Mendocino County Today: Friday, Feb. 24, 2023

Snowfall | Arctic Air | Road Closures | Brooktrails | Yorkville Bus | Terriers | Travel Caution | Snow Photos | Food Loss | Duck Row | Forty Oaks | No Quiz | Arena Lighthouse | Tom Notti | Log Truck | Wildflower Walk | Timmy Guilty | Broadband Bill | Cook Caught | New Doc | Kimberlin Talk | Angela's Ancestors | Yesterday's Catch | Hail Mary | Guess Who | L.A. Woman | LSD Album | Tell Tale | Bugs Influencer | Emma Upgard | Thoughts & Prayers | Men | 1890 Wedding | Ukraine | Girl Commandos

SNOW SHOWERS continue to wrap up in eastern Trinity and Lake counties. Cold Arctic air takes hold of the region as the low pressure system continues its journey south past Northwest California throughout today. A short lived ridge will build in as the system moves south causing particularly cold, possibly record breaking, morning temperatures this morning and tomorrow morning Then, another low pressure system is expected to bring more precipitation to the area by early next week. (NWS)

ROAD CLOSURES ALL OVER MENDOCINO COUNTY THURSDAY NIGHT

Highway 101 was closed in northern Mendo after 75-200 vehicles reported stuck.

Highway 253 between Boonville and Ukiah was closed due to snow in the upper elevations.

Highway 1 on the Coast north of Westport was closed due to downed trees. 

Highway 128 was closed between Yorkville and Cloverdale Thursday evening due to a combination of bad weather, icy conditions, and stalled and/or sliding vehicles blocking the roadway. Friday morning Caltrans is still reporting two closures along this route:

• Closed from the Mendocino/Sonoma Co line to 0.6 mi west of Cloverdale (Sonoma Co) - due to snow - motorists are advised to use an alternate route.
• Closed from 1 mi east of SR 253 to 4.3 mi east of Ingram /at Mountain House Rd/ (Mendocino Co) - due to snow - motorists are advised to use an alternate route.

REGULAR SCHOOL DAY, NO YORKVILLE BUS BEYOND FAIRGROUNDS

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

Based on weather reports, CHP reports, and ground conditions, we are planning a regular school day schedule today but the YORKVILLE BUS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RUN BEYOND THE FAIRGROUNDS DUE TO THE 128 CLOSURE. Please dress your student warmly.  If conditions change throughout the day, we will notify you.

Happy Friday!  Don’t forget our College and Career Fair dinner on Tuesday at 5:00.  We have 232 people signed up!

Sincerely yours,

Louise Simson, Superintendent

MENDO DISCOVERS SNOW

Winter Snow Event

Additional significant winter weather events are projected to impact Mendocino County overnight and through the weekend. Significant additional rainfall and snow is forecast across the County. Recent snow events have left the roadways icy and wet resulting in dangerous travel conditions. Residents are urged to take necessary precautions immediately. It is highly advisable to have a supply of food, water, medications, fuel for generators, and other essential items on hand.

Exercise caution when traveling around the County as hazardous weather conditions are likely to result in downed trees and powerlines. If you must travel, please be aware of the current road conditions, carry chains, slow down, respect all road closures, do not attempt to drive through closed roads and assume all downed power lines are still energized. Remember to stay off roadways unless travel is necessary. Pull over and allow safe passing for roadcrews and first responders.

For additional preparedness information, residents can visit www.mendoready.org and follow the County of Mendocino Facebook page for situational updates.

Online resources to assist with checking road conditions in Mendocino and Lake County:

• CHP Traffic: cad.chp.ca.gov
• Department of Transportation: http://quickmap.dot.ca.gov
• State Routes: tinyurl.com/State-Routes

RANDOM SNOW PHOTOS BY VALLEY PEOPLE, Thursday morning, February 23, 2023

There was a solid two hours snowfall on the Valley floor from 7am until 9 Thursday morning, with hill people reporting three to four inches at higher elevations. Thursday morning's snow was unprecedented for the Anderson Valley, with drifts still piled up here and there in mid-afternoon.

INDIVIDUAL REPLACEMENTS FOR FOOD LOSS

In Response to Winter Storms

Households that have experienced a loss of food purchased with CalFresh dollars due to natural disasters such as the extended power outages may be able to get replacement CalFresh funds. Social Services offices can issue replacement benefits on an individual basis to participating CalFresh households, upon request. 

Replacement benefits can provide up to a maximum of one month’s allotment. Households that have experienced a loss of food purchased with CalFresh benefits that are seeking replacement of CalFresh funds must submit a signed Replacement Affidavit Replacement or Supplement Affidavit/Authorization (CF 303) (ca.gov) attesting to the household’s loss, within 10 days of the date the food was destroyed. This affidavit can be accepted in person, by mail, by telephone, or electronically through the portal located at BenefitsCal.com. For more information, please call (707) 463-7700 or (707) 962-1000.

(County Presser)

LOCAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS CONCERNED Over Plans to Cut Down Forty Oaks Trees to Build the Great Redwood Trail South of Ukiah

A proposal for a segment of the Great Redwood Trail south of Ukiah is getting scrutiny from environmentalists who are concerned about plans to remove over forty valley oaks, a half dozen of them more than forty inches in diameter at breast height. But city staff say many of the trees, including the biggest ones, can likely be spared as plans for the trail continue to evolve.…

mendofever.com/2023/02/23/local-environmentalists-concerned-over-plans-to-cut-down-forty-oaks-trees-to-build-the-great-redwood-trail-south-of-ukiah/

NO BOONVILLE QUIZ THIS WEEK, so why not make a snowman instead?... (or snowwoman? Or a snowperson?!) This Thursday was the 4th Thursday today so there will not be a General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz at Laurens at The Buckhorn. We present The Quiz on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays, as you will no doubt be tired of hearing, so prepare to exercise your brains next week on March 2nd. Cheers, Steve Sparks, The Quizmaster.

SAD END FOR TOM NOTTI, FORMERLY OF ANDERSON VALLEY

‘It’s just sad because the whole thing was preventable’: Cloverdale man, 92, lay for days after fall before being found.

Friends, acquaintances say Tom Notti’s death is a reminder to be aware and check in on one another. “This should not have happened on our street,” neighbor says.

by Mary Callahan

Ninety-two-year-old Tom Notti lay where he’d fallen for five days before anyone realized it had been too long since they had last seen or talked to him.

One friend had taken ill. Another one’s car had broken down. A neighbor had left town for a while.

People were involved in their own lives and just didn’t notice they hadn’t heard from him.

Then a Meals on Wheels driver learned from friends that Notti had been out of touch.

She got his address and drove over. Peering through the rear window of his home, she saw him on the living-room floor, too weak and dehydrated to move.

It was a moment of grace and, even, briefly, cause for celebration that driver Shannon Holck’s well-known concern for her clients had resulted in Notti’s rescue. Everyone thought a happy ending was in sight.

But Notti became severely ill in the days that followed. He died while hospitalized in Santa Rosa on Tuesday, a week after his rescue.

His death further underscored for his grieving friends and acquaintances the vulnerability of those living alone, especially the elderly.

“It just reinforces that we need to know our neighbors, and we need to watch out for them,” said Marrianne McBride, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Council on Aging, which runs Meals on Wheels. “It gives us all an opportunity to think about how it could have been different, maybe. Just to be more aware helps.”

Notti had lived on his own since the death of his wife, Diane, in 2015, but was part of a close-knit group of neighbors at the Cloverdale Springs retirement community on the southwest side of town.

Though he used a walker and generally traveled the neighborhood on an electric scooter, he was still driving and able to get out of the house, which sits on an immaculate stretch of Porterfield Creek Drive, neighbors said.

Notti worked most of his life at Lockheed Martin and later ran a small cafe in Boonville with Diane. He regularly attended Monday Fundays — outdoor cocktail hours organized by neighbors during the COVID pandemic and still held weekly, usually in a neighbor’s driveway, weather permitting.

His closest family appears to have been the ex-wife of his stepson, who lives some hours away in the Sierra Foothills.

But Notti regularly interacted with friends, including the one who first alerted Holck that days had passed since they’d spoken. The friend, through Holck, said he did not want to be interviewed or have his name used in this story.

Holck has spent 16 years with the Council on Aging. Though she sometimes takes meals to peoples’ doors, she primarily delivers bulk foods to area senior centers. She also staffs weekly Drive Up/Pick Up sites that were developed during the pandemic so clients could come to one location and get a week’s worth of meals straight from the truck — without the requirement of face-to-face contact.

Holck had known Notti and his male friend “for many years” because they used to join other friends for lunch at the Cloverdale Senior Center every day. She would be there, too.

Notti, she said, “was a jokester. He was a nice guy. I see hundreds and hundreds of people, and there’s that handful of people you connect with. He was one.”

Once the distribution site was set up at King’s Valley Senior Apartments during the COVID outbreak, Notti and a friend began collecting meals for the week there, though most often, at least recently, a female friend of Notti’s picked his up when she came for her own, Holck said.

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, the woman came to the site and took food to Notti. She also spoke with him two days later by phone. Then she got sick and didn’t see him in the days after that, she told Holck. The woman, through Holck, declined to be interviewed.

She did not come to get food the next Tuesday, Feb. 14, but Notti’s friend was there, and he was deeply concerned.

Though he usually spoke with Notti every day or two, he hadn’t heard from him in days. His car was on the fritz, so he had not been to Notti’s house to check on him either, Holck said.

“The look on his face was such panic,” she said. “I saw the red flags.”

She called the office for Notti’s address, drove there and, getting no answer, walked around to the back, where she saw him. She immediately called the Cloverdale Fire Department.

She could tell Notti was weak and hoarse as he tried to talk, but through the glass Holck made out the word “neighbors” and guessed someone in the area might have a house key.

Next-door neighbor Tim Montesonti had one.

He told The Press Democrat he had only had it about two months and had asked Notti for it “just because he lives alone, and there’s no one taking care of him.”

Montesonti said Notti’s absence at last week’s neighborhood Monday Funday was noted, but neighbors “didn’t think anything of it.”

“He doesn’t always show,” said Ellen Wingenbach, who lives across the street and hosted the event. But “we’re just kicking ourselves. We should have investigated.”

Her next-door neighbor, block captain Betty Landry, said she thinks she’d have realized Notti hadn’t been out and about. But she and her husband were traveling and didn’t return until Sunday, Feb. 12. They spent the next day cleaning and storing their RV.

Like everyone, she felt awful about what had happened, particularly given how organized their immediate neighborhood is.

“We have wonderful neighbors, and that’s why we feel so bad,” Wingenbach said. “We think we’re the best neighborhood in the community, and we always say we’re the best street, and we failed.”

Firefighters arrived as Montesonti delivered the key and let them in, but it took some time for emergency medics to arrive.

Cloverdale Fire Battalion Chief Rick Blackmon, who was among those who responded, said Notti couldn’t remember how he had fallen or when. But Montesonti said his pill box indicated Notti had last taken his medications five days earlier, on the same day he was last known to have spoken to his female friend. Wingenbach also spoke with him at his door that evening.

Montesonti said he ran into the house to assure Notti that help had arrived, stroke his hair and offer comfort. “I wanted him to recognize a face,” he said later.

Notti conveyed that he had been trying to get to his cellphone to call Montesonti, but the phone was on a table, out of reach and, then out of power.

Notti, said Holck, “was so hoarse from being dehydrated. It was so sad. He could hardly talk.”

By agency protocol, she was allowed only to confirm he was receiving help and wouldn’t have been able even to offer him water, because of liability concerns.

Everyone hoped Notti would get better and return home, though word circulating among friends indicated he was ill — in isolation at Kaiser Permanente with pneumonia, at least. Montesonti said he and his husband later learned Notti had COVID and that they had become infected themselves.

On Tuesday, they learned through his daughter-in-law that Notti had died.

It’s been a distressing outcome for those who knew him but also one that has contributed to reflection about the importance of keeping tabs on one another.

“This should not have happened on our street,” Landry said. “ … From now on, we’re going to need to check up on one another.”

“It’s just sad,” Holck said, “because the whole thing was preventable, and he was just a really nice man. There’s really no one to blame. We just really need to move forward from here and do something different.”

The Meals on Wheels program, though chiefly a way to bolster the diets of food-insecure seniors, is itself based on the importance of regular check-ins with the elderly. It is considered as important for nutrition as for providing social support to isolated, homebound seniors, allowing regular contact with paid and volunteer drivers trained to keep an eye out for declining health or other noticeable problems, as well as accidents and falls.

“Isolation is a cause for failing health, and for many of these people, the driver may be the only person they see in a day or a given week,” McBride said.

Though Holck’s response to Notti’s home was not part of the home delivery program, her instincts and actions stemmed from similar experiences that McBride said occur weekly among the handful of paid drivers and about 300 volunteers who run about 60 routes a day around Sonoma County.

Holck herself, filling in for a driver who delivers to Occidental, found a woman who had fallen in her home “out in the middle of nowhere” and who just needed help getting up.

Last Friday, a driver found one of his clients trapped in a trailer with a door that would not unlock, said Denise Johnson, Council on Aging’s director of senior nutrition.

That’s why drivers aren’t allowed to leave food at the door but must follow through if a client doesn’t answer to make sure they are all right. They must have contact with the client, Johnson said.

In the Occidental case, Holck could hear the woman in the house well enough to understand she needed help. She called 911 and got rerouted to a dispatcher who knew where to tell her to find a key.

But no one was going to Notti’s home.

Holck went because “Shannon is always the one who goes above and beyond,” McBride said.

Among other things, she collects flower donations from Trader Joe’s regularly because it’s such a highlight for her clients, she says.

When she heard Notti’s friend hadn’t seen him, Holck said, “something just told me I needed to get over there because something was wrong.”

And while she knows there are certain provider-client lines she can’t cross — like offering help when someone has fallen — it takes effort.

“It’s difficult sometimes because we’re human,” Holck said. “Sometimes you want to do more.”

* * *

WE REMEMBER TOM & DIANE NOTTI from their four years of ownership of the popular Biscotti Notti bakery, curio shop and restaurant in the Farrer Building in downtown Boonville in the mid-1990s. (Now converted to Mosswood Market.) They operated the bakery with their daughter in law Laureen Sullivan. All of them were popular and likable, although Diane Notti tried to keep Tom, the first-class biscotti baker, in the back baking area because Tom just didn’t like most members of the public and had a fairly grumpy counterside manner. Tom was funny, and eccentric. After they sold the bakery to Glad (Severn) Donahue in 1997 (Café Glad) they retired to their home in Rancho Navarro and later moved to Cloverdale. While a Rancho Navarro retiree Tom Notti made the local news after telling us that he was “forced to defend himself” one morning against an attacking hummingbird with a blast from his shotgun. He missed, fortunately, later declaring that the tiny creature must have had navigational issues and an anger management problem. Biscotti baking is a time consuming, labor intensive process which Tom loved (although he didn’t love his customers much). He would arrive at the bakery from Navarro at 5am almost every day to begin the baking process so that the various flavors would be ready by mid-morning. We are very sorry to hear of his sad, lonely, neglected demise in Cloverdale. 

(Mark Scaramella)

WILDFLOWER WALK AT LOW GAP PARK UKIAH ON SATURDAY

by Justine Frederiksen

Spring wildflowers are already blooming in Low Gap Park, and the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society is hosting a walk this weekend to help you find and identify them.

Some of the earliest flowers to bloom each year are Shooting Stars, and this year was no exception. The striking purple flowers began appearing weeks ago in the park, most of them popping up along trails that get more sun than the popular City View Trail.

Another very early bloomer is Hound’s Tongue, which is now blooming in some of its usual spots, some right along the upper section of the original City View Trail.

To join the walk hosted by the CNPS, meet the group at 10 a.m. Feb. 25 “at the tables near the tennis courts. Wear good hiking shoes and dress for the weather, although the hike will be cancelled if it’s raining.”

There is no charge to join the hosted walk, but participants are encouraged to bring $2 (in exact change) if they would like to purchase the very popular brochure created several years ago called “Wildflowers of Low Gap Park,” which gives the names of most of the wildflowers you can see in the park alongside their pictures.

(A word of warning, though: If you do buy the brochure, it could spark an obsessive need to find all of the flowers included in the pamphlet, as that is what happened to me when I first picked it up several years ago!)

As the spring and the flowers progress, more walks are planned in March and April :

• Saturday, March 25 from 10 a.m. until noon.

• Saturday, April 15 from 10 a.m. until noon.

For more information, email cathymonroe@gmail.com or visit the Facebook page of the Sanhedrin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, representing Mendocino and Lake counties.

Another wildflower event scheduled by the CNPS is a hike on the Glen Eden Trail in Lake County, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 11.

From the CNPS: “We will meet at 10 a.m. at the parking lot on Scotts Valley Road, across from the Glen Eden Trailhead (2.8 miles south of Hwy. 20 on Scotts Valley Rd.). This 3- to 4-mile, moderate hike has a gradual incline over much of the trail, with switchbacks in the beginning. Hike will be cancelled if it’s raining. Please RSVP so we know how many people to expect and to keep you updated if it’s postponed due to weather. RSVP by calling Sanhedrin co-president Jim Xerogeanes, at 707-972-3139 or by emailing sanhedrincnps@gmail.com.”

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

ARM BREAKER FOUND GUILTY

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury rapidly found the trial defendant guilty in less than half an hour late Thursday, Feb. 16, morning.

Defendant Timmy Kent Cooper, age 60, formerly of Ukiah, was convicted of felony assault with a deadly weapon, to wit, a chain.

The jury also found true a sentencing enhancement that the defendant personally inflicted great bodily injury on the victim, to wit, a broken arm.

After the jury was thanked and excused, a follow-on court trial was conducted.

Based on certified records entered into evidence by the prosecutor, the court found true allegations alleged by the District Attorney in the charging document that the defendant has suffered four prior Strike convictions.

The four prior Strike convictions found to be true were for residential burglary, two counts of robbery in Los Angeles County, and a bank robbery using a deadly weapon in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

With both the jury trial and court trial segments completed, the defendant’s case was referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for a background study and sentencing recommendation. The defendant’s state prison exposure is up to 43 years to life.

The law enforcement agencies that gathered the People’s trial evidence and provided trial support were the Ukiah Police Department and the District Attorney’s own Bureau of Investigations.

A special thank you is extended to the emergency department doctor who testified before the jury as to the nature and extent of the victim’s injury.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence at trial was Assistant District Attorney Dale P. Trigg.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over the three-day trial.

Judge Faulder will also preside over the sentencing hearing now calendared for Friday, April 14, 2023 at 10 o’clock in the morning in Department A of the Ukiah Courthouse.

(DA Presser)

WOOD’S BIG BROADBAND BILL

Assemblymember Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) has introduced AB 1714, legislation that will define and regulate broadband service providers as a public utility.

The California Constitution authorizes the Legislature to prescribe additional classes of private corporations or other persons as public utilities. ”Public utility” currently includes every common carrier, toll bridge corporation, pipeline corporation, gas corporation, electrical corporation, telephone corporation, telegraph corporation, water corporation, sewer system corporation and heat corporation, where the service is performed for, or the commodity is delivered to, the public.

“Broadband has become an essential service in the daily lives of 21st century consumers and we know Americans agree,” said Wood. “If we didn’t understand this before, we have certainly realized how much everyone depends on this service since 2020, when we entered the COVID-19 pandemic.”

A 2020 study from Consumer Reports found that 80 percent of consumers believe broadband service is as important as water and electricity. People rely on an internet connection to work in an office as well as remotely from home, attend virtual classrooms, apply for employment, receive medical care via telehealth services and handle financial transactions.

“There are endless examples of the need for this regulation, from its importance during and after emergencies and disasters to the need to address digital redlining that leaves rural and marginalized communities with no or slower and more expensive access than those in more dense and higher-income neighborhoods,” said Wood. “We know that those without internet access are significantly disadvantaged, just as not having access to electricity was decades ago.”

Regulation would allow enforcement of necessary functions such as network resiliency, reliable backup power, blackout prevention, network replacement and, in other ways, ensure preparedness for emergencies.

“Just as the infrastructure of water and electricity grew at the end of the 19th century and led to the creation of regulation to make sure that these technologies were available to everyone, the internet has grown to a point that demands it be regulated as a public utility subject to the same regulatory process to make sure that everyone has access to this technology, moving us closer to digital equity,” said Wood.

(Wood Presser)

COOK’S ZIP GUN & KNIFE

On 2/16/23 at approximately 11:07 am, a uniformed Ukiah Police Officer was in the area of Rupe St. and Perry St. conducting patrol when he observed a male subject he knew from previous law enforcements contacts as John Cook walking in the area. 

The Officer knew Cook had a felony warrant for his arrest out of Sonoma County for a felony probation violation. 

The Officer contacted Cook and Cook immediately began to run from the Officer through a field and jumping multiple fences towards the 1000 block of S. State St. in an attempt to flee from the Officer. The Officer gave chase and provided Cook’s direction of travel and clothing description to UPD Dispatch and responding officers. 

While chasing after Cook, the Officer noticed that Cook had discarded a cylindrical object. The Officer later collected the object and noticed it appeared to be a homemade firearm (zip gun) that contained an unspent .40 Caliber round. 

Additional UPD Officers and Detectives arrived on scene and began to set up a perimeter. Cook was spotted by an officer in the area of Hey Taxi (1091 S. State St.). The officer alerted the other officers in the immediate area and they responded to the location. Cook saw the approaching officers and began to run into the Mountain Mikes parking lot. 

The Officer gave chase and caught up to Cook in the Mountain Mikes parking lot. Officer’s removed their department issued firearms and pointed them at Cook and gave him orders to stop and lay on the ground. After a brief hesitation, Cook complied and laid on the ground and was taken into custody without further incident. 

Upon search incident to arrest, Cook was found to be in possession of a concealed fixed blade knife that was tucked in his belt and under his clothing where it was not visible. 

Cook is on felony probation out of Sonoma County for 21310 PC (dirk dagger) and had terms that included, “obey all laws,” “no firearms or ammunition,” and “no weapons”. Cook is also a convicted felon and prohibited from possessing ammunition. 

Cook was later medically cleared and booked at the MCSO Jail for the aforementioned charges. 

HERE’S KELLY!

MCHC Welcomes Family Medicine Physician, Dr. Kelly Tracey

Given the current nationwide doctor shortage, MCHC Health Centers is especially proud to announce the arrival of family physician Dr. Kelly Tracey, an experienced provider who specializes in women’s health and preventive medicine. Dr. Tracey will primarily serve patients in Lakeport.

Prior to joining MCHC, she worked at a community health center in Phoenix, Arizona, but she is no stranger to California, having worked in Oroville, Colusa, Oakhurst, and Clovis. She said she chose MCHC both because she wanted to return to California, but also because the people there stood out in such a positive way.

“Everyone was so nice and really community-focused,” she said. Dr. Tracey was looking for a health center that fit with her philosophy of practice, that is, a place where providers are encouraged to listen deeply to patients, and where treatment plans are based on what is best for patients given their current needs and abilities.

“Patients don’t do very well with a one-size-fits-all approach,” she explained. “Some patients can tolerate several medications at once, while others might do better with one medication along with changes to their diet and exercise routine.”

MCHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Matthew Swain said that Dr. Tracey’s commitment to connecting with each and every patient and her focus on each patient’s unique needs and goals makes her a great fit at MCHC.

Dr. Tracey said she takes a holistic approach to medicine, starting with her patients’ specific complaints and then asking questions that allow her to understand the whole story. She tries to help patients feel comfortable, so they can be truthful and share information that allows her to get to the root of the problem.

“I have worked with people in all walks of life. I’m a good listener and after so many years in medicine, it’s clear to me that everyone is just trying to do the best they can. My goal is to help them be healthier and feel better,” she said.

She noted that this is a particularly difficult time for some people. “In this post-pandemic world, people are dealing with a lot. In some ways, things are tougher now than they were. People are having to adjust to a new reality where COVID is never going away,” she said.

She embraces the model of care at federally qualified health centers such as MCHC, where medical, dental, and behavioral health care are all provided under one roof. She said enjoys working with other healthcare providers to support patients--she also enjoys MCHC’s team approach within each discipline.

At MCHC, patients are assigned to a healthcare team made up of medical providers, nurses, and support personnel with everyone working to support the patient. To qualify for federal funding, MCHC is held to strict quality standards, and the team approach helps ensure that high level of quality.

“I like working at FQHCs because they’re so organized. Everyone works together to meet the standards,” Dr. Tracey said.

When Dr. Tracey is not working, she enjoys spending time outdoors hiking, walking, and whenever possible, spending time with animals—mostly her own, but if she runs into you walking your dog, she will certainly stop and say hello, greeting you with a subtle Southern accent reminiscent of her upbringing in Oklahoma, where she completed her medical training at Oklahoma State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine.

MCHC Health Centers includes Hillside Health Center and Dora Street Health Center in Ukiah, Little Lake Health Center in Willits, and Lakeview Health Center in Lakeport. It is a community-based and patient-directed organization that provides comprehensive primary healthcare services as well as supportive services such as education and translation that promote access to healthcare.

Learn more at mchcinc.org.

BILL KIMBERLIN: 

This is one of the last shots in “Raider's of The Lost Ark”. How did they do that? Well, it was a matte painting. The artist paints the warehouse scene on glass, leaving an unpainted area where a motion picture of the worker pushing the crate with the Ark can be inserted and composited for the final shot.

I will be speaking at the Anderson Valley Historical Society's little red school house on March 19th explaining some of these visual tricks that I worked on.

ANGELA DAVIS has discovered that one of her ancestors was a passenger on the Mayflower, the English boat that brought white puritans to the New World in 1620. She appeared on an episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots on Tuesday, during which she also learned that both her mother's father and her father's father were both white men and descendants of slave owners. Ms. Davis, 79, is a part-time resident of the Holmes Ranch, Anderson Valley. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, February 23, 2023

ANDRES ACOSTA-CAMARA, Fort Bragg. Suspended license for DUI, no license, probation revocation.

JENNY BENNETT, Laytonville. Suspended license, resisting, failure to appear.

JUAN BOTTELO, Sacramento/Willits. Concealed dirk-dagger, suspended license.

SARA BRAY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

VINCENT CACCAMO, Fort Bragg. DUI.

ADAM CHAVIRA, Redwood Valley. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, damage to power lines, saps or similar weapons.

JESUS DELGADO JR., Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

ROLAND DONAHUE II, Fort Bragg. Vandalism of someone else’s property, causing a fire of property.

CHRISTOPHER DOTY, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

GABRIEL HAILEY-RUIZ, Ukiah. Robbery, offenses while on bail.

IAN HANES, Laytonville. Assault with deadly weapon other than a gun, use of firearm, felon-addict with firearm.

BRIGIDO LOPEZ-NIETO, Willits. DUI.

CESAR MAGDALENO, Woodland/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance.

ADAM PEARSON, Ukiah. Battery with serious injury, child endangerment, parole violation.

KEIR RAMOS, Willits. Lewd-lascivious acts upon child under 14, contributing to delinquency of minor, child endangerment with possible injury or death, annoy or molest victim under 18, touching intimate parts of another against their will.

TIMOTHY RICKON, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

SALVADOR RIVAS, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

NATHANIEL SECKER Fort Bragg. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

BRANDON SVALESON, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MITCH CLOGG: 

Do you believe that? In a physical sense, it’s absolutely true. When Europe opened its eyes on a new hemisphere and saw what is today’s lower forty-eight, they beheld the richest chunk of non-ocean of the current world, treasures literally beyond description. We set about killing it, eating it, poisoning it, tormenting it and despoiling it immediately, and we are still engaged in that, even as we decry the evils of Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Islam, Trump and The Devil.

Some of the world’s and history’s most resonant events and periods occurred in Germany. German warriors kicked Roman butt during the latter’s long decline, most notably in the Year 9 (nine!). It was the battle of the age, and it deprived Rome of its centuries-old dominance.

In the nineteenth century, into the first decade of the twentieth, Germany pretty much had a lock on humanity’s higher achievements. Science, learning, art, philosophy, medicine—Germans set the marks. The Einsteins, Freuds and Von Brauns, the Goethes, Nietzches, Marxes, Hegels and Schopenhauers, the Bachs, Offenbachs, Mendelssohns and Wagners—these people advanced civilization in ways that are still fabulous to see, hear and ponder.

So, why, I still find myself asking plaintively, did the society that produced some of the excellentest excellence of all produce the Third Reich and the hell it wrapped the planet in? How could a country and society as rich in virtue, as distinguished as Germany bring something so terrible to humankind?

Oh, yeah. Slavery. Germany could become the Nazi behemoth just like the solipsistically called New World could enslave, deprave, rape, torture, imprison, lynch and murder people of various shades of brown from 1526 to 1865 and beyond. Some “Light Unto the Nations”! Our obscene treatment of Africans lasted ten times as long as Germany’s obscenities against Jews and others who didn’t seem to fit the Teutonic ideal. Why do I keep forgetting this?

Hitler? How could the nation with more intellectuals per capita than practically anybody (except maybe the French, who pride themselves on their brains) become the thugs, the vicious, arrogant, merciless, wrong-headed thugs that characterized the German high command, officer corps and many of the troops and citizens? How could they possibly, in anyone’s wildest dreams, become the evil bastards they became as worshipers of Der Fuhrer? How could this even be possible?

Oh, yeah: Trump. Still with us, still poisoning the air we breathe, still living like an emperor. Still worshiped by people, some of whom are not, inexplicably, incorrigibly stupid: D. J. Trump. That Trump still calls these people to worship, that he is free to do so, not in custody, indicts us all, makes us criminally ridiculous. When, in God’s name, were the words “obvious” and “elusive” so comfortable in the same context?

Today, Jimmy Carter is celebrated for going home to hospice, to live out his days in peace, comfort, security and honor—in reverence. How seldom we are reminded that Jimmy Carter is a nuclear physicist, trained in that science at the United States Naval Academy. It “goes without saying” (read: we do not talk about it much) that he was a mostly incompetent president. He used all the wiles of politics to get where he got, the good and the bad, the cynical and corrupt. He did brave things and dumb things. He came through with some excellent initiatives, but he was generally a mediocre president. We should name and praise the good things. We should quit pretending that the catastrophe of the failed rescue of Americans kidnapped in Iran didn’t happen—stupidly—and that Reagan set up an unthinkable deception at the American Embassy in Teheran to secure the presidency for his masters. He was vastly more mediocre than his immediate predecessor. He didn’t conceive himself as evil, but evil he was. The Iran-Contra scandal is prima facie evidence, and the ruin of Latin America goes on and on and on because that’s how our shadowy leaders want it.

I wasn’t a particular fan of Carter’s brand of southern piety, but I celebrated his election; I saw him as a decent, intelligent and well-intended president and asked for no more. 

I didn’t even get that much, and Carter has spent his post-presidency apologizing, attempting to make for himself that goddamn stupid “legacy,” and assuring his eventual admission to Heaven. 

WAKE UP, EVERYBODY! WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US. Walt Kelly, father of POGO, wrote that in 1970. [The rest of this paragraph is taken from a website] During the War of 1812, the United States Navy defeated the British Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie. Commandant Oliver Perry wrote to Major General William Henry Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” Kelly’s parody of this famous battle report perfectly summarizes mankind’s tendency to create our own problems. In this case, we have only ourselves to blame for the pollution and destruction of our environment. 

Game’s over. We blew it.

But because I’m a cockeyed optimist, clinically mad, I still add, IT AIN’T OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS! I have seen hail-Mary passes caught and football games won in the final instant. I now am an advocate of the hail-Mary pass—and that’s not an outcome we can expect from America’s citizenry or “leadership class” (which was and always will be a fraud; it is a segment of the population with irresistible desires for wealth and power, derived from the exploitation of everything and everybody else; its membership is in the narrow band from Bad to Worse, and we’re all susceptible to it).

We have to rip our attention away from these screens and throw passes!

L.A. WOMAN 

by William J. Hughes

L. A. Woman... L.A. Woman…” by the Doors of course. Goin’ down there from Sacramento to where they created the L. A. album — 8512 Santa Monica Blvd — during my yearly trip to L.A. for Oscar weekend in late March.

“Cops in cars/ the topless bars/ never saw a woman so alone...” I won’t be, friends from NY, PA, FL and MT comin’ out to see the City of Angels through my eyes. “With a little girl/ in a Hollywood bungalow...” not quite but close to all that, like the Polo Lounge, Beverly Hills Hotel.

“I see your hair is burning/ hills are filled with fire...” the only hills between Sacto and Hollywood are the Tehachapi Mountains. After miles and miles of valley vegetables, and a yearly nod to the memory of James Dean at Rt 46 off 99 South, where he turned off for his fate, you climb and descend and arrive off Sunset Blvd. at the Pacific Ocean. “If they say I never loved you/ you know they are a liar...”

We’re all meeting, staying at the Beverly Laurel Motor Inn in the midst of the spread-city, nothing fancy or classy, comfortably ordinary.

No Ordinary days ahead. “Mr. Mojo risin’/ Mr. Mojo risin’...” Early Saturday morning for breakfast at the Paradise Cove Café, Malibu, right on the beach

“Drivin’ down your freeways...” along the PCH with the Pacific vast, mountains, mountain lions. “The cars hiss by my window/ like to waves down on the beach…” Porsches and Mercedes cruising on by our rental simple.

Simply one of the great settings for a restaurant, always on alert for celeb sightings, this being the weekend for such. Breakfast is making the sea serene. We all agree. 

The silver screen. I guess you could say it was, all black and white back then, heading up to Will Rogers State Park courtesy of the state.

Can you picture Douglas Fairbanks playing polo? I know you can. Right here you definitely can, Will Rogers polo field, nice and Cali winter green (yes, things turn green here, in the winter) white-washed signature fencing, Errol Flynn fencing and the other assorted living action figures from that Hollywood, Will Rogers as famous, if not more so, than the rest.

The west, the ‘Cherokee Kid,’ the way he lived, the cowboy dreams you had as a kid, his life on display like a Buffalo Bill poster, all saddles and leather and Navajo and lariats and rodeo and radio, my companions all brand new with him, an L.A. that’s a complete new compliment. “Riders on the storm/ riders on the storm...” since we’re around the commentating cowboy.

Ride on, drive em cowboy, freeways and surface streets to give the guests a taste of what this here truly is, heading up to the Baldwin Hills, the tiny-little Tetons of the basin, Scenic State Park, 360-degree view of the whole shebang, from San Fernando inland to the Pacific ocean, all of us turning our own circle, seeing the whole place, buildings and the millions reduced, nearly gone under the foliage the snow-dusted mountains and the ocean — eat your heart out Athens.

“Bloody red sun/ of fantastic L.A...”. “I love you the best/ better than all the rest...” So sayeth the Doors from the other L.A. locale, the ‘Morrison Hotel’ album.

“She was a rockin’ little lady in the city of light...” as the neon life/lights of L.A. come on, we are on to the Cannabis Café for a latter nibble and a legal taste in a legal setting… “Girl we could get much higher...” patio seating, all of us from that/those 60s, casually taking it all in — we done lived to be a ‘taken’/’token’ it all in.

Let’s eat! Kanter’s big deli, enough of us from Long Island, New York where delis are temples. Going to temple would fit right in here in the Fairfax district where I once saw Dustin Hoffman on the street telling someone he was on his way to temple. The holy sacraments in Kanter’s are pastrami and rye, corn beef and chopped liver, an L.A. history here from the Doors then to Larry David today.

“City of night/ city of night...” -- “Let me sleep all night/ in your soul kitchen...”

Sunday morning and breakfast from the best Jack in the Box on the planet. My friends have their doubts — but when we are sitting out on the all wood Malibu Pier, like a scene from ‘Chinatown,’ just across the street from the Jack, with our B grade take out stuff, all is recognition.

“And the rain falls gently on the town/ and over the heads of all of us…” from their ‘Soft Parade’ album which our visit has become, “enough traffic and sights and delights to know our way around...” “Reptiles abounding/ fossils/ caves/ cool air heights...” Up we go to the Griffith Observatory for the historic setting and the Rebel who never got to hear the Doors, up here like spaceships and mountain lions, the groomed grounds, the observatory’s mushroom dome and the head of the Rebel James Dean in bronze with the Hollywood sign on its hill as backdrop. My friends’ jaws don’t exactly drop but some awe has struck.

“Break on through to the other side...” Dean’s Rebel tried to as I think Dean himself tried to and here’s the Rebel knife fight scene with James Dean. We pay our respects, regrets — he could have been with us love children in the 60s — can you picture James Dean in ‘Easy Rider’ — up here at the knife scene we all can.

“She lives on love street/ lingers long on love street...” We’re on La Brea of the tar pits, headed to Pink’s, hot dog famous. Coney Island is in our blood, Pink’s like a sliced section for Los Angeles, Jay Leno critiqued, in the pink if I may be so cute. There’s always a line without a discouraging word.

Change our clothes, early dinner with the Doors, Jim at least, at Barney’s Beanery on Santa Monica Blvd, a plaque on the bar where Jim sat. “Well, I’m the Crawlin’ king snake...” Barney’s all franchising normal, beer and burgers before the savoy of the Polo Lounge.

Oscar night. “Hello I love you/ won’t you tell me your name...” the red carpet and the mawing fans, not exactly paying attention on the Beanery TV screens. “Television skies/ television skies...”

“Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar...” the red carpet always out at the Beverly Hills Hotel main entrance, parked across the street next to Will Rogers city park where they busted poor George Michael for masturbating in the men’s john (who and why was someone video watching? and who cares?) pointing it out to the group, a little tabloid fodder for the fans.

The hotel always openly inviting, busy with tuxedos and limos, the group of us casually sport jacket neat and clean. “I live up town/ I live downtown/ I live all around/ I’m the changling/ see me change...”

Chance encounters with stars perhaps as the televised ceremony is coming to its everlasting end, martinis in hand, the Polo Lounge always both Hepburns with a dash of Cary Grant, the group of us out in the cushioned lobby taking it all in, in a setting made for Gatsby and Gloria Swanson. Impressed, my friends relaxed.

“She’s a twentieth century fox/ no cares no fears no ruined years no clocks...” Who did we see? Nope, not going to tell you. You’ll have to come and see for yourself. “My eyes have seen her/ my eyes have seen her...”

Late cocktails at the Chateau Marmont public bar, not ordinary and not extraordinary, the hotel itself a bit off limits to the likes of us but all in all you get to rub against the star accounts of those who’ve stayed and those who’ve died — i.e., John Belushi. “No eternal reward/ will forgive us now/ for wasting the dawn...”

Our reward is breakfast on the Venice board/cement walk, used books with a café attached, the morning breeze, the Pacific beach, the morning promenade. Ahh. Just a stroll down the strand, somewhere in here the Doors created ‘Light my Fire.’ The Santa Monica Pier like another chunk of Coney Island for a bite, the coastline spread out north and south. We’re all warmed up.

Oil, Getty. Up to the gifted Getty Center, high on its hill above it all, an Acropolis of/for the arts and us, free. Toy-like tram up to the white and travertine campus, the museum collection not the most prominent part of the property, more the preservation and continuation of art. And the gardens, Babylon blush — and the cactus garden in Los Angeles before us, native and Spanish. “Take me Spanish caravans/ yes I know you can...” All of us/fiesta.

Lunching at Duke’s Malibu — see a Malibu theme here. Can’t leave town — without an ocean veranda parting view — and the original Gidget does welcoming work here — who I met once — not the actress Gidget, the real surfer girl that Gidget was based on. “Let’s swim to the moon/ let’s climb through the tide…”

Just hangin’ out at Malibu Lagoon, restored to its marshland life, sea birds and surfers, Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, our youthful music. Frank and Musso’s because it rhymes a bit with Wilson but it’s Musso and Franks on Hollywood Blvd, very Rat Pack Frank, very been in business in this spot for many years, classy still in an English gents club way against all the Walk of Fame junk up and down the boulevard. Meat, meat and more meat — you can see it in ‘Once Upon a Time — In Hollywood.’

A quick trip up to Melrose Avenue to the Formosa for a last cocktail — you can see it in ‘L.A. Confidential.’

“Change the mood from glad to ‘gladness…” replacing Jim’s “sadness.” Movie time L.A. Spielberg’s West Side Story and us from NY saw its original in the Big Apple so there’s a totally full circle.

“Not to touch the earth/ not to see the sun/ nothin’ left to do/ but run run run...” Off we all run to our homeward destinations. “Don’t you love her madly…?”

“THE TELL-TALE HEART” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. The story is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who is convinced that he is not mad, despite his strange behavior. He is obsessively preoccupied with an old man's “vulture eye,” which he finds so repulsive that he decides to kill the old man to get rid of it.

The narrator watches the old man for seven nights, and on the eighth night, he enters the old man's room and kills him. He dismembers the body and hides it beneath the floorboards. He is pleased with his success and believes that he has gotten away with the murder.

However, the narrator's guilt manifests in the form of an auditory hallucination, in which he hears the beating of the old man's heart from beneath the floorboards. The sound grows louder and louder until the narrator confesses to the murder and reveals the body to the police.

The story is known for its use of psychological horror and for its exploration of themes of guilt, insanity, and the human psyche. It is a classic example of Poe's dark and macabre storytelling style, and has had a lasting impact on the horror genre. The story also includes elements of the Gothic tradition, with its focus on madness and terror, as well as its use of an unreliable narrator.

EMMA UPGARD of Helena was “honest and kind-hearted” but also a misunderstood “peculiar character.” A 1904 newspaper report added that with her death, Helena lost “one of its best known and at the same time one of its least understood characters,” who also was widely known as “Crazy Emma.”

“That she was peculiar there is no doubt, but she was far from crazy, “ the newspaper reported. 

Around 1888, Upgard bought a parcel of land and a house “at the head” of Lawrence Street and owned some milk cows, which she would herd into the hills around Helena each summer. She also had chickens and ducks, and a husband Alex, who she married around 1897 when she was in her early 50s. 

Alex worked at the East Helena lead smelter, and apparently didn't like that all of his earnings went toward animal feed. He left Emma after she refused to sell the livestock. The news article said for months she tried to find Alex, but to no avail. “Finally, she gave the search up, and ever since she had visibly failed.”

“Her love for dumb creatures was her greatest mania,” the newspaper reported. “For years she stinted herself to feed all sorts of animals about her, and she finally reached the stage where she literally lived in a room with a dog, a number of cats, several magpies and at times chickens.” It noted that her “personal appearance was such that those who would have befriended her were forced to keep at a distance.”

Yet the community cared deeply for her, although after a brief stint in the hospital with pneumonia, “those who have seen her on the street, driving about in a rattletrap rig attached to an old roan horse, have wondered why some one did not look after her.”

She passed away a few days later. RIP Emma.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

We’re not going to discuss my hatred of men because I don’t hate men. My late kid brother was probably my favourite person in the world, maternal feelings aside. And my father and both of my brothers are/were gentlemen in the real sense and always behaved so towards their wives.

Nor do I have anything to say about gay men, other than there is no need to bad mouth the normal, unassuming, non-proselytising ones who just want to get on with a life they didn’t ask for. 

I also appreciate plumbers, sewage workers, builders, joiners and others who do things for me that I either have never trained in or would be no good at. They tend to be men too. But I imagine you have cause to be grateful to them too, because I’m not aware of your skills in those departments either.

UKRAINE, Thursday, February 23, 2023

Russia-Ukraine war enters its 365th day

US President Joe Biden, speaking in Warsaw on Wednesday, promised that the United States “will defend literally every inch of NATO”, the military alliance that includes some Eastern European countries bordering Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Chinese leader Xi Jinping would visit Russia, adding the two countries’ relations had reached “new frontiers”. The US and other Western countries have voiced concerns over China providing material support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, the largest land conflict in Europe since World War Two.

In a national address, Putin also said Russia will “pay increased attention to strengthening” land, air and sea nuclear capabilities.

A senior defence official said Russia will stick to agreed limits on nuclear missiles and keep informing the US about changes in its deployments, despite the suspension of the New START treaty – its last remaining arms control treaty with Washington.

Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of planning to invade Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region in a false flag operation, the RIA news agency reported.

Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda said he urged Biden to seek NATO deployment of additional military equipment, such as HIMARS artillery or attack helicopters, in the Baltic states.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced Russia’s invasion as a violation of the founding UN Charter and international law, and called out Moscow’s threats about the possible use of nuclear weapons, saying: “It is high time to step back from the brink.”

Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska called on the UN to establish a special tribunal to prosecute crimes of Russian aggression, stressing that “it is not only us who need that, we need that for everyone”.

The UN General Assembly was set to vote on Thursday on a resolution calling for “just and lasting peace in Ukraine”, the latest opportunity for countries to lodge an official position on the conflict.

European Union countries could not reach an agreement on Wednesday about new sanctions against Russia, and planned more talks to have the package ready for the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, diplomats said. 

(Al Jazeera)