backsies.…

People kill themselves by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge a lot. The few survivors all say that the first thought they had upon free fall was instant regret. They realize in an instant that every problem they have can be solved except for the one they have just given themselves. Imagine having that thought, but it's all life on Earth that we've killed. That's what nuclear holocaust is. A moment of instant terrible regret followed by the blackness of the void.

— Caitlin Johnstone