ART HATCHER of AV Ambulance sent in the following: “The County of Mendocino is evaluating the feasibility of an Exclusive Operating Area (EOA) for ambulance services. The County's stated goals for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are to 'improve coordination, reliability, flexibility, to have greater resources, a higher level of service for isolated areas, and standards that meet the medical and financial needs of the community.' While some communities are struggling to provide emergency medical services, that is not the case for Anderson Valley. Our volunteer ambulance service has been going strong for more than 40 years without financial or administrative assistance from the County. If adopted and not carefully crafted, an EOA could negatively impact the community of Anderson Valley with the possibility of replacing our current ambulance service with a different EMS provider that is not community based or supported. On Monday, April 15th at 6PM, there will be a district Town Hall meeting at the Veteran's Building in Boonville to gather input from the community and discuss options regarding the EOA. Please come and show your support for the Anderson Valley Ambulance Service.”
YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER is adamantly opposed to any County interference with our Anderson Valley Ambulance service. If there's a local person unhappy with our volunteers and the professional level of service they've provided for the past forty years we've never heard from that person. There's absolutely no reason to bring in an ambulance corporation to replace our homegrown providers. We understand that there are areas of the County — Covelo, for instance — that have ongoing difficulties staffing its volunteer emergency services. We don't have that problem. Additionally, a new provider would be sure to push rates ever upwards and we would generally be at the mercy of a distant, unsympathetic bureaucracy. We have an institution created and staffed by Valley people that's served us well going on fifty years. No changes are needed, none are desired. Hands off the Anderson Valley Ambulance.
NAVARRO BY THE SEA'S 2nd Annual Earth Day Clean Up and Inn Tour! The Historic Coastal Inn known as Navarro by the Sea has undergone extensive rehab in the last few years since the property was acquired by the state and a coalition of non-profit groups was finally able to secure funding for the restoration. Most of the major work has now been completed for this unique historic building at the mouth of the Navarro River which was near collapse in 2010 when work began. To date the building itself has been restored and the last phase of the work — the interior — has begun. With luck the classic old inn and the public beach nearby will re-open to the public before the end of 2013. On Saturday May 4th, the non-profit group known as Navarro by the Sea will host a combination clean up and tour of the Inn and area. Cleanup activities will include cleaning and repairs to the historic Inn and Mill House, siding repairs and painting of the two cottages on the east side of the Inn, trash pick up at the beach and riverfront, invasive species removal, and planting native species. The volunteer cleanup will be from 9 to noon, followed by a barbecue for all the volunteers who RSVP (so we have enough food for you!). In the afternoon the Inn will be open to volunteers and the general public from 1 to 4 so everyone can see the amazing progress that has been made so far, and how much more work is still needed to complete the interior renovations and open it as an interpretive center. Saturday, May 4th; Navarro-by-the-Sea 2nd Annual Earth Day Clean Up. Volunteers Needed 9-12. Free BBQ at Noon for Volunteers. Navarro Inn Open for Tours 1-4. Call 707-877-3477 for info and to RSVP. Bring your boots, gloves, tools, and muscle! For much more information and photographs of the restoration so far go to navarro-by-the-sea-center.org
TERRIBLE ACCIDENT Saturday afternoon near Yorkville where a mini-SUV swerved into the oncoming lane to collide with a pick-up truck and trailer hauling firewood. Somehow the 70-something woman piloting the SUV was unable to negotiate a curve and careened into the oncoming truck-trailer. The three men in the pickup, and the 70-something woman and her husband in the mini-SUV, suffered injuries ranging from serious to moderate. Two ambulances, one from Ukiah and one from Boonville, reinforced by a medi-chopper, hauled the injured off, four to Ukiah, one flown to Sutter in Santa Rosa. Both vehicles were destroyed.
GRANGER GREG WRITES: “The Anderson Valley Grange cordially invites everyone to its annual membership meeting on Tuesday, April 16, 7 p.m., at the Grange on Highway 128 in Philo. April is Grange Membership month and new members can join at no cost. Granger Greg Krouse will describe the exciting new activities in Granges throughout the state and in Anderson Valley, and explain the benefits of Grange membership. A community discussion will share plans and ideas about how the Grange can help meet our needs. Would you like to see a Grange movie night, or farm training for youth and adults, food localization, and support for the county fair and fairgrounds? Please bring your energy and ideas to this venerable rural institution, a great resource for meeting our rural needs. The meeting starts at 7 PM with a bring-your-own utensils potluck. For information, 895-3842.”
DEE GOWAN, The Valley's popular in-home care lady, has suffered a stroke but is recovering nicely, Dee's many friends will be happy to learn.
CLARE WHEELER will lead the sixth annual Anderson Valley Land Trust wildflower walk on Sunday morning at 10:00 on April 21st, 2013. The location is near the headwaters of Gowan Creek on a south-facing slope of Whipple Ridge in Philo. Clare is the co-author of A Flora of Vascular Plants in Mendocino County. The walk will be limited to 30 participants. Please call Shelly at the AVLT office at 895-3150 for more details and to sign up. No fee.
DEPUTY CRAIG WALKER has been busy. He did the investigative work that nail a Gualala perv trafficking in child pornography. This man was freed almost immediately because our judges set bail for this offense at a mere $15,000. Even in the thoroughly debauched SF Bay Area child porn cases are taken much more seriously. Along with rounding up the usual local suspects doing the usual stuff — drunk in public, tweeking, moping — Deputy Walker recovered a small trailer belonging to a resident of Spy Rock, the legendary outlaw neighborhood northeast of Laytonville. That trailer was found at Tijuanita on Anderson Valley Way, Boonville. How it made its way all the way from Spy Rock to Boonville is not known.
GLEN SQUIRE of Rancho Navarro sends along recent photos of the mouth of the Navarro. The first one was taken April 5th when the River mouth was closed by a lengthy sand bar. Two days later, April 7th (after a little bit of rain) the sand bar had been breached and a shallow flow reached the ocean.
POP WARNER FOOTBALL was founded in the Anderson Valley by Dan Kuny who will be back as head coach this summer and fall, as Tony and Melanie Pardini follow their talented quarterbacking son, Tony Jr., to, I understand, the more stable football program at Cloverdale High School.
ON THE GENERAL SUBJECT of football and healthy role models for young people, John Toohey and Logo Teveseau have apparently found work at Ukiah High School where young teaching talent seems much more appreciated than it does here at Sedentary Unified.
DIDN'T QUITE FREEZE Tuesday morning in the Anderson Valley, but in the vineyards sprinklers and giant fans were running full blast well before dawn from Boonville to Navarro.
LOCAL HISTORY NOTES: Cold Spring Mountain (Signal Ridge). August 5, 1931: “This community was shocked Sunday when word was received Thomas Lynch passed away in San Francisco. Tom, as he was familiarly called, had been working as fire lookout at Signal Ridge and a week previous had gotten out of bed to answer the telephone and had stepped on a thorn on the floor of his tent. The thorn penetrated the bare foot and a portion broke off in the foot. On different days during the week he had friends who called on him try and get the thorn out with their pocket knives and by Friday his leg and foot were quite sore and badly swollen and he was brought to Point Arena for medical attention. Saturday he was taken to San Francisco, arriving there shortly after midnight. Blood poisoning had by that time reached such a stage nothing could be done and he died about five o'clock Sunday morning.” (Ukiah Republican Press)
MAY 17, 1933: “Oliver Moore, fire ranger of Willits was here during the past week to oversee the building of a lookout station on Signal Peak, it is understood a telephone line will be run from the station to Philo. A road has been built to the top of Signal which will eliminate a long steep climb that has had to be made on foot to reach the summit.” (Ukiah Republican Press)
1990: Due to budget cut the Lookout will not be staffed this fire season. (AVA)
AB WATCH, the volunteer Coast group trying to cut back abalone poaching, was much in evidence Saturday at several Coast access points near Fort Bragg and Mendocino. More power to them. Mobs of ab divers were out Saturday, and if the resource survives, credit the volunteers out there every day of the season keeping an eye out.
LOTS OF RECREATIONAL SALMON boats out of Noyo Saturday, a hundred or so visible from the Haul Road. Reports say catches are so far “spotty.”
HOW TO HIRE a school principal by Jim DeWilder of the Point Arena School Board as quoted in the ICO: “This meeting is the only opportunity staff or the community will have for input. The Board and the superintendent will be responsible for the actual interview and hiring process.”
THAT'S RIGHT, JIM. Clear lines of authority. The problem we've had here with the Anderson Valley schools for many years is that the hiring process has been mostly conducted on an insider basis, hence the nepotistic, palsy-walsy, cult-like apparatus we suffer today.
FOR YEARS, in many failed attempts to ingratiate myself with my Sig Other, I've bought her, among other floral delights, bunches of tulips. Which promptly keel over within hours. A friend recently suggested to her that one copper penny dropped in a vase of tulips will keep them standing at full Spring attention for at least a week, and darned if the penny hasn't done it! We're in Day 7 and those yellow beauties are as fresh and as upright as the day they were placed on our kitchen table. (I'll bet any number of local gardeners could have told me about the penny trick. I wish it had occurred to me years ago to ask Lucille Estes, ace Boonville gardener, my go-to botany person, but.....)
PLEASE JOIN US for the Quarterly Meeting of the Anderson Valley Foodshed Group on Thursday April 18 at Petit Teton Farm, located 4 miles south of Boonville on Highway 128, at mile market 33.39, driveway on the east side of the road. You will hear from some local farmers on gardening techniques that work in Anderson Valley. Come with questions and/or techniques of your own to share. The Foodshed Quarterly business meeting will be at 5:30, followed by another great local food potluck at 6:00. The program from 7:00 until 8:30 will consist of presentations on season extension, seed saving, dry farming and drip irrigation, followed by questions and sharing of gardening successes from around the valley, including specific crops and varieties that work here. Please bring your own dishes, drinks and a chair if you have one. You are welcome to come for all or any part of the evening. For more information please contact Cindy at 895-2949 or cwilder406@gmail.com. You can also be placed on our email list to receive all local food announcements.
THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS appeared on SF Gate following a Chron story about cool places to visit north of SF:
(1) Ukiah is 2 hrs to the north and you have wineries, redwoods, hot springs, and few other visitors. (2) Also I hear they are fund raising for the new Meth Museum too. (3) Ukiah is a swamp, go to the wineries and brewery in Boonville. (4) Yeah, Boonville has that creepy, don't-look-us-in-the-eye vibe of Pot Grower Central.
“POT GROWER CENTRAL”? Boonville? Boonville grows a lot of pot, no denying that, but shifty-eyed we aren't. Try Garberville for the full-on Pot Show.
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