Letters To The Editor

UNSAFE, DESTRUCTIVE, WASTEFUL

Editor,

Phase 1 Willits Bypass is Unsafe, Destructive and Wasteful

The Willits Bypass route, in my opinion, that would best support our local economy — and be the most cost-effective, least environmentally damaging and safer route — is an at-grade two-lane bypass route along the existing railroad right-of-way. This viable bypass route could maintain both the railroad, provide a new north/south highway route through town, and directly connect with Hwy 20. It would cost much less than the current design that is increasing each year: last year the total cost was estimated to be over $357 million and growing. Matter of fact, over the past decades, Willits, Ukiah, Fort Bragg, Point Arena, and the County have politically and financially supported the proposed “Caltrans Bypass” through the Mendocino Council of Governments (MCOG) to the tune of $36 million. These funds could have paid for a substantial amount of the cost of an at-grade two-lane bypass route, or for other local transportation needs in the county. I sincerely doubt that the citizens of these cities and the county approve of these millions of dollars of their local transportation funds being squandered on the Willits Bypass.

Astonishingly, millions of dollars of these local funds were used by Caltrans to purchase over 2,000 acres of private land in the Little Lake Valley for mitigation of the Willits Bypass project. This is a substantial land conversion, from private to public ownership that was never anticipated and so never evaluated in the environmental review process. For example, the Caltrans environmental reports and mitigation plan claimed there would be no significant impact to farmland. However, of the lands purchased by Caltrans, 1,264 acres are agricultural lands in the Little Lake Valley. The majority of this agricultural land was protected by the Agricultural Preserve Program, but has now been converted out of the protection of the Williamson Act. Caltrans’ conversion of private agricultural land for public ownership at this grand a scale was not considered in the environmental evaluation of the proposed project. This is one reason why the California Farm Bureau joined the Federal lawsuit to stop the Willits Bypass.

Furthermore, the Willits Bypass is required to meet the following Federal safety standard: “An important goal of the Federal Highway Administration is to provide the highest practical and feasible level of safety for people and property associated with the Nation's highway transportation systems and to reduce highway hazards and the resulting number and severity of accidents on all the Nation's highways.”

However, the proposed two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass design appears to be unsafe along the six miles (with one mile of viaduct) primarily because of the following two elements: freeway speeds with no median barrier or parkway; and no emergency access. A “Typical Cross Section” design for the Willits Bypass Phase 1 that is available on the project website (http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist1/d1projects/willits) shows the paved two-lane two-way Phase 1 (shaded area) and the unpaved Phase 2 in the drawing below.

Caltrans admits that improved safety would not occur until the Phase 2 four-lane Willits Bypass is built, sometime in the future:

“The purpose and need of the project, including improved safety, will be met when the four-lane bypass is constructed. Right of way has been purchased for the four-lane project, the four-lane project is being mitigated for, and fill for the four-lane project is being placed in phase one.”

However, Caltrans has previously asserted that a two-lane bypass was unsafe:

“Further, we discussed the need to build a facility that was safe for the motoring public. Our projections indicate a two-lane facility would result in twice the number of accidents that would occur on a four-lane freeway. You suggested a two-lane facility with a median barrier. As I indicated at our meeting, there is no way Caltrans would consider such a facility.”

“In addition, considering that the statewide average collision rates for four-lane divided facilities are substantially lower (0.45 accidents per million vehicle miles) than the collision rates for two-lane conventional highways (1.17 accidents per million vehicle miles), the matter of improved safety (which is also a component of the project’s purpose and need) must be balanced with environmental considerations.”

The “Viaduct Cross Section” design for over one mile of the proposed six-mile two-way two-lane Willits Bypass Phase 1 available on the project website is provided below.

Ironically, now Caltrans is planning to build a two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass project without a median barrier, which is expected to almost triple accidents, as well the severity of those accidents, with head-on collisions, which will endanger public health and safety. Caltrans justifies the lack of a median barrier by stating that it is not normally considered for two-lane undivided highways, it is an obstacle, it inhibits emergency vehicle access, and it may have other issues to consider such as traffic handling during routine maintenance work. Caltrans plans to have a soft barrier, like a “rumble strip” instead. Remember the decades of carnage on the Ridgewood Grade until the median barrier was installed. Imagine being trapped for hours in a serious traffic accident on the viaduct, with no emergency access.

In spite of this, Caltrans fails to provide an analysis that demonstrates the currently designed two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass with a soft-barrier rumble strip will improve safety over and above the existing State Highway 101/20 through Willits. In fact Caltrans has only analyzed the four-lane Phase 2 design for safety, and relies on that analysis instead of providing any evidence to support the proposed two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass project. Unfortunately, there is no demonstration that the proposed two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass will provide the highest practical and feasible level of safety for people and property or will reduce highway hazards and the resulting number and severity of accidents.

Caltrans admits that Phase 2 funding may occur at some unknown date in the future. Yet Caltrans seems to rely on Phase 2 to correct the expected safety problems of Phase 1. It is my understanding that compliance with Federal highway safety regulations cannot rely on unknown future events that may in fact not occur. Reliance on some future planned project will not lower the increased traffic collisions, and the consequent increase in accident injuries and death, resulting from the lack of safety design in the current proposed project. Caltrans is aware of this inconsistency with the Purpose and Need: that the proposed two-way two-lane Bypass will not improve safety, and will most probably significantly degrade safety. In fact, compared to existing conditions, the proposed project appears to provide just the opposite of public health and safety. The two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass, through increased freeway speeds, no median barrier and lack of emergency access along six miles of highway (including over one mile of raised viaduct), should be expected to cause a significant degradation to highway safety.

Indeed let us all look forward to the possibility of finding A Better Way around Willits. Most citizens are open to being part of a community dialogue on a new transportation future to appropriately meet our local traffic needs, as well as inter-regional traffic, balanced with the interests of the local economy, agriculture of Little Lake Valley, our shared natural environment, and public health and safety. I respectfully request that the City Councils of the four cities in the county and the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors conduct public meetings to discuss the current design of the two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass weigh its consequences. And to consider rescinding their support of the current design of the two-way two-lane Phase 1 Willits Bypass and direct the their representatives on MCOG to ask for a reconsideration of MCOG support for the current design; in addition, to ask Caltrans to redesign the Willits Bypass to be the best for our local economy, the most cost-effective, the least environmentally damaging, and the safest route; and to consider an at-grade two-lane bypass route along the existing railroad right-of-way with a direct connection to Highway 20. And to get the approximately $20 million in MCOG funds that have not yet been spent by Caltrans returned to MCOG for our local transportation needs.

Sincerely,

Bob Whitney

Willits

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BOO WHO?

Editor,

Not everything is as it was intended in the early 70s. A lot of inspiration and evolution found its way to the Mendocino Coast. Music and arts have thrived since then and of course the pot issue is big.

However, the boo, aka the house that coke built, and the Brittingham property along the ocean at the Big River, fell short of its purpose to serve Mendocino County.

I blew it as guardian because I thought Proposition 20 was written in stone, not a smokescreen. No building within a 1000 feet from the coast. I wasn't savvy enough to know better. “Why it's who you know, not what.”

Therefore, “the public access is forever.” Don Dean finished what I started and the Land Trust has Grail and Bette to thank for their efforts.

Most would say move on, give it up — and I have and I did.

Encinitas has the Self-Realization Center, Marin as the Vedata Retreat, Mendocino was intended to be yet another sacred place. All of it!

Alan Morgan

Mendocino

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NIE POZWALAM

Editor,

I sure appreciate those little quotes you scatter around. I read a lot of history and have often thought I should forward some quotes. I'll try this one. It's Thomas Carlyle in his History of Frederick the Great — Vol. VIII — Chapter III.

“Anarchies are not permitted in this world. Under fine names, they are grateful to the populaces, and to the editors of newspapers; but to the Maker of this universe they are eternally abhorrent, and from the beginning have been forbidden to be.”

He's speaking of Poland where in the reign of John Casimir was passed a law (Liberum Veto) which said anyone in parliament could stand up and say “I don't Permit” (Nie Pozwalam) and the whole body would stop. He did whatever he could to stop it's passage and shortly thereafter (1667) abdicated, moving to Rome where he was made a Cardinal and then to Paris where he died happily. It appears the law stood for 200 years but they weren't peaceful ones.

All the best

John Finley

Kodiak, Alaska

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KAABOOM

Letter to the Editor

What if Guy McPherson is correct in asserting that very reputable scientists say we are beyond the tipping point environmentally; that life on earth has until mid-century and then its kaaboom.

Add to that David Michael Green’s assertion that global capitalism is going to totally come apart ; that it is in the midst of a “compressive deflationary contraction.” The Band-Aids won’t stop the bleeding anymore. Buy fresh, buy local will not be a choice, but a mandate. Until kaaboom.

Do we turn to the great minds of the past for advice as to what to do? Why not? Socrates: this is the final examination. Camus: keep on keeping on, even if it is absurd. Buddha: It’s all oh kay, so relax. Plato: Get real man, if there’s no potatoes then let ‘em eat ideas. Jesus: Daddy will fix it; good news, it’s all oh kay; jump for joy. Rachael Carson: I hate to say it, but I told you so. Sartre: Marx predicted this shit, yes he did! St. Augustine: It ain’t Detroit and it ain’t Kansas City, but I know it’s somewhere, so it’s all oh kay.

Spenser: Get them before they get you. It’s a jungle out there. St. Francis: Huddle up with the animals, gang. Love, love, kaaboom Bentham: Hey, it worked for a while, right? Sun Tzu: If we play it right we can defeat nature. Carnegie(Dale): I have lots of friends, so its all oh kay. Spinoza: Well, me , Marx, Einstein, and Freud were having a beer last night and…

Nietzsche: Who says power corrupts? God is dead-long live God. St. Paul: Satan only seems to be winning. Pray, pray. Paul Ehrlich: People, people, people, kaaboom.

(Writer’s note: No representation whatsoever is made as to the accuracy of any thoughts attributed above)

Lee Simon

Far ‘n Away Farm, Virginia

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DEAR PRESIDENT DRONE

Dear President Obama:

Referring to your drone policy, a recent San Francisco Chronicle headline stated, “It's not the American way.” The article went on to say that “the president — or is it the White House national security chief, Counter-terrorism Adviser or CIA head? — has become judge, jury and executioner.”

As the article points out, there are many things wrong with the policy: notwithstanding what Mr. Brennan says, it is reportedly killing and injuring innocent noncombatants, including children (the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has documented more than 500 civilian casualties in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia); because it is conducted in secret with no oversight, it violates American legal and democratic traditions; it is setting a dangerous precedent and giving a green light for future executive branch abuse of power; and because drones have taken the lives of American citizens without due process of law, with what the Chronicle article says are “contrived” legal arguments, the policy is clearly a threat to your legacy.

But besides these things, the drone policy is also wrong because it does harm to the moral fabric of our country. Since 9/11 and the Bush/Cheney policies of torture, etc., more and more Americans are beginning to think these kinds of things need no moral justification so long as they “protect” the United States. This is a dangerous shift in public understanding of morals and clearly in opposition to the Geneva conventions which, prior to 9/11, the United States not only abided by but was instrumental in bringing about. Your present policy encourages a trend, all too prevalent in our society already, which allows the treatment of “others” as a means, not ends.

It is a trend that encourages human values to be relegated to church, temple and commencement speech addresses. There they are voiced as a substitute for the human need to live a meaningful life possible only when human values of what is right and wrong, just and unjust, guide our actions prior to any consideration of consequences.

The danger is that when a nation acts without regard to these principles, it loses its moral center — it's humanity. And to paraphrase Albert Schweitzer, when this happens “the advance to a fully developed inhumanity is only a matter of time.”

I think you have an obligation to be open and forthright about a policy that is shrouded in secrecy; has brought such consternation and doubt about the moral integrity of your administration; and has joined with the Bush/Cheney era in helping to bring about an unsustainable corruption of public morals which is destroying whatever humanity this nation has left.

For the good of the country, you should publicly and directly address and clarify this issue. My hope is that you will do so.

Sincerely,

Terence M. Bresnahan

State Bar status: active

Berkeley

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YOUTH v. RELEVANCE

AVA:

Regarding: Propaganda & Poison At The Oscars by David Yearsley

Most criticism regarding Seth MacFarlane doesn't hold relevance to how the Oscars are just another form of entertainment. Even if the ceremony continues with its bad humor, there won't be any change with predeceasing hosts like Anne Hathaway and James Franco. There will always be a challenge with keeping fresh air from running flat, but has there ever been a difference between youth and relevance?

Sincerely,

Charles Landis

Santa Rosa

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Editor,

I'm writing in response to the “River Views” column of 2/27/13. First I'd like to thank Malcolm MacDonald for recognizing Friends of Enchanted Meadows' ongoing effort to enlarge the existing nature preserve in the Albion River canyon. That said, I do take exception to his characterizations of what happened to create these preserves, and what is happening now. Malcolm says “a few dozen protesters were involved,” I remember hundreds of people from the local community, Ukiah Valley, Humbolt Co., and from as far away as Vermont, participating. He implies a “handful of individuals” who succeeded in the law suits were a separate group from the protesters. The demonstrations, civil disobedience and law suits were often interconnected.

In terms of our current fund raising drive I take exception to his calling F.O.E.M. deceitful, because he thinks the photo that appears on some posters is inaccurate. The poster and website photos show various aspects of the canyon to give people a sense of the beauty of the Enchanted Meadow environs, and illustrate the interconnectedness of the river, wetlands, and adjoining proposed forest sanctuary. If any of these poster photos, do not in fact show portions of the proposed sanctuary this is simply an honest oversight.

Malcolm also seems inordinately disturbed by our use of names other than the white settler names, for areas of the canyon. During the fight to defend the forest from logging, activists used names for places that were meaningful to them. We use some of these names today. Details like these should not obscure ongoing habitat protection efforts. Please support our fundraising campaign to purchase the proposed Albert Cattalini Conservancy, home to many federal and state listed wildlife species. Visit our website and donate at www.friendsofenchantedmeadow.org. Thank you.

In closing I'd like to say, in this instance, Malcolm doesn't seem to see the forest for the trees.

Karl Schoen, Friend of Enchanted Meadow

Little River

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AB POACHING CREEPS NORTH

To the Editor:

Enclosed please find an article from the Santa Barbara Independent about longtime local commercial sea urchin diver, David Abernathy who was busted for abalone poaching. On the same day, Department of Fish and Game had a meeting about opening commercial abalone harvesting off San Miguel Island in Santa Barbara. If they open harvesting up to commercial divers for red abalone, the same species we have up here, what is to keep the divers from poaching and selling our local red abalone and saying it was harvested from Southern California? Do you think that this will increase the amount of poaching already happening off the northcoast? And does the Department of Fish and game ever check the local commercial divers for abalone? According to this article they have all kinds of compartments on the commercial vessels. I thought the press and community should be aware of what is going on and what may be to come in this area in the future.

Concerned local Citizen

Point Arena

Attached: Alleged Abalone Poachers Caught

Four Men Nabbed with Four Massive Abs in Santa Barbara Harbor — In the first bust of commercial fishermen for poaching abalone since the shell-residing mollusk was protected in Southern California 15 years ago, four men were caught with four abalone on an urchin diving boat in the Santa Barbara Harbor the day before Thanksgiving. Three of the men, John Bolton, Robert Laumer, and David Abernathy, were registered as urchin fishermen from Santa Barbara, while the fourth, Richard Gallo from New York, was not a licensed fishermen but is still implicated in the charges, which are now being considered by the Santa Barbara District Attorney.

The booty was likely harvested from the seas around San Miguel Island, which is the epicenter of the species’ comeback after decades of overfishing and disease nearly wiped it out of the region completely. To help save the species, the state banned any take of abalone  —  whether the red, black, pink, or white varieties  —  in 1997 for waters south of San Francisco Bay, and only allowed red abalone to be harvested seasonally to the north. While sport divers are occasionally caught with illicit abs (usually for violations of size, quantity, and methods in Northern California), commercial fishermen have kept their hands clean, until now.

The alleged poachers were caught by California Department of Fish & Game wardens on November 21 after sundown when their 35-foot boat returned from a two-day trip to San Miguel Island. When warden Scott Cohen approached the boat, the four men scurried into the cabin and wouldn’t come out. Upon entering the cabin to find documents “flying everywhere,” Cohen believed that the men had committed “paperwork violations,” such as not filling out the details of catch sizes and fishing locations. As he went ashore with piles of papers in his arms to check  —  indeed, they hadn’t filled out anything  —  warden Santos Cabral searched the boat, began measuring the urchin, and found an abalone shell, a minor violation that prompted a more thorough search.

That’s when Cabral found, stashed beneath a bench deep in the cabin, a wetsuit stuffed with the four trophy-sized abalone, including one that measured more than 10 inches across. Another two empty abalone shells were also located. When confronted, the men played dumb. “No one knew where they came from,” said Cohen, explaining that it was unclear whether they’d planned to eat the abs or sell them on the black market, where they could fetch up to $150 a piece. (Despite the wardens’ efforts to return the abs to the ocean, they died and are now in an evidence freezer.)

The bust made both wardens wonder whether other urchin divers could be poaching, as urchins (which fetch between 60 cents and $1.25 each) and $100-per-pluck abalone live on the same reefs. “They’re out there diving within hand’s reach,” said Cabral. “The temptation could be great.” Cohen even thought back to other boats he’s searched, explaining, “Those boats are so complex that if someone knows what they’re doing, you can hide something very well.” (Multiple attempts to contact urchin-diving and commercial-fishing representatives for this story were unsuccessful.)

The abs almost certainly were harvested within the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary, the superintendent of which, Chris Mobley, praised the wardens’ work via email on Tuesday from San Diego, where, coincidentally, he was at an informational hearing about opening up San Miguel’s abalone for fishing again. (State staff advised against the idea, which had been proposed by the California Abalone Marketing Association.) “We will not succeed in protecting and restoring abalone without effective enforcement,” said Mobley, explaining that while a network of agencies are involved, “the state’s Fish and Game wardens are our first line of defense when it comes to abalone.”

But that line of defense is admittedly porous, as California only has about 300 wardens statewide, and just two in Santa Barbara County, numbers that are actually higher than in years’ past. Cohen believes that the Santa Barbara Harbor alone could use a full-time warden. “It might be small,” he said, “but it does have a huge commercial fleet.” Meanwhile, the Fish and Game wardens do their best to be a presence even when they’re not nearby. “We try to fly the flag with maximum exposure,” said Cabral, explaining that the Thanksgiving-eve sting was just one way to keep people thinking: “Be careful what you’re doing out there, and play by the rules because you never know when one of those game wardens might pop out.”

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HERBICIDE FORUM

Editor,

Occupy Ukiah is sponsoring an open public forum on herbicide use in the county. The moderated panel of featured speakers include Ag Commissioner Chuck Morse, Organic farmers Adam Gaska and Derek Dahlen, private citizen Will Parrish, and a representative from Mendocino Redwood Company. One issue will be herbicide use in the proposed Mendocino Redwood Company 80-year Habitat Conservation Plan. MRC is the largest private landowner in Mendocino County and their plan calling for continued herbicide use is now open for public comment before April 21, 2013. Another issue will be the risk of the use of herbicides to public health. Public comment will follow with a question and answer period. Our goal is to view all sides of the controversial topic through the format of public discourse. Public input is welcome.

Occupy Ukiah

Ukiah

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THAT FIRST CUP

Warm spiritual greetings,

Rough Morning with the Wolf Pack

Early this morning I took the shuttle van to Oakland BART to get to Berkeley, from the “winter shelter” located at the Oakland Army Base. I do set up for the Berkeley Catholic Worker free community breakfast and am on the service line. This I have done for 22 unpaid years, because I have a spiritualized consciousness, and that's why I do it. Today, as we were getting everything set up to serve, I was as usual taking the plastic wrap off of the coffee cups, for the purpose of handing them out to those who had come there to partake of this unique community breakfast.

Suddenly, around twenty people surged at me, complaing that I was taking too long to give them a coffee cup, and speaking abusively. After 22 years of doing this unpaid (plus three times volunteering in NYC, D.C., and LA as well), I spun around and faced off with the wolf pack, and in my loudest voice said: “I don't get paid for doing this. If you are not satisfied with my performance, feel free to commit suicide! And if you've got a problem with my behaviour, go fuck yourselves!!”

I'm going to let you, the reader, glean the larger negative social ramifications of the situation; such as the deterioration of a lot of street people in Berkeley, CA as result of consuming crack cocaine, excessive amounts of alcoholic beverages, and of course methamphetamines. In regard to accosting me with socially abusive language, I advised everyone at the Trinity Methodist dining room this morning, that Berkeley area psychotherapists charge a minimum of $60/hr. to listen everybody else's ego-crap. I repeat: I am not being paid anything whatsoever in postmodern California for anything at all. I am living on a $359 social security retirement check, and sleep at the winter shelter at the Oakland Army Base, which the Berkeley Food and Housing Project provided for me. Obviously, I'm tight with Jesus (and everything else of a spiritual nature).

Here's the riddle: Why didn't the wolf pack figure out after so many years, that by bringing in one's own coffee cup, one would be able to enjoy the donated Peet's coffee sooner, than if they wait to be given a cup by the service group?

Craig Stehr

Berkeley

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MAYBE CAN

Editor:

Some time a old friend moved to Mendocino. He likes area wont leaving.

He writei his experiences at cost hospital. I worry his heath he's 86 .

he says drug from something in surgery. he write nurses

gave more medicate he had allergic reation to drugs from surgery.

He write same anesthic dr. is chief of surgery. Is it true? hospital is only he has.

I'm scared he's OK.

Maybe this dr. is seen by a med. boared?

He likes AVA. maybe letter can help.

Thank you.

Miles Togo

San Diego

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LET’S GO SKIING!

Letter to the editor:

On What Women Want - a response to Jeff Costello’s diatribe about online dating published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser, February 20th, 2013

What do men want?

Would I presume to answer being a specimen of the female gender?

Well, I’ll take a stab at it based on my experience…

What do men want?

My body, my beast, my loving, my sexy.

My worship, my adoration, my patience, my smile, and yes…my laughter!

My kitchen, my shopping cart full of tasty, my gourmet mama, my hands in rubber gloves cleaning the piss off your toilet.

And what do women want?

Satisfaction, you got that right!

Your gender, your generosity, your genuine insight.

Play with me, talk to me, take me dancing.

Let’s go skiing, a play-outside-getaway by day, cozy under the blankets naked by night.

Adventures galore, curiosity and good conversation.

Be my snowman, my lover man, my sugar daddy.

I’ll be your amusement. Worship this mister!

What do women want? Women want to have fun!

So ante up cowboy, condescension will get you nowhere.

Jill Gardner

Mount Shasta

Jeff Costello replies: The words “screed” and “diatribe” are so grossly overused anytime a journalist inadvertently salts someone's personal wound, it's hard to take this letter seriously. In fact I'd expected something much more virulent after using Freud's dreaded question. Like anyone, Ms. Gardner saw what she wanted to see. Rock on, Jill.

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AB PRESERVATION

Editor,

Help preserve our abalone!

300 Abalone Taken Every Day. It's true. During minus tides last year in April, Glass Beach had many days of 300 divers showing up to rock pick this precious resource. Even without the element of poaching, more than 900 abalone were legally taken within just hours. With back up from the Fort Bragg Police Department, Mendocino Abalone Watch set up an inspection table to insure nobody was leaving with an undersized or overlimit take of abalone.

The abalone need Y-O-U for a minimal commitment of just 3 hours a month with Mendo Ab Watch. Season opens April1 and there are 13 days in that month alone with minus tides. If it matters to you, come and assist. Our annual training is Saturday, March 23 at 9:30 at the Botanical Gardens meeting room. Contact for information or to RSVP.

www.mendoabwatch.com

Rodney Jones

Mendocino

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FRISCO CALLING

Mighty Editor,

The SF Bay Guardian gave you a shout out the other day calling the AVA their “favorite paper (present company notwithstanding).” Well, the SF Bay Guardian is to the AVA as a tenderloin transvestite streetwalker is to __________ (fill in the blank with your favorite object of true lust.)

I was in a Catholic Church the other day for the first time in years for a wedding. As I examined the absolutely stunning stained glass that lined the upper walls of the cavernous church, it occurred to me; Why were the saints — Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick, St. Anthony, all of them — illuminated and seemingly full of life, while the most important one of all, the messiah was represented in a grotesque death at the altar of the church? It was perplexing and disturbing to say the least.

On a more fanatical note: there is no f-in’ way that the Golden State Warriors should build a stadium on the San Francisco Giants waterfront. The hordes of faithful fans who religiously make the pilgrimage from the ferry building to glorious Giants park should be unassaulted by such a postmodern monstrosity as a basketball stadium, and should instead be left in peace to stare out on the Bay praying, chanting and honing our best mantras to aid in the ensuing Giants battle with a major league foe.

Just picked up the David Talbot book “Season of the Witch” because of the excerpts in the AVA, not to mention Moe’s books in Berkeley shot me a slightly scratched hardcover copy for 16 bucks. I wanted to include some favorite excerpts so far;

Talbot was describing how Vince Hallinan taught all of his six boys how to box. Vivian Hallinan was troubled by her boys fighting and thought that it contravened the family’s pro-peace principles. But Vince was adamant, “The chief trouble with liberals, is that they hope to accomplish everything by talk.”

And, “Prison didn’t slow down Vince. He used his jail time to lead a movement to desegregate McNeil Island, in accordance with President Dwight Eisenhower’s executive order. He sat with black prisoners in the dining room to make his point, and after desegregation allowed them to mingle, he pushed his black friends to sit with other white inmates.”

And last a Diggers poem: “Have you been raped?” read one savage street sheet titled “Uncle Tim’$ Children.” “Take acid and everything’ll be groovy. Are you ill? Take acid and find inner health. Are you cold, sleeping in doorways at night? Take acid & discover your own inner warmth. Are you hungry? Take acid & transcend these mundane needs. You can’t afford acid? Pardon me, I think I hear somebody calling me.”

Nate Collins

Berkeley

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DRUNK, NOT A MONSTER

Editor,

Your lead article in Off The Record two issues ago about the young man Riley Kisel was completely inaccurate and a rush to judgment without the true facts. In fact your info was a duplicate of the Mendocino Beacon and was a total fabrication of the Mendocino stabbing that occurred.

I have known Riley since he was a young boy and playmate of my son. The facts on record are that Riley stabbed Alexander the bartender to which Riley readily admitted. It was a very minor wound and Alexander was not taken to Santa Rosa but to the Coast Hospital here in Fort Bragg and was treated and released that same night.

This is why the overcharge of attempted murder was dropped in short order, with the new charge of assault with a weapon with bodily harm.

Now as to the facts as I know them: Yes Riley is a heavy drinker as is Alexander — both alcoholics. The allegation that Riley leaped out at Alexander’s car at the corner of Little Lake Road and highway one waiting for him is not the reality as I know it. Riley’s mother lives up Little Lake Road and Riley had good reason to be there walking home to sleep.

Riley says that when Alexander saw him he hit his brakes and leaped out of car rushing at Riley to attack him. Remember both were very drunk. As a young buck with a pocket knife Riley says he defended himself from a beating about to happen. Alexander is a big strong man known around town as “Big Al.” The wound that Alexander received was superficial. A big mistake to use a knife but as I know Riley he always was a kind hearted person. It could very well have been self defense and not the “monster” you make him out to be. He plead guilty to the assault charge to avoid a trial where if found guilty would have been the maximum sentence when without a high priced lawyer you are long term prison bait.

As for the Arcata charge, as I know it, Riley had the gun in his backpack. He hurt no one and when the cops came he didn’t resist arrest but ran away. Riley has a drinking problem, no home out on the streets. He is a wonderful painter and a sensitive soul. Yes he will be punished for the gun, but by the grace of God may he turn his life around to live a meaningful existence.

Howard Seidell

Albion

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OIL SLICK

Editor:

Oil industry propaganda is smooth and slick, almost viscous in its common sense logic that explains everything from geology to foreign policy. Historically, California is familiar with the style, having invented some of it. We are being visited with the latest model now because hydraulic fracturing technology is making accessible the largest formation of shale oil in the nation, the Monterey Shale formation, two thirds of the national supply,

Much of the industry propaganda is actually produced by the financial industry, citing regiments of their paid scientists to say that hydraulic fracturing, fracking (the injection of millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand into very deep wells) will not harm groundwater or air quality.

Both are bogus claims and the image of ordinary rural dwellers in fracking zones lighting up their tap water like a road flare has done more to undermine the “scientific” regiments than any number of articles by environmentalists. Although news of a $8.7 million settlement between an oil company and a Kern County farmer whose orchard was destroyed by polluted groundwater was interesting to some of us in the San Joaquin Valley, quite near the San Andreas.

The third problem mentions is usually called “seismic activity.” This leads us to a peculiarity about the Monterey Shale formation. It is a somewhat amorphous blob on many maps, no two quite the same, that stretches from a thin northern beginning below San Francisco to a fat belly in Kern County that sags down into Los Angeles and Orange counties where it peters out heading for the desert. If you know California at all, you will realize that the formation travels through many kinds of landscape. What may not be apparent in the midst of this diversity is the “spine” of the Monterey Shale formation, the geological feature that ties it all together: the San Andreas Fault. In fact, oil geologists agree, is in part responsible for both the reservoir of oil that has been conventionally accessible for a century and the shale formation.

With this in mind, I called the California Alfred E. Alquist Seismic Safety Commission the other day, a division of the California State and Consumers Services Agency. In due time I was routed to an engineer who agreed to listen to my questions and respond. He told me that the seismic activity caused by fracking, if it was caused by fracking at all, was minor; and that “for every benefit there is a price.”

The largest earthquake in Oklahoma history occurred after fracking was established and a “skyrocketing” number of significant quakes are occurring in the Raton Basin region between Colorado and New Mexico.

Yet, capitalism and patriotism, if the two can be distinguished in the US, are driving a speculative boom on the Monterey formation already, with the support of the president and the governor, most of the Legislature, Congress, Occidental Petroleum, which owns the largest chunk of the mineral rights, and the federal Bureau of Land Management, which will hold its second leasing auction later this month.

In a host of problems about fracking, it just seemed to me worth mentioning what is uppermost on my mind as a Californian who has gone through major quakes on that fault since July 21, 1952, when the 7.5 Tehachapi Earthquake woke us all up at 5 a.m. 250 miles north of the epicenter.

And the San Joaquin Valley already has air quality as bad as or worse than Los Angeles has without a fracking boom.

Bill Hatch

Merced

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ACREAGE CORRECTION

Dear Editor,

In the AVA of March 6th on the Off The Record page, you state that "The Conservation Fund already owns and manages 55,000 acres of Usal Forest in Mendocino County in conjunction with the Redwood Forest Foundation..." This statement is incorrect.

The Redwood Forest Foundation Inc. (RFFI) is the sole owner of slightly less than 50,000 acres of the Usal Redwood Forest and determines all management policies for both restoration and commercial forestry. Actual day to day management is carried out by Campbell Timberland Management Company in Fort Bragg who have been hired to advise and carry out forestry practices as instructed by RFFI. In 2011, RFFI acquired a Conservation Easement on the Usal Redwood Forest to restrict forest sub-division and conduct sustainable forestry practices for the benefit of the ecology, economy and people living in and around this forest, in perpetuity. The Conservation Fund holds the title of this Conservation Easement and not ownership of the land.

Sincerely,

Heidi Knott Gundling, RFFI Board Member

Philo

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SENATOR EVANS SAYS NO BYPASS

TO: Malcolm Dougherty, Director, California Department of Transportation

1120 N Street, Sacramento, CA 94273-0001

Dear Director Dougherty:

Caltrans is about to begin the construction phase of a project of great importance to my district that was proposed 50 years ago. The Willits Bypass has been promoted as a safe, sensibly sized and environmentally friendly project that will relieve congestion on Highway 101 through Willits. Local residents and their representatives have spent much time working with Caltrans and regulatory agencies to ensure the success of this project. I do not know of anyone who does not support an alternative, including myself.

Unfortunately, as facts about the selected project become more widely known, opposition is mounting. It is disconcerting when after all these years many ranchers, farmers, local businesses, environmental groups and ordinary citizens agree that the Willits Bypass, as it is presently conceived, should not be built.

My office has been contacted by constituents who are feel that concerns about the project have gone unanswered by Caltrans, and that it is being built based on faulty and outdated information. Among the questions and my concerns:

• In 2008, the California Transportation Commission, refused to fund a four lane project as proposed by Caltrans. Caltrans quickly redesigned the project for two lanes, with grading to add two additional lanes at some later date. There is no funding for a future expansion and the need to expand is questionable since traffic counts have over the years continued to remain steady or declined. I have been asked why Caltrans is spending millions of dollars to expand the project’s footprint and adding thousands of tons of fill to wetlands, to prepare for what appears to be an unfunded and unneeded future expansion?

• Caltrans has clearly stated in its environmental documents that a two lane project does not meet the “purpose and operational need of the project,” yet this is the project that is going forward. Because of Caltrans insistence on a four-lane project, two lane alternatives were summarily rejected and not examined in the EIR/EIS. How can we determine whether the current two-lane project is the superior project?

• The two lane Willits Bypass consists of six miles of raised roadbed, including several curves and a mile of viaduct and raising to a maximum height of 30 feet. The Bypass will not have a median barrier and no emergency access. Is this project safer than current conditions? Local officials have asked why Caltrans is building a project that can only be made safer by spending millions more for an additional two lanes that serve no other need?

• Local residents say that much of the traffic in the City of Willits could be effectively relieved through traffic management programs at the Highway 20 intersection. Why is this not considered as a partial solution to the problem, especially since about 70% of current Highway 101 traffic through Willits is locally bound?

• There is a perception that Caltrans has refused to seriously look at other two lane alternatives. Has the agency thoroughly examined the Baechtel Road-Railroad Avenue Corridor, a route through Willits' eastside industrial area that was initially the focus of a 2004 community-led study funded by Caltrans? Some participants in this study say that the route is a viable alternative for through-town traffic which avoids wetlands. This route has tremendous popular support, avoids environmental problems and could save taxpayers millions of dollars in scarce transportation funds. Are there reasons why it shouldn’t be seriously examined?

I look forward to the opportunity to meet with you and your staff to discuss the Willits Bypass, and address these issues that have been raised by my constituents. I understand the need and fully support an alternative transportation solution, and am willing to work with you for a project that addresses the transportation needs of Willits and the region.

Sincerely,

NOREEN EVANS, Senator 2nd District

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AS LOCAL AS YOU CAN GET

Dear Valley,

The 22nd Anderson Valley Grange Variety Show has come and gone. There were some great performances. Some of the performances were great in skill, some were wonderful in wackiness, some were refined, some were rough.

We get it all, from 7 year old ballerinas to a 97 year old piano player. from a first time singer with enough guts to sing in front of 400 people to Tango dancers ranked 9th in the world! From jump roping unicyclists to rocket launches, baby we got it all.

The true magic, the glue that binds, the thing that makes this yearly event special is that feeling in the Grange hall that this is us, all of us, in this place we call our home.

The opening to this years show was a send up of the County Fair and Apple Show. About as local as you can get. There were talking animals and fruits and vegetables, even talking apple pies. What were they talking about? Hey folks, show up, be part of this place, be part of the fair. It takes a lot of people to put on the Variety Show. Backstage, lights, sound, video, not to mention the acts. Most of all the audience. That would be you, and you, and you, er actually it's us, yup, we do this for ourselves every year. And the “producers” of the Variety show want to thank every single person who performed, partook or participated to make this thing what it has become.

This is our home, we live our lives here, Let's keep it ours.

Thank you AV,

Variety Show producers

PS. Dear Folks, Whoops, correction. Dumbo Captain Rainbow claimed the monthly Fair board meetings were every 2nd Tuesday of every month. NO NO NO. The meetings are every 2nd MONDAY at 7pm. The meetings are open to the public and the board is very open to ideas and folks who can help out the fairgrounds. After all it's OUR fair! This is a place where we can really make a difference. Say goodbye to big government, it's up to us!

Keep on Keeping on, Dumbo Captn Rainbow

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MISATTRIBUTION

Dear Editor,

I am a subscriber to the AVA and the February 27 issue came in the mail today (March 11). On page 12, the following quotation attributed to Benjamin Franklin appeared:

"The refusal of King George III to allow the Colonies to operate an honest money system which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution."

Perhaps someone has already written to you about this supposed quotation. When I read it, the style seemed utterly unlike anything I have read by Franklin, and the idea expressed had nothing to do with anything I remembered in Franklin's writings.

It did distinctly sound, however, like something that would be agreeable to the followers of Ron Paul, probably originating from the writings of someone who advocates the restoration of the gold standard as the cure of all ills.

Typing the quotation into the Bing search engine, I found the quotation used in many sources, all of them containing words like “liberty,” “gold and silver,” “survival,” “Catholic answers,” “tea party,” etc., in their web addresses.

However, on one such site (in fact, one devoted to glorifying Ron Paul), I found a serious discussion of the provenance of this quotation. Commenters searched through Franklin's works and could find nothing remotely resembling the quotation.

To their credit, the consensus reached by the commenters is that the quotation was not from Franklin and has been falsely attributed to him. One commenter listed several other famous “quotations” which have been proved never to have been uttered by their supposed illustrious authors. (See www.dailypaul.com/70002/ben-franklin-quote-prime-cause-of-the-revolutionary-war; the online exchange took place in 2008.)

Whoever supplied you with this quotation gave you a bum steer. If the person wishes to prove me (and the Paulites I referred to above) wrong, he or she can simply provide the location of the supposed quotation in Franklin's works.

In general, I would regard as dubious alleged quotations from American icons such as the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, etc., which in no way sound like the writings of the supposed author, but the style of which would not be disturbed if a “by crikey” or “as a real American patriot would say” were thrown in.

Best regards,

Ed Smith

Brooklyn, New York

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KENDALL SMITH GOT OFF

Dear Editor:

Back in August  I wrote a Letter to the Editor comparing the approaches by the district attorneys in Sacramento County and Mendocino County to misuse of credit cards by government employees. In Sacramento County the DA firmly believes if you do the deed you do the time. The Assistant to the Mayor of the City of Sacramento and a member of a prominent Sacramento political family used her credit card for $19,000 of personal expenses. An audit disclosed her thievery and she was indicted. Yesterday she accepted a plea agreement and was sentenced to nine months in jail, five years probation and ordered to make full restitution.

There was a similar case in Mendo County about which you wrote a number of times in your Off the Record column.  In this case the individual who was an elected official did not make full restitution nor was she prosecuted. My impression is that in Mendo County if you do the deed, depending upon who you are, you may not do the time.

In peace,

James G. Updegraff

Sacramento