Mendocino County Today: Saturday, May 20, 2023

A GRADUALLY COOLING TREND is expected this weekend and into next week as an upper trough and associated frontal system approaches the region. Gusty coastal winds will gradually build through the weekend. Otherwise, Sunday and early next week will bring the first chance of clearer skies at the coast with a cooling trend for the interior starting mid next week. (NWS)

Bouquet for his lady love by Jeff Burroughs

TRAFFIC FATALITY ON MASONITE ROAD

On May 18, 2023, at approximately 4:50 pm, the California Highway Patrol responded to a solo vehicle crash on Masonite Industrial Road at Ackerman Creek. Based on the preliminary investigation, the occupants of a 2011 Ford were traveling eastbound on Masonite Industrial Road at an undetermined speed. For reasons unknown, the driver allowed the 2011 Ford to travel off of the north road edge and strike a large rock. This impact caused the 2011 Ford to overturn, travel off of the bridge at Ackerman Creek and land in the creek. As a result, the 2011 Ford sustained major rollover damage. The driver sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene of the crash. The passenger sustained major injuries and was transported to the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital to be treated for his injuries. At this time, it does not appear alcohol or drugs were a contributing factor to the crash.

The death investigation is being handled by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). The identity of the deceased will be released by the MCSO, pending notification of the next of kin.

The Ukiah Valley Fire Department, Cal Fire, and REHIT responded to the scene to assist with the California Highway Patrol's ongoing investigation.

LOG TRUCK TOPPLES OVER ON STATE ROUTE 253

A logging truck accident on State Route 253 slowed traffic this morning and requires a heavy-duty tow system to hoist from where it came to rest off the roadway.

The California Highway Patrol Traffic Incident Information Page indicates the accident occurred around 6:27 a.m. A 55-gallon drum was requested to the scene to drain diesel from the semi.

The Caltrans Quickmap shows traffic is moving slower in the area of the accident as crews work to extricate the vehicle.

FORT BRAGG WATER RESILIENCY AND RECREATION

On March 31, 2023, the City finalized the purchase of six (6) parcels totaling 582 acres (the “Property”), located adjacent to Highway 20 and abutting the Summers Lane Reservoir property. The primary objective of the purchase is to construct three (3) reservoirs of the approximate size of Summers Lane Reservoir, which is 45 acre-feet. This location provides convenient connection to infrastructure allowing gravity flow to our raw water line, conveying water to our treatment plant. Another benefit is the proximity to high power PG&E transmission lines. Our reservoirs require a floating cover to suppress algal growth and evaporation. The City’s existing reservoir has floating balls to reduce the effects of sunlight which has worked extremely well. It is our hope to install floating solar panels on the new reservoirs to generate roughly 3 megawatts of electricity.…

cityfortbragg.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11986150&GUID=C0878CB6-344D-470A-A6D1-4F3BEFB25F05

DARLENE NEAL: The Animal Shelter on Summers Lane in Fort Bragg is closing next month due to lack of funding…remaining animals will be transferred to the overcrowded Ukiah shelter… they face the possibility of euthanasia…hopefully they will get adopted prior to being shipped over! Once again… the Coast eats it on losing an essential service due to lack of funds…County funds… deemed more necessarily spent inland! With a Supervisor seat coming up in our district…perhaps Candidates will give some thoughts on how they will change this and fund services on the Coast!

* * *

CLARIFICATION

Re: Coast Humane Society

The Mendocino Coast Humane Society (MCHS) is not closing. It is the small County Animal Care Services, Fort Bragg, just next door to MCHS that is closing. We fought 8 long years to reopen the shelter after losing our battle to keep it open. The County claims that it costs $250,000 to run the shelter and our County is broke.

The women running and operating our Fort Bragg shelter have done a bang up job caring for and adopting out animals and many of us are crushed to see the shelter close. With our County in such debt and our infrastructure what it is, the shelter on the coast is low on the totem pole. Interesting reference to totem poles since animals, most often, hold the highest positions in such carvings.

What we need to look at is what we can do to help keep the number of orphaned and abandoned animals at a minimum. It's time we understand that animals are living, breathing, feeling beings entrusted to our care. We must spay/neuter our animals and encourage all our friends, neighbors and family members to do the same. We must encourage our supervisors to find a way for Care-a-Van, the County's mobile spay neuter clinic to visit the Coast on a regular basis. With the limited number of vets in our area and the Humane Society backed up for months to assist with spay/neuter, we MUST get Care-a-Van here to help.

We often hear when we speak of humane care and compassion for animals that we are not taking care of community members in need of help. I do not believe the two are mutually exclusive. I believe the time to close the doors of a shelter is when there is no need for the shelter and that time will come when we truly understand animals are not expendable.

Carol Lillis, S.O.S.- Networking for Mendocino Coast Companion Animals

AV CSD BUDGET COMMITTEE NEEDS REPLACEMENT MEMBER

Mark Scaramella has been a fixture at CSD meeting for over 30 years. Not only has he attended CSD board meetings as a member of the public, he has also been a voting member of the CSD’s budget committee. Unfortunately, due to health concerns, he has not been able to join either group for the last few months and has stated that he will not be coming back. We are missing his presence on both committees. For the Board meeting, he would often contribute by offering his opinion and would volunteer to take on special projects or craft letters. He was depended on for parliamentary and procedural advice as he was encyclopedic in Robert’s Rules of Order and kept us legal as we navigated the Brown Act. On the Budget committee, he would get into the weedy details of expenditures and revenues. And, of course, for both he provided a transparency that we are now lacking, by reporting on the meetings. Thanks, Mark, for your years of contribution.

* * *

The CSD Budget Committee is looking for a member of the public to fill the spot vacated by Mark. The committee meets once a month, on the 2nd Wednesday, starting at 3pm. The committee’s purpose is to review the financial activity for the prior month and to make recommendations to the CSD Board about finances. If interested, call Cora Richard, CSD General Manager, at 707-895-2075.

(Kathleen McKenna, Trustee, Anderson Valley Community Services District)

AV UNIFIED NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

It is amazing to think we are at the end of the school year! We have some huge milestone celebrations coming up in the next few weeks.

We are very grateful to Celeste, Maribel, Belma and the office and other staff members for creating meaningful promotion ceremonies in conjunction with parents and guardians. We are returning to our pre-Covid mode welcoming community members to attend the ceremonies. Families will have reserved chair seating on the gym floor and community members are most welcome to join us in the bleachers. The graduates will be seated on the stage.

We are getting into that crazy time of the year. Please join us for:

Preschool graduation May 25 5:00 p.m. Old District Office Oval
June 1 FFA Awards Night 6/1
Senior Awards Night 6/5 6:30
Sixth grade graduation 6/6 6:00
Eighth grade graduation 6/7 6:00
Field day Elementary 6/7
Field Day High School 6/8
High school graduation 6/8 7:00

Mr. Toohey and students have created an impressive gym. We are working with the Community Services District to try and staff it for public use. More news to follow.

Permission slips for the Junior High trip to Scandia were passed out on May 1st. The last day to turn in permission slips will be Friday, May 26th. The junior high field trip will be on Friday, June 2nd and will last the entire school day.

Congratulations to the Service Learning Team, the AVUSD and CSD boards who finalized the SkatePark/Community Park sale. We are very excited to see all that will be!

The elementary school septic bids have moved through the mandatory ten-day protest period and a contract will be issued shortly. The out buildings are being painted. Beautiful art is hanging in the hallways. I saw the Ukulele in action. Good stuff!

Just a reminder for elementary students: Walk to School Day is Wednesday May 24 @ 8:30. Students who are already on campus will be loaded on a bus and dropped off at the meeting spot. Parents can drop their children off at the junction of AV Way and 128 opposite Lichen Estate and/or join us in the walk! There will be a van to take parents back to their cars at the end. Join us for the 1.5 mile walk! No volunteer requirements are needed as we will be outside all together!

Summer School

The bus route has been set and will be released soon There are some modifications. If you want your student to attend summer school, please contact the school office. If your student has an F on their high school transcript, especially if it is a core class in math, science or English, sign them up. We also want to encourage all students that have a C- or below in a core class that may want to attend a four year college, to attend summer school to create a safety net in case they decide in Junior or Senior year that they really do want a four year opportunity. Not correcting the lower grades will accumulate and it may be too late at that point to correct the issue. Better to be proactive and prepared.

We are hiring! We will have a few part time positions available - perfect for family members who want to be a part of their children's school day but can't commit to all day!

Have a great weekend.

Sincerely yours,

Louise Simson, Superintendent

Anderson Valley Unified School District

707-684-1017

MUSIC IN THE PARK?

Hello AV Families!

As we wrap up ordering our first round of new playground equipment and resources for the park, I wanted to loop back to inquire what outdoor musical instruments your family has actually engaged with that have been successful in inspiring creative play? Do you happen to have photos of them you might share?

We have the option to add 1 or more musical elements to the park and are hoping to dial in on what pieces are most effective and which tend to disappoint.

Here are some photos and a link to a potential vendor, Percussion Play, for inspiration.

https://www.percussionplay.com/quintet-ensemble/

Want To Learn More? - Want to be more engaged with our local park? Join the growing team of individuals working hard to bring improvements and enhance recreational opportunities for our community in Anderson Valley! From toddlers to teenagers, young adults to seniors, we want the park to serve everyone, offering a place where all members of our community can come and share in healthy activities together.

How To Help? - We will continue to need help with Fundraising, Outreach, & Planning in the years ahead. Please, reach out and let us know what you can bring to the team!

(Elizabeth Jensen)

NURSERY SALE! AT AV FARM SUPPLY

This Saturday, May 20th 9am-5pm

20% off ALL Plants

20% off ALL Foxfarm products, including Ocean Forest & Happy Frog!

20% off ALL Pots

You’ll find:

• Huge variety of veggies including Organic veggies from local Strong Roots in Potter Valley

• Citrus Trees

• Landscape shrubs, flowers and more!

AV HOSPICE INFORMATION AND VOLUNTEER MEETING

This Tuesday, May 23rd, 2 - 3 pm, Boonville Fire House

Hospice of Ukiah Services are coming to Anderson Valley

For over 41 years Hospice of Ukiah has been caring for our community in Mendocino County. They believe in life with comfort and death with dignity.

They are funded entirely by donations and bequests, along with support of many volunteers in raising funds and providing care. Hospice of Ukiah accepts no government or private insurance and their services are without charge to anyone who needs them.

Services beyond Ukiah are difficult to provide without donations to cover the medical staff, as well as the recruitment and training of volunteers.

Mark Apfel, MD and Judy Nelson, RN, have been providing services for Hospice of Ukiah in the Anderson Valley for many years. We want to expand services to the Anderson Valley to include a part-time nurse, a personal care assistant and more volunteers. The Anderson Valley Hospice Committee is under the auspices of Hospice of Ukiah. The committee currently is comprise of Judy Nelson, Lauren Keating, Donna Pierson-Pugh and Susan Bridge-Mount

We are inviting community members who are interested to hear more about this program and possibly volunteer to join us on Tuesday, May 23rd at the Boonville Fire House from 2:00 to 3:00 pm.

We ask that the community support our efforts with a donation to help Hospice of Ukiah provide services in Anderson Valley. Checks can be written to Hospice of Ukiah with a note “for Anderson Valley.” The address for mailings: Hospice of Ukiah, 620 Dora St., Ukiah, CA 95482.

COUNTY NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

Memo Of The Week #1

To: Honorable Board of Supervisors (May 8, 2023)

From: Chamise Cubbison, Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector

Re: Supervisors’ request for account descriptors and respective balances for fiscal years ending June 30, 2020, June 30, 2021, and June 30, 2022

On April 25, 2023 the Board of Supervisors’ Meeting Agenda contained an Item for which the recommended action was “Direct Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector to provide account descriptors and respective balances for all County specific assets and liabilities prior to the creation of the Annual Comprehensive Finance Report (ACFR) for Fiscal Years Ended June 30, 2020, June 30, 2021, and June 30, 2022, within 10 days of action.” The Item was continued to a future meeting, but the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector agreed to provide information attached to an Item for the May 9 meeting.

The discussion during the meeting indicated that the report should not require the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector to spend time developing a responsive report. Therefore, I have interpreted the request to be for the Trial Balance information available from the County’s Munis finance system, which is substantially used as the basis, along with additional adjustments, to flow into the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). Attached please find Trial Balance information from the Munis finance system for the County’s primary funds for the fiscal years ending June 30, 2020, June 30, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

It is important to note that at the request of the Board, the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector has begun entering period 13 adjusting entries recommended by the outside audit firm to more closely, where possible, align Munis with the ACFR. This change was largely implemented during fiscal years ending June 30, 2021, and 2022. However, there may be additional adjustments necessary because of this effort. There are impacts as a result of this implementation that make Period 13 entries for years ending June 30, 2021, 2022 and 2023 unusual in comparison to prior years and that will require that future Budget Reports primarily be run for Periods 1-12.

In addition, the County’s practice of recognizing revenue received within 60 days of June 30 results in adjusting entries for longer term receivables to receivables and unavailable revenue in period 13 which impact Fund Balance for financial statement reporting purposes. (The Board could direct that revenue be recognized for a longer period of time (reasonably up to six months), which would likely eliminate this difference). Due to these differences, the final closing Fund Balance shown is reduced by the amount of unavailable revenue as well as changes in fair value of investments. There may be other timing differences which will result in additional changes to the 2021-22 Trial Balance as the outside auditors complete their work on the 2021-22 audit and the 2021-22 financial statements.

* * *

Next week’s CEO Budget Presentation is very much an insider’s game. So we don’t see much point in quoting from it beyond the above already cryptic memo from the Auditor. For example there are some budget presentation topics listed — “Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund,” “Teeter Reserve,” “IT-Internal Service Fund Holiday,” etc. with no amounts listed — that are meaningful only to the person who prepared them. Basically, Mendo’s budget picture is revenues are down and expenses are up and that’s before any consideration of wage increases for County employees.

Then we come to what the CEO describes as “Needed Reductions”: “Reductions to departmental submitted budgets, Business Improvement District (BID), Boards and Commissions, and Use of Realignment Funds.”

Apparently, the Board will be asked to cut departmental proposed budgets by some arbitrary but unstated amount. There’s not much to be saved by reducing “Boards and Commissions.” We have no idea what they mean by reducing the use of realignment funds. But the possibility of reductions to the “Business Improvement District” is sure to be a hot one. Last year, two Supervisors, Gjerde and Haschak, were in favor of reducing the handout to the wine-tourism crowd because the County’s budget was tight. Now it’s worse (presumably) and the CEO is proposing to reduce it. In the past, the Wine-Tourism crowd has been able to rely on Supervisors the Williams, Mulheren McGourty axis to continue their $600k handout. It will be interesting to see if that changes this year.

The Board is scheduled to hold formal “budget hearings” on June 6 and 7, and adopt a final budget by June 20. Time is short.

* * *

MEMO OF THE WEEK #2

Philo-Greenwood Bridge Project Hearing Minimally Noticed in Anderson Valley

RE: Noticed Public Hearing – Discussion And Possible Action Including Adoption Of A Resolution Adopting An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration And A Mitigation Monitoring And Reporting Program In Compliance With The California Environmental Quality Act Requirements For The Rehabilitation And Widening Of Bridge Number 10c0032, On Philo-Greenwood Road, County Road 132, Milepost 17.33, Over The Navarro River (Philo Area).

Honorable Board of Supervisors:

On August 14, 2012, the Board of Supervisors (BOS) approved Resolution Number (No.) 12-112 authorizing the award of BOS Agreement No. 12-104/Department of Transportation (DOT) Agreement No. 120014, Professional Services Agreement with Quincy Engineering, Inc. for preliminary engineering design and technical studies pertaining to the rehabilitation and widening of the Philo-Greenwood Road Bridge over the Navarro River, CR 132, MP 17.33, near Philo, Mendocino County, California.

The existing bridge on Philo-Greenwood Road crossing the Navarro River is a single-lane bridge built in 1951 and consists of 15 spans for a total length of approximately 350 feet including abutments. Twelve approach spans are composed of timber and are on the northern end of the existing bridge. The remaining three spans are concrete, characterized by open-spandrel arch construction. In 2010, Caltrans determined that the bridge was structurally deficient and functionally obsolete due to a variety of factors, including a narrow bridge deck (i.e. one-lane bridge) and rotting timbers. Philo-Greenwood Road is classified as a Rural Minor Collector per the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Functional Classification System and has an Average Daily Traffic (ADT) of approximately 400 vehicles per day. The existing bridge is currently classified as Functionally Obsolete with a sufficiency rating of 46.9 out of 100 and is eligible for rehabilitation or replacement under the Federal Highway Administration Bridge Program administered by Caltrans. The existing bridge no longer meets the safety and functional needs of the public. DOT proposes to rehabilitate and widen the existing bridge and construct the necessary roadway approach improvements. The rehabilitated bridge will meet current design standards of Mendocino County, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and Caltrans.

The project would widen and rehabilitate the existing arch span and replace the timber approach spans with a new concrete approach structure. The rehabilitated bridge would maintain the architectural character of the original bridge and would accommodate two traffic lanes, a raised sidewalk, and meet the capacity requirements of the roadway and current design code traffic load requirements. The project is expected to be constructed in two stages to allow Philo-Greenwood Road to remain open to traffic (one-way controlled) during construction. Stage 1 of the project is anticipated to occur summer of 2025 and Stage 2 is expected to occur summer of 2026.

The estimated total cost of the project is approximately $17.09 million. The project is federally funded primarily through the Federal Highway Bridge Program, with the local match being reimbursed through the Toll Credits Program.

Pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements, an Initial Study (IS) has been completed for this project. The study supports the adoption of a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND). CEQA further requires that the lead agency hold a public hearing to determine whether the environmental impacts identified for the project can be adequately mitigated so that no significant adverse environmental impacts will result. If so, the Board can then adopt a Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project.

Public comments received up to the public hearing date of May 23, 2023, will be provided during the Board’s meeting. Public comments on the IS/MND for this project were received during the public review period (March 27, 2023, through April 26, 2023.)

The Department of Transportation maintains, based on the Initial Study, it is appropriate for the Board to adopt the proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project. The draft report which includes a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program is available for review at the following website: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/environmental-documents. The proposed bridge construction is expected to greatly improve safety without causing significant impacts. Construction of the bridge is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2025, pending receipt of applicable permits and federal funding.

Based on the foregoing considerations, I recommend and request adoption of the proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration, and that the Director of Transportation be given authorization and direction to file the applicable Notice of Determination.

A draft Resolution for adoption of the proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration and related documents are enclosed.

I will, of course, respond to any questions that the Board may have. Respectfully submitted,

Howard N. Dashiell, Director of Transportation

* * *

ED NOTE: Despite the project’s location in Anderson Valley, the public notice of the hearing was run in the Ukiah Daily Journal where we doubt anyone from Anderson Valley saw it and where the cost was much higher than it would have been had it run in the Anderson Valley Advertiser where more people would have seen it.

According to an attached “proof of notification”:

“A copy of the above Notice was posted at the following locations and in the following manner:

1) The Mendocino County Clerk’s Office on March 23, 2023.

2) At a highly visible location on the west side of the bridge (project site) on March 24, 2023.

3) The Philo Post Office on March 24, 2023.

4) The Boonville Post Office on March 24, 2023.

5) Published in the Ukiah Daily Journal on Saturday, March 25, 2023, and Sunday, March 26, 2023.

The above Notice and Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration were also made available for public review at the following location:

6) The Mendocino County Department of Transportation website on March 24, 2023.”

There was no press release on the hearing either.

View from Route 20, West of Willits (Jeff Goll)

MENDOCINO COUNTY DA GIVES ACLU RECORDS YEAR AFTER LAWSUIT

by Colin Atagi

It took a year for the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office to release information to the ACLU of Northern California after a lawsuit claimed requests for public records had been ignored.

Records include policy and data illustrating whether the District Attorney's Office fell in line with California's Racial Justice Act, which passed in 2020 to prevent convictions and sentencing based on race.

The ACLU began requesting information from Mendocino County in 2021 and filed its lawsuit in May 2022. Records were received last month.

"We are grateful that we will not need to litigate this further against Mendocino. We are nonetheless concerned that it required litigation to get any response from Mendocino," Emi MacLean, an ACLU senior staff attorney, said in an email to The Press Democrat.

Court costs and fees are still being discussed and Brina Blanton, a deputy district attorney [ed note: Brina Blanton works in the County Counsel’s office, not the DA’s office] handling the case for Mendocino County, said she could not comment until the matter is fully resolved.

A hearing is scheduled for June 30 to discuss costs and fees but neither party specified amounts.

MacLean said the ACLU requested information from each of California's 58 counties so it may be posted online for easier public access.

Lawsuits were filed against four counties that didn't respond to requests: Mendocino, Orange, Siskiyou and Santa Cruz. The matter with Siskiyou is resolved, but the ACLU is still working with Orange and Santa Cruz counties, MacLean said.

She added the ACLU doesn't know why Mendocino County didn't cooperate right away.

“Mendocino's response to our records requests clearly violated the county's obligations to disclose public information about prosecutorial actions,” MacLean said. “Since we filed the case, Mendocino has disclosed responsive information. This demonstrates that they had the information all along despite their silence over many months.”

In a civil complaint filed May 13, 2022, it accused Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster of ignoring public records requests for information on how his office is implementing measures related to the Racial Justice Act.

The Racial Justice Act went into effect in 2020 and allows people to vacate convictions or sentences based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.

The ACLU contends it submitted public records requests in July and September 2021 and Eyster never responded or acknowledged their existence.

According to the lawsuit, the July request was for “policies, practices and training materials relevant to the implementation to the Racial Justice Act.”

The September request was for “data reflecting prosecutorial actions and case outcomes.”

According to court records filed by the DA's office, attorneys for each party met on six occasions and “mutually agreed” each time to extend the time for the DA's office to file a response to the lawsuit.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

NARCAN SAVE IN UKIAH

On Monday, May 1, 2023 at approximately 12:15 A.M., a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy overheard a radio broadcast for a medical aid for a possible overdose in the 300 block of East Perkins Street in the City of Ukiah.

Upon arriving the Deputy noticed a bystander performing CPR on a 32 year old adult male who was lying on the ground near a business. The Deputy noticed the adult male's face was bluish in color and that he exhibited shallow breathing. The Deputy administered a 4MG dosage of Narcan to the adult male suspecting the adult male was suffering from a potential lethal overdose.

Approximately 45 seconds later the adult male showed a physical improvement but still displayed an altered level of consciousness. Shortly thereafter, personnel from the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority arrived and began providing additional medical treatment. The adult male was subsequently transported to the Adventist Health Ukiah Valley hospital for further medical treatment.

During interview(s), the Deputy learned the adult male smoked a personal amount of heroin just prior to experiencing the medical emergency.

JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY

On Friday, May 12, 2023 at approximately 2:18 AM Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to investigate a domestic violence dispute. Deputies contacted a 26-year-old male in the 3800 block of Road B, Redwood Valley.

Deputies learned the 26-year old male's life was threatened, he was physically assaulted and was cut with a knife by his ex-girlfriend (Gabrelle Miller, 25, of Ukiah).

During the altercation the 26-year old male suffered several lacerations to his body consistent with the attack. No on scene medical treatment was needed for the lacerations.

During the investigation Deputies located Miller and placed her under arrest for Felony Domestic Violence Battery, Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon, and Criminal Threats.

Miller was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $30,000 bail.

RUSSIAN RIVER WATER FORUM:

Tribal governments and environmental NGO’s from the Eel and Russian River basins, water suppliers on the Russian River, and county representatives from Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake and Humboldt counties are among the thirty or so members of the forum. There is no limit on tribal seats, and members can still be added. … Four working groups have been set, and members are gravitating towards the groups they believe suit their expertise. The groups will focus on water supply and fisheries, finance, water rights, and the governance of whatever entity takes over a diversion after decommissioning. A Russian River Resiliency Subcommittee. … The various interests in the protracted discussions over the Potter Valley Project have been having the same fights for years…

(Sarah Reith)

Mark Scaramella Notes: This unwieldy and growing group of “stakeholders,” many of which have been at crosspurposes with one another for decades, are supposed to somehow come up with a way to deal with the pending decommissioning of at least one and very likely two dams on the South Fork of the Eel River. As Ms. Reith reports, “The various interests in the protracted discussions over the Potter Valley Project have been having the same fights for years…” Adding more people to the mix is a tried and true Mendo path to failure. The only factor that we find dubious is the timing: Although PG&E seems to be in a rush, relatively speaking, we don’t think anything will happen in this decade at the earliest. The only other dam decommissioning project in the state this century — the four dams on the Klamath River scheduled to begin this year — took decades to arrange.

Full Report: kzyx.org/2023-05-18/russian-river-water-forum-planning-group-meets

SHERIFF KENDALL:

We at the Sheriff’s Office continue to face many issues dealing directly with homelessness and several drug related issues. Although homelessness is not a crime, the spoils of homelessness continue to plague our communities and our nation. The problem continues to manifest itself with trespassing, trash, intoxicated subjects, arsons, and other issues including violence and property crimes.

This is extremely concerning as we move into summer as we have seen several arsons which have been set by homeless individuals.

Homelessness and addiction in Mendocino County are mirroring the drug and mental health crisis across the state of California and the United States.

There is a difference for rural communities. The issue is always the fact we have fewer services to meet the needs as well as a large land area to cover.

Legislations enacted beginning with AB 109 in 2011, followed by Prop 47 in 2014, Prop 57 and Prop 64 passed in 2016 have decriminalized many crimes including narcotics and thefts to the point they are only remedied by citation. Many other factors include the zero-bail reform which occurred during the pandemic and early releases from state prisons. These haven’t helped much either.

The idea behind decriminalization of drugs and many other crimes looked good on paper, however they required an extremely robust social services network in order to meet the needs of what was to come. I believe we are currently witnessing what occurs when no framework is put in place to bridge the gap which law enforcement and the courts had previously used as a pathway to treatment and services. For many of us in public safety it appears our state government is attempting to build the aircraft midflight.

I am constantly asked what the homeless issue stems from. There are voices on all sides of the issue, including housing, lack of opportunity, and the economy. I can only speak to my experiences and what I have seen from a public safety perspective.

In my opinion, addictions are driving the largest portion of the problems we are seeing today. Drug usage continues to be an issue that is currently growing not receding.

The one common denominator we see in all homeless encampments is the presence of hypodermic syringes and methamphetamine smoking pipes. The question is and will remain is this the cause or a symptom.

I have heard many people arguing mental health issues are the driving force, however after working with people in the encampments, many of whom I have known for a long time and some of which I have known since my youth, I have watched a slow decline in these folks physically and mentally as drug usage became more and more mainstream.

This is the chicken or the egg question. Is a person experiencing mental health issues due to drug usage or is this person using drugs to self-medicate due to their mental health issues?

Either way I think we can all agree applying drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl to any situation is never good. Basically, we need to stop arguing and all agree drug usage has to stop.

First responders across the nation including law enforcement, fire, and EMS are all carrying NARCAN and that is slowing the number of overdose deaths. Even with this tool, the number of deaths continues to climb while we attempt to combat the issue with the narcotic-reversing drug. I shudder to think what things would look like without NARCAN.

During 2022 in Mendocino County, we had 69 accidental deaths reported through the Coroner’s Office. These deaths include, however are not limited to, persons who perished in fires, vehicle accidents, falls, drownings, and drug overdoses. Of the 69 accidental deaths reported in 2022, 48 of those deaths were overdoses. That is almost 70% of all accidental deaths in our county last year. Clearly, we have a problem.

Finding a solution to the problem is no easy task however we are working towards finding these solutions. No one wants to see these problems continue or grow. I will be working with county partners looking at building a response team much like the team we use for mental health dual response. My thought process is much the same as it is for mental health issues. People in crisis often don’t seek help and therefore help must be brought to them.

As we begin to build this program, I am hopeful we will see new partnerships form and services rendered to help bridge the gap we are currently experiencing. This will require community support as well as participation from the affected communities including those in need of services.

As always thank you for continually supporting our people here at the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mattel Center, Redway, early 1980s (photo by Kim Sallaway)

PG&E SUED OVER EEL RIVER DAMS, FISH

by Jackson Guilfoil

A coalition of environmental and commercial fishing groups are suing Pacific Gas and Electric Co., alleging the company is violating the federal Endangered Species Act by harming salmon and steelhead trout populations in the Eel River with the Potter Valley project’s two dams.

The Scott Dam and Cape Horn Dam are currently being decommissioned, a process that could take years, and five groups — California Trout, Friends of the Eel River, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Trout Unlimited and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations — argue in a complaint that a decrease in salmon and steelhead population is directly attributable to the dams, which no longer produces power after a transformer issue.

“We expect PG&E to propose the removal of both Eel River dams in this fall’s decommissioning plan. Scott Dam faces serious seismic safety concerns and has no fish passage,” Alicia Hamann, executive director for Friends of the Eel River said in a release. “But Cape Horn dam is also very problematic for fish and the ecological function of the river. The fishway at the dam harms and harasses fish whose populations are already severely depressed.

Fish ladders are really difficult to operate in a sediment-rich river like the Eel and PG&E has been operating this ladder for years despite known risk to these protected species.

“The best move for PG&E and the Eel River is to remove both dams as soon as possible.”

Hamann did not respond for a request for comment by the Times-Standard’s print deadline.

PG&E is currently developing an initial draft surrender application and expects to turn it into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by November of this year. The application will ask for permission to physically remove the dams and river features, barring the possibility of another group offering a proposal for what to do with the infrastructure.

The draft will be available for public comment, and its second form should be ready by May 2024 with a final surrender application submitted by 2025, said Paul Moreno, a spokesperson for PG&E.

“Every so many years, we get a very similar complaint alleging violations of ESA, and they’re never shown to be true,” Moreno said.

Moreno added that, in its 100-year history with the Potter Valley Project, PG&E has been ESA compliant and that other factors, such as logging, water diversion and illegal grows contribute to the conditions killing local fish.

Facing dismal spawning seasons, California recently canceled its salmon season, sending ripples across the ladder of communities dependent on the state’s fish for their well-being.

“We applaud PG&E for seeking to decommission this project, but in the interim, they need to operate the project in a way that reduces its impact on fish and is compliant with the law,” Redgie Collins, legal and policy director with California Trout, said. “We understand that the dams could be out in five years or perhaps even less, but PG&E needs to comply with the law starting today.”

In a release, the groups cite a National Marine Fisheries Service statement on May 11 that the Cape Horn Dam facility for fish passage is probably not compliant with their guidelines.

Moreno said PG&E has received the complaint and is reviewing the allegations contained in it.

“We’re confident that our Potter Valley projects operations are in compliance with all environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act,” Moreno said.

(Eureka Times-Standard via Ukiah Daily Journal)

BROAD-BASED GROUP PROTESTS CDFW ILLEGAL PERMIT DENIAL FOR STREAM RESTORATION PROJECT

by Patrick Higgins

On Tuesday, May 16 the Eel River Recovery Project (ERRP) sent a packet of letters to California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot protesting the denial of a California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) 1653 permit for bioengineering projects in the Tenmile Creek watershed near Laytonville. Fifteen letters were included in the packet including local government agencies, allied non-profits, Tribes, restoration site landowners, and experts. While the issuance of the 1653 permit is central to the groups’ request, they also share concern about CDFW impeding ecological restoration in the Eel River watershed instead of collaborating.

ERRP has been working in the Tenmile Creek watershed, which is a major South Fork Eel River tributary, since 2018. They sent questionnaires to all landowners and won cooperation of those with the most serious bank erosion problems in streams with salmon and steelhead runs. After including recommendations for restoration of the sites in a 2020 watershed action plan, ERRP successfully applied to the State Water Resources Control Board and was awarded a 319h grant to abate sediment pollution and create enhanced fish habitat. The plans for the project were based on designs from the CDFW publication, the California Salmonid Habitat Restoration Manual, and created by riparian restoration expert Evan Engber of BioEngineering Associates.

After receiving approval of the 100% project design in March 2022 from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) that is administering the project, ERRP began to pursue permits. Restoration experts from the NCRWQCB awarded the project a Small Habitat Restoration Project (SHRP) exemption that indicated there was no risk of pollution to waters of the State. The NCRWQCB was willing to serve as Lead Agency for the project, and confirmed that California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements were met. The Army Corps of Engineers is ready to approve a 404 permit, which ensures protection of federal waters and the National Marine Fisheries Service is prepared to publish a favorable Biological Opinion and a Take Permit that allows construction as well as removal and relocation of salmon and steelhead juveniles when the projects are built. However, CDFW has refused to issue the appropriate permit, threatening the loss of the $475,000 319h grant.

The ERRP letter to Secretary Crowfoot sums up the tortuous year-long CDFW permit process, while the second letter establishes the foundation for the challenge. Water law Attorney Aaron Baker’s legal opinion explains that CDFW’s rejection of the ERRP 1653 application is “inconsistent with the Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Act (HREA) and must be rescinded and approval granted for the Project as is required by state law.” He further stated that CDFW’s rejection was “an arbitrary and capricious assertion of authority.”

The Cahto Tribe’s letter describes the major erosion at sites on lower Cahto Creek downstream of their Reservation, which are prime spawning areas for Chinook salmon. They point out that the erosion would not have occurred if CDFW had allowed construction in 2022. The Potter Valley Tribe (PVT) and the Wiyot Tribe joined them in protest. PVT Chair Salvador Rosales wrote “We are puzzled by the CDFW stance in refusing to grant a permit for a clearly needed project, and troubled that they seem indifferent to continuing mass wasting of stream banks in prime spawning areas.” Natural Resource Director Adam Canter conveyed the sentiments of the Wiyot Tribe stating that “By permitting this important restoration work, you are elevating tribes and disadvantaged communities while also sending a signal to CDFW to conform to your Cut the Green Tape program.”

Writing for the Laytonville Area Community Advisory Committee (LAMAC), Chair Jim Shields stated “CDFW not issuing a permit for this project is outrageous. Our community needs the jobs that this project will create.” Board of Supervisors Chair Glenn McGourty, commenting as District 1 Supervisor, called on Secretary Crowfoot to give this his “immediate attention to get this project built this year and to get CDFW Region 1 staff more in step with the intent of the Cut the Green Tape program.” The Green Tape program is a Resources Agency initiative to remove barriers for restoration projects so they can be implemented more quickly and cost-effectively.

Three of the four landowners with eroding banks that are to be restored explained their concern about loss of aquatic habitat and the need to stop environmental degradation. Martin Mueller and his family own the most rapidly eroding restoration site on Cahto Creek. His letter asked the Secretary to “get CDFW to issue the 1653 permit and to send a message that the Department should be cooperating with those working on restoration and abiding by the Cut the Green Tape policy that you favor.”

In addition to the1653 permit for this 319h project in Tenmile Creek, ERRP will ask for an acknowledgement in writing from Region 1 CDFW that it violated the HREA by not previously issuing the permit, and that it agrees to abide by the HREA in any future cases where the NCRWQCB issues an SHRP. More information is available, including the entire letter packet, at www.eelriverrecovery.org.

ERRP Managing Director Pat Higgins can be reached at 707 223-7200.

A GREAT LINEUP OF FILMS AND FILMMAKERS Await Mendocino Film Festival Attendees

The Mendocino Film Festival, June 1-4, has established a reputation for presenting intelligent, thought-provoking, and award-winning independent and international films. Now in its 16th season, the Festival also brings an increasing number of visiting filmmakers to the coast and offers a unique opportunity for the community to meet filmmakers and gather with other film aficionados.

This year the Festival honors writer/director Nicole Holofcener with the Rogue Wave Award for her body of work.. The director’s newest film, You Hurt My Feelings will be screened ahead of its wide release as will the beloved 2013 drama Enough Said. Other films by Holofcener include Friends With Money, Walking And Talking, Lovely And Amazing and more. She will accept her award in person Thursday evening, June 1, and talk about her films at a Q&A after the screening of Enough Said on Friday. She will also be the featured guest at the Filmmaker Panel discussion on Saturday, June 3, at 9 am.

Other filmmakers attending include Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman from Town Destroyer, Kathryn Golden from Santos: Skin To Skin, Kristy Guevara Flanagan and Helen Hood Sheer from Body Parts, Malia Byrtus from Path Of The Panther and Bettina Dalton from Rachel’s Farm.

On Saturday, June 3, a special free community screening of Race For Your Life Charlie Brown will be presented in conjunction with the Charles M. Schulz Museum, followed by an arts activity for kids. Sara Merric will be on hand for this first collaboration between the Festival and the Santa Rosa museum.

The Narrative and Documentary Juries this year include a wide range of film professionals: actor/producer Matthew Lillard, film editor Tricia Cooke, distribution executive Mike Musante, literary agent Alex Creasia, and film festival producers Skye McLennan and Cynthi Stefenoni. The jury’s winning films will be announced at a special members' event on June 1. Jurors Skye McLennan, from the San Luis Obispo Film Festival and Cynthi Stefenoni, from the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, will be present at the Festival this year.

In addition to screenings and Q&As with filmmakers, the festival will feature special events and remarkable music with acclaimed musicians for two live music performances. On Friday night, June 2, the documentary Santos: Skin To Skin about Latin percussionist John Santos will be followed by a live performance by the John Santos Quartet. On Saturday, June 3, following the documentary Finding Her Beat, a documentary about an all-female Japanese Taiko drum group, Sonoma County Taiko will perform live.

Join the conversation, buy tickets, and stay up-to-date with the latest Festival news at MendoFilm.org. Connect on Facebook and Instagram for announcements, radio interviews, film news, and more.

ED NOTES

THE GUERNEVILLE CHAPTER of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has been disinvited by the Dodgers from its June 16 Pride Night. (Does every community now have a chapter?) The Dodgers also took back a “Community Hero Award” the Southern California chapter of the Sisters was to receive. THE SISTERS were never funny, and they were never “heroic,” and fifty years later they're just plain tiresome, not to mention that their exhibitionism is pegged to belittling Catholic nuns, who've done nothing ever to warrant the ridicule.

BACK IN THE 70’S, the late Dave Burgess, the late Wayne McGimsey, the late Jim Clow, and the late Homer Mannix pushed for, and got, Boonville’s two fire hydrants. The hydrants are supplied by the Fairgrounds well and its 100,000 gallon bucking bronco storage tank. (Which should have been a community swimming pool but was stopped by little old ladies of both genders because hippies would swim in it and everyone else would die painfully of communicable disease.) Burgess and McGimsey also made sure they had enough hose to cover all of Boonville’s structures down to the high school intersection to the north, to the Ukiah Road south. Without the farsightedness of these men, a lot more than the Mannix Building could have gone up in flames that terrible Wednesday night in 1997.

WE’VE got to go back to April Fool’s Day 1963 for the last big structure fire in Anderson Valley prior to the loss of the Mannix Building. About midnight that April 1st, with the new owner of the Weise Valley Inn looking on from across the street, Weise’s multi-purpose pleasure palace burned to the ground on the site of today’s Buckhorn Saloon. Weise’s was a little bit of everything — a bar, a restaurant, a bus stop, and odds and ends store. Old man Weise and his wife, a large woman who shuffled around behind the counter in her bathrobe and slippers with a cigarette perpetually dangling from her mouth, provided the set for many local Valley stories. One night old man Weise, having warned a bar customer to watch his language “in front of the ladies,” delivered his second command via a sawed off baseball bat he kept behind the bar, bopping the foul mouthed customer into silence. On another memorable occasion, a young and limber Billy Owens placed two bottles of beer — one in each side of his mouth — turned his head backwards, and walked on his hands the length of the bar top, downing the two beers as he went!

THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY administration, back in the day, declared that traffic on the unpaved 50 or so miles winding over Mendocino Pass between Covelo and the Sacramento Valley did not merit a $100 million investment in pavement. At best, surveys indicated, maybe 280 vehicles a day might use Forest Highway 7 linking the Sacramento Valley with Round Valley if it were paved. Lots of people still think a better road between Covelo and inland I-5 would bring more people to the Mendocino National Forest, the least visited national forest in the United States, including the national forests of Alaska. A paved road would also be a boon to Covelo's perennially struggling businesses.

FORMER MENDO COUNTY CEO ANGELO was infamous for her sudden psychotic breaks, swooping down on some unsuspecting County administrator to fire him or her for the vaguest of reasons or no reason at all. (Mommy Dearest's chosen successor, Darcy Antle, seems much less volcanic.) A bunch of wrongful termination suits against the County are still pending from Angelo's tenure, and the complainants, every one of them, will win a big pile of Mendo money the County doesn't have.

THE FIRST WRONGFUL TERMINATION SUIT of the vivid type I can remember was when the County had to pay former prosecutor Dave Eyster $18,000 to shut up and go away because his then-boss, Susan Massini, had fired him for not supporting her failed bid to become a Superior Court judge. Eyster filed a wrongful termination suit against Massini, who had offed the exuberant prosecutor the day of her '97 election loss. (“Somebody had to pay, and you, Mr. Man, have been asking for it!”) The DA even went so far as to post an armed investigator at Eyster's desk while he cleaned it up and cleared off the premises. After months of wrangling, the County, rather than fight Eyster, paid up. There oughta be a law that compels the person who did the firing to pay the damages him or herself if the firing is found to be arbitrary.

MENDOCINO UNIFEST Set for June 16-18, 2023

Dive Demos, Sake Pairings, Sea Harvesting & Uni Repasts-

Join chefs, educators, experts and adventurous palates for all things purple sea urchin this summer as sustainability takes center stage. Long a major producer of sea urchin in the United States, Mendocino County celebrates this delicacy and its intertwined ocean existence with a host of events in coastal Fort Bragg including a sake and urchin seminar, ocean demonstration on harvesting, cleaning and opening fresh purple urchin and special packages including shore dives for this delectable delicacy.

June 16-18, 2023

Fort Bragg, multiple locations

www.urchinfest.com

Schedule:

Friday, June 16, 2023/7:00 PM

Campfire chat with Dr. Kevin Smith of Catch n’ Cook on America’s indigenous peoples and the kelp highway; Free.

Van Damme State Beach, Fort Bragg, Calif.

Saturday, June 17, 2023/Morning Low Tide 6:00 AM

Follow Kevin Smith PhD, onto the rocks and into the shallows searching for urchin, turban snails and other tide pool treats. Keep your catch or learn how to prepare it at the evening meal.

Saturday, June 17, 2023/1:00 PM

Uni demo and educational talk at Van Damme State Beach, fresh uni tasting, harvest/open/clean demonstrations and interpretive talk on purple urchin impact/solutions on the ecosystem; Urchin provided by the Waterman’s Alliance; Triston McHush/Nature Conservancy; Free.

Van Damme State Beach, Fort Bragg.

Saturday, June 17, 2023/6:00 PM

All hail the Uni! Join Little River Inn’s Executive Chef Marc Dym and Master Sushi Chef Frank Takao for a prep-and-cook session followed by a five-course repast focused on the purple sea urchin in all its glory; Sake expert and educator Kerry Tamura will pair each course with sake and discuss the nuances of each. $250.00; Tickets: www.littleriverinn.com.

Little River Inn, Little River, Calif.

Uni Adventures:

A variety of Mendocino restaurants are offering special Uni menus during this timeframe, from Uni Baked Oysters to Salmon with Champagne and Sea Urchin Beurre Blanc; various prices. Pull a seat up at Inn at Newport Ranch, KW Saltwater Cafe, Noyo Harbor Inn, Izakaya Gama, SIBO, VUE Kitchen and Wickson Restaurant. See full list: www.urchinfest.com.

Lodging:

A variety of hotels are offering package deals, uni menus, sea foraging and weekend value pricing including MacCallum House, Inn at Schoolhouse Creek, Elk Cove Inn, Inn at Newport Ranch and Noyo Harbor Inn. www.visitmendocino.com/see-do/deals-and-special-offers.

Little River Inn ups the ante with two new packages including guest accommodations, tide pooling/harvesting, a shore dive led by the Freedive Shop and fresh-from-the-sea urchin-focused repasts. This is a one-of-a-kind experience for those seeking and up-close-and-personal encounter with Mr. Uni; $2500++; www.urchinfest.com.

Open to the Public:

Noyo Center for Marine Science will be offering special programs at each location:

Discovery Center Science Museum, 338 N. Main Street

Slack Tide Cafe, 32430 North Harbor Drive

Crow’s Nest Interpretive Center, South FB Coastal Trail; Fort Bragg, www.noyocenter.org.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, May 19, 2023

CHARLES BOWEN JR., Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, criminal threats, probation revocation.

MOLLY BURNS-MCCLAY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance.

CURTIS EVANS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

STEVEN LUNA JR., Covelo. Probation revocation.

BRANDON MCCLINTIC, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, special allegation-victim over 70 years of age, battery with serious injury, serious felony, concealed firearm, loaded handgun-not registered owner, probation revocation.

REMO MCOSKER, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance, paraphernalia. (Frequent Flyer)

SHERRI NEELEY, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

WILLIAM OWENS, Ukiah. Parole violation.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ, Redwood Valley. Vandalism.

JOHN STRAUSS-SHEALOR, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.

JUAN TOVAR-SEVILLA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JUANITA URQUIAGA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MALISSA WARNER, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, county parole violation.

HOWARD WHIPPLE JR., Covelo. Assault with firearm, criminal threats.

ANNETTE WILLIAMS, Hopland. Domestic abuse, child endangerment.

TOBIAS WOOD, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

MARIJUANA, an online comment:

When I began growing my sales were direct to friends. Adults who smoked a little bit. Then I got into a circle where I was selling my weed primarily to people in the music business - performers, managers, especially the crews the lighting and sound and stage carpenters, roadies, etc. Again adults who made the choice and did not sit out their lives from being too high. So I had no moral dilemma. By the late 90’s the scene was blowing up and the markets were increasing and we were all selling to brokers and our weed went…well, we didn’t even know. Still I mostly sold to friends and folks in the music business but I questioned where all the other weed was going and ‘Were we still doing a good thing?” I saw for the first time people who smoked themselves into oblivion repeatedly. That’s why I stopped growing for a few years. I had to check myself and my own moral compass. It IS an issue that many want to ignore! I do not think cannabis should be allowed to buy billboard space or TV ads and should be treated like alcohol and cigarettes in that regard. We should not be glorifying it to children. The curious ones will still find some - like me and my friends did. But allowing the corporate juggernaut to take it and advertise it publicly is wrong and harmful to most kids. But “legalization” opened the doors to corporate profits and they will create, expand and fill any market they are not restricted from…there is certainly zero moral compass with them

THE WILDERNESS IN GOLDEN GATE PARK: NOTES OF AN 81-YEAR-OLD TREE HUGGER

by Jonah Raskin

I am an inveterate tree hugger, a hugger of oak, fir, pine, eucalyptus, hickory and cedar which I first hugged as a boy growing up on the edge of a hardwood forest long gone to make room for suburbia. Fortunately, I enjoyed a second boyhood after I moved from Long Island to Northern California and fell in love with the redwood grove on the land where I planted fruit trees, harvested apples, peaches and plums. Fortunately, too, I now live five-minutes on foot from the western edge of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park that boasts thousands of trees that are clustered so closely together in some place that they make me feel I’m in a wilderness. It’s all unceded Ohlone territory.

Last winter, when winds up to 88-miles-per hour whipped San Francisco month-after-month, several hundred trees came down. The earth shook. No one seems to know precisely how many trees, but the figure 661 has been bandied about. In a city haunted by the homeless, druggies, unleased office space and criminals, citizens tend to forget about the trees and the woods at the heart of Golden Gate Park, an area that covers a thousand acres and that is the largest urban park in the US. Hurray! With hundreds of downed trees, the City, it seemed, had taken yet another hit it didn’t need and couldn’t afford.

As a tree hugger and a citizen of the city I had to see as many fallen trees as possible. Photographer Jeanne Hansen and I drove around the Park to get the lay of the land and refresh our memories of a place we had visited many times. Hansen made a name for herself documenting the lives of the punks in San Francisco in the 1980s. Alternative Voices is the title of her book. She’ll photograph most anything and anybody and she rarely goes anywhere without a camera.

Together we walked and saw fallen trees and the stumps of once mighty trees that had been uprooted, decapitated, split down the middle and shattered like toothpicks. We saw sliced and diced tree trunks, rounds way too big for a fireplace and sawdust scattered on the ground. Evidence that workers with chainsaws had been at work and had cleaned up much, but not all the aftermath of the storms. One of the workers told me, “People don’t realize the beauty of the Park that’s right under their noses and that takes them away from noise, traffic, and the problems of The City.”

The fact that the Park exists is a miracle of sorts and a testament to the human imagination, landscape planning and persistence. As late as 1868, soon after the end of our Civil War, the area that is now the Park was known as a “howling waste of sand.” No one lived there and almost nothing grew. A desert of sorts, it begged to be salvaged and developed. Drought-resistant vegetation was introduced and soil was created. Little-by-little, over the course of many years, the omniscient sand was beaten back, flowers bloomed, shrubs took root and trees climbed toward the sky.

In large part, the Park was meant to be a kind of “safety valve” where urban dwellers on the Barbary Coast, the Mission and elsewhere could let off steam, inhale clean air, stretch their legs, appreciate the beauty of nature and the diversity of the vegetation, including dozens of different varieties of trees, such as guava, horse chestnut, sequoia, redwoods, pepperwood, oak and more. San Franciscans, whether nabobs, bohemians, Beats, hippies, dot.comers, cops, supervisors and the homeless have always had a lot of steam to release. They still do.Individual trees in Golden Gate Park—a five-minute walk from my front door— mean a great deal to me, as do trees in the aggregate: the woods and the wilderness. It might seem odd to talk about a wilderness in the midst of a city the size of San Francisco, with roads cutting through the Park and major thoroughfares, including Lincoln Avenue and Fulton Street, on the periphery. Indeed, the Park boasts some of the best of civilization: a Japanese Tea Garden, the de Young, (a world class museum), the Shakespeare Garden, windmills and fields for soccer and lacrosse. Lovers find space to let it all hang out.

A few minutes walk from the Dutch Windmill, near the western edge of the Park, brought Hansen and I to a clearing where saplings had been planted and staked for support. It’s not the first time that the Park has been reforested. In 1995, after devastating winter storms, baby trees went into the ground. They survived and thrived and blended into the wooded landscape. Sometimes nature needs a helping hand, though eventually a forest will recreate itself.

Not surprisingly, the Pacific Horticultural Society calls the Park “the crowning jewel of San Francisco’s treasures.” Citizens might remember those words when they complain about the decline and fall of a mighty metropolis. At the end of a day exploring the woods and the wilderness, I looked for a downed tree I could hug, and came away empty handed. I was too old to climb a tree and perch high above the ground, and the trees were all too big around to embrace. So I put both hands on the trunk of a eucalyptus and let the life that was still in the tree flow into my body and the life in my body flow into the tree. I’d call that a symbiotic relationship.

CHECK THAT RECEIPT

Editor:

Whenever I’m asked at the cash register if I want my receipt I always respond, “Have I told you my cantaloupe story?” It goes like this. A few years ago, on a busy shopping day, I bought a cantaloupe at Safeway. When I got home, I looked at the receipt and I had been charged $25 instead of $2.50. I took the cantaloupe and receipt back to the store and not only did they refund my money they gave me the cantaloupe for free. Moral of the story: Always look at your receipt before throwing it away.

Mike Haran

Santa Rosa

MOONALICE RETURNS on MAY 27

KPFZ is excited to present another Moonalice concert and fundraiser at 4:20 PM on Saturday, May 27 at Cache Creek Winery. Moonalice features 10 extraordinary musicians and plays a unique blend of psychedelic soul and rock-tinged Americana.

This is an outdoor event, so bring lawn chairs. The gate opens at 3:00 PM and the concert starts at 4:20 PM. The venue is donated by Cache Creek Vineyards and Winery. There will be wine, beer, and water, and also delicious food by La Chilanguita Mexican Restaurant.

Moonalice is a high energy all-star band founded by guitarist Roger McNamee. The band includes vocalist Lester Chambers, an icon from the 1960s psychedelic soul group The Chambers Brothers, and his dynamic son Dylan. On bass is Pete Sears, founding member of Jefferson Starship who has played with everyone from Rod Stewart to Jimi Hendrix.

Moonalice also features esteemed members Barry Sless (lead guitar and pedal steel) and Grammy winner John Molo (drums), longtime members of the David Nelson band. Jason Crosby will be on keyboards (Mookie Siegel played keys last year), and he has toured and recorded with just about everyone, including Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Jackson Browne, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir. The band is rounded out by vocalists Erika, Rachel, and Chloe Tietjen of the T Sisters.

Moonalice has a renegade spirit and an ethos of love, peace, and happiness that permeates everything they do. Their incredible chemistry shines through in their live performances and albums.

Comments from a few of last year’s attendees: Larry: “Absolutely awesome . . . good music to chill with . . . brought back memories from the 60’s.” Gigi - “I had a blast . . . loved the music and vibes and crowd.” Taj – “Most fun, good vibes time I've had in a long time.” Cynthia: “Absolutely awesome!” Maureen - “It was wonderful!” Marcie: “This was the BEST fundraiser ever . . . the vibes, the beauty of the location, the weather, our community… pure joy.” KJ: “If you didn’t make last year’s show, you do not want to miss this - what a blast . . . a groovy, fun, dancing, rock & roll concert.” Tamara: “Great energy. Don't miss out....” Chay: “Love Moonalice concerts at that venue! So intimate!”

Don't miss this unique and fantastic musical experience, and help keep KPFZ, Lake County Community Radio, on the air. Cache Creek Vineyards and Winery is located at 250 New Long Valley Road (just off Hwy 20), 2.5 miles East of the Clearlake Oaks roundabout. For advance tickets google “KPFZ Moonalice 2023” or go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/moonalice-may-27-2023-concert-for-kpfz-lake-county-community-radio-tickets-610316030677

Tickets are $25 in advance through Eventbrite and $30 at the gate. No outside alcohol and no dogs, please. Wear your dancing shoes!

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio show all night tonight!

Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is about 7pm. If you can't make that, send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week. You can always tell where I'm doing the show from, because, from Juanita's, the show starts with Kevin MacLeod's /Scheming Weasel/, and I'm talking quietly, my mouth right on the mic, as if speaking to a small child sitting in my lap, to not wake up everybody in the building. When I'm in Fort Bragg, I can be louder and more uneven, people can call on the phone, and the show starts with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, /Happy Feet/. And if I'm somewhere else I hide hints in whatever choice of intro music is made, and you can enjoy figuring it out for yourself.

Regrdless of where-from and why-for, Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as via KNYO.org. Also the schedule is there for KNYO's many other arguably even more terrific shows.

Furthermore, any day or night you can go to MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. And besides all that, there you'll find a number of educational items to pleasure yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

Erotic cameos of antiquity.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/erotic-cameos-from-antiquity

Enough Rita Hayworth to last a lonely mechanic's assistant a week and a half.

https://www.vintag.es/2023/05/gilda-1946.html

And the swamp ladies of Estonia. "Estonia, when you're trying to be so good."

https://50watts.com/The-Swamp-Ladies-of-Estonia

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

NO JUSTICE -- San Francisco used to be seen as a beacon of enlightenment. Then we got leaders like Mayor London Breed and her sidekick District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who yesterday decided not to charge Walgreens security guard Michael Anthony for shooting to death suspected shoplifter Banko Brown. Jenkins' strange decision -- which came after New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought murder charges for the chokehold killing of another young, homeless, black man — is part of the cruel law and order reign that she and Mayor Breed have imposed on the city.

Jenkins' decision was greeted by loud protests, from angry citizens as well as public officials. But she blithely rejected this reaction. "I can't make decisions based on public outcry," she dismissively stated.

Jenkins only added fuel to the fire when she finally released the video of the April 27 killing, which showed the bigger security guard "tossing that young man around like a rag doll" before he shot him, according to the attorney for the 24-year-old victim's family.

It's time for Mayor Breed and her mean-spirited administration to go.

This is what San Francisco leaders SHOULD say. This is what reflects our true values as a city. This is the quote about Banko Brown's violent death from San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin:

"This is not who we are. I understand people are afraid of crime, a fear being stoked by too many politicians and their political allies. But this is not a choice between justice and safety - we can have both. And allowing what appears, at a minimum, to be an unjustified shooting does not make us safer. It does not make us better. It should make us ashamed.

"This is not who we are. Stealing a bag of candy does not warrant the death penalty."

(David Talbot)

WHY IS THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL POINTING MORE GUNS AT PEOPLE?

by Susie Nelson

California Highway Patrol (CHP) troopers have been using force against more people since the pandemic hit in 2020, even as they’ve been conducting fewer traffic stops overall. This was mostly driven by a rise in the number of people who had guns pointed at them.

The Chronicle analyzed data collected by the state’s Attorney General office on all stops conducted by CHP, one of the state’s largest law enforcement agencies, starting in July 2018 and going through the end of 2022.

From 2019 to 2020, we found that the total number of people subject to use-of-force by the CHP increased by about 70%, going from about 1,040 to nearly 1,750. The CHP then used force against over 2,000 people in 2021 — twice the number it did in 2019, even though the agency made 20% fewer stops overall.

As a result, the CHP’s use-of-force rate tripled from 2019 to 2021, going from four instances of force per 10,000 people to 12 per 10,000.

The Department of Justice only began collecting stop data from the CHP in July 2018, so the agency recorded far fewer stops that year. However, among the stops the agency did conduct, its use-of-force rates were similar to 2019.

For this analysis, The Chronicle used the Stanford Open Policing Project definition of force, which included seven different categories of force. The categories indicate whether an officer did one of the following: Pointed a firearm at an individual stopped, shot a firearm at them, tased them with an “electronic control” device, hit them with an “impact projectile” such as a rubber bullet, sprayed them with chemical spray, hit them with a baton or sicced a police dog or K-9 on them.

In every year, police pointing guns at people made up the majority of use-of-force cases.

The increase in CHP’s use-of-force rates was divided along racial lines. Black people are generally more likely than white people to have force used against them by police because they are stopped more often. But they’re also much more likely to be subjected to force than white people once they are stopped. In fact, in every year where the CHP provided a full year’s worth of data, Black people were about twice as likely as white people to be subject to a use-of-force incident after getting stopped.

In 2021, for instance, for every 10,000 Black people stopped by the agency, 20 experienced a force incident, compared with just 10 white people. Latino people were also more likely to be subject to force by the CHP than white people, with 12 people experiencing force per 10,000 stopped.

The increase in CHP’s use-of-force rate was driven primarily by the number of times officers pointed guns at people. Troopers also tased and hit significantly more people with batons starting in 2020. Actual shootings by the CHP were far rarer and have not risen since 2019.

In a written statement, CHP spokesperson Jaime Coffee pointed out that the department’s use-of-force rates did decline in 2022 compared to the previous year, attributing the drop to training and “accountability at all levels.”

But, he said, the CHP’s increased use-of-force was probably due to what they said was an increase in the state’s violent crime rate during the pandemic, coupled with the agency’s decision to limit traffic stops to “safety violations” and other emergency situations. (California’s overall violent crime rate did increase slightly from 2020 to 2021 according to DOJ data, going from 414 to 417 crimes per 100,000 people, though the number of violent crimes actually went down during this period — the decrease in rate was due to a population decline.)

Coffee added that the agency may have actually over-reported the “firearm” use-of-force category in 2019, meaning the agency’s increase in use-of-force may have been more significant than the data suggests. That’s due to a prior flaw in the agency’s officer input form, which may have “inadvertently contributed to” overreporting, he said.

The California Attorney General's Office told The Chronicle that there have been no changes to its reporting regulations that would have influenced CHP’s use-of-force reporting statistics.

Chauncee Smith, a senior manager at racial justice nonprofit Catalyst California, said it’s plausible that changing community patterns had an impact on CHP stop rates.

Overall traffic fatalities have been rising in recent years, he pointed out. That trend means it’s possible that CHP’s rise in use-of-force could be a response to heightened safety concerns.

Smith also cautioned against reading too much into the data given that the years covered by RIPA provide only a small “snapshot” of changing stop rates over time for the CHP.

But, he said, the increase in CHP use-of-force also has a real impact on marginalized Californians of color, many of whom are subjected to force for minor infractions or imagined crimes.

“People of color, especially Black people who are low income, disproportionately bear the brunt of police violence,” Smith said.

Smith noted a recent case where an LAPD officer tased Keenan Anderson, an unarmed Black man, to death after he flagged down an officer for help after getting in a car crash. (The RIPA data also shows the LAPD’s use-of-force rates increasing starting in 2020.)

Cases like Anderson’s, coupled with data showing a continued increase in traffic deaths, raise questions about the efficacy of the CHP’s recent increase in use-of-force as a strategy to address safety concerns on California’s roads.

“Vehicle safety has gotten worse despite tremendous investment in law enforcement and public dollars,” Smith said, adding: “We’re far past due to reimagine how we go about dealing with community safety.”

A NATIVE GRINDING HOLE was found in Joshua Tree State Park near a riverbed. The rule is that for every inch of depth, it took 100 years of pounding acorns into this granite rock. This hole might be 1,500 yrs old.

LIFE IS DIFFICULT. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share.

—M. Scott Peck, ‘The Road Less Traveled’

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

No justice will happen in this Country until the truth about the corruption and the lies and the evil behind the scenes dealings of our political elite are brought to light for the majority to see and to know.

Even then, I wonder if it will do any good. I don’t know what America has become. The people are lazy, stupid, fat, ignorant, selfish, greedy, decadent, amoral, non-religious, anti-God, porn loving, drug addicted, food binging, slobs. A pathetic group of people.

I was sitting outside of my daughter’s ballet practice the other day, waiting for her to finish her class. As I sat there I played a game using a pad of paper and a pen, to pass the time. I started counting all of the obese people who were coming and going. Not counting the children, 92% of the women were obese. I only saw three dads and two out of three were obese. It was stunning to me. There is something definitely wrong with people and I blame the television.

Even if the corruption were exposed, fat Americans wouldn’t give a fuck as long as they can sit and watch “The Bachelor” or the NBA finals and stuff fat and chemical laden potato chips into their gaping cake holes.

Yeah, we are doomed. There is no way out of this mess.

MEGAN MCCAIN: No reasonable person could have watched Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein's return to Congress this week and not felt deep sympathy for her. At 89 years old, this great political icon, breaker of glass ceilings, trailblazer for women of all political stripes, was driven up to the entrance of the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday and helped into a wheelchair. She sat hunched over, thin and frail. The left side of her face appeared frozen. One of her eyes was closed. It was heart-breaking. It had been nearly three months since Feinstein was in Washington, DC after being diagnosed with shingles. The New York Times reported yesterday that she was actually far more ill than previously known. In addition to the shingles, she was hit by a terrible complication of the virus that can cause lasting memory and language problems, mood disorders and other awful side effects. She apparently appeared confused, claiming, 'I haven't been gone… I've been working… I've been voting.' The senator has missed nearly 100 floor votes. Regardless, Senator Chuck Schumer was there to greet her when she arrived. It was a sickeningly cynical scene.

PAUL SCHRADER: “There are four horsemen of the apocalypse: global warming, nuclear holocaust, uncontrollable viruses and AI. I don’t think white supremacy ranks up there because we’ve had it with us forever, as long as we’ve had tribalism. Biden is right in that it is the biggest short-term problem in America. It’s not a long-term problem because it won’t be around that long, because we won’t be around that long. Research I’ve been doing is that 2050 is the point at which life becomes by and large uncomfortable across the world, except for the protected communities.

IN AN ARTICLE titled "Pete Buttigieg Loves God, Beer, and His Electric Mustang" and subtitled "Sure, the US secretary of transportation has thoughts on building bridges. But infrastructure occupies just a sliver of his voluminous mind," Wired's Virginia Heffernan writes the following paragraph:

As Secretary Buttigieg and I talked in his underfurnished corner office one afternoon in early spring, I slowly became aware that his cabinet job requires only a modest portion of his cognitive powers. Other mental facilities, no kidding, are apportioned to the Iliad, Puritan historiography, and Knausgaard’s Spring—though not in the original Norwegian (slacker). Fortunately, he was willing to devote yet another apse in his cathedral mind to making his ideas about three mighty themes—neoliberalism, masculinity, and Christianity—intelligible to me.

My God, it's a masterpiece. Arguably superior to Heffernan's 2016 puff piece on Hillary Clinton saying, "Maybe she is more than a president. Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself. The presidency is too small for her." Superior even to Heffernan's description of professional lunatic Louise Mensch as "the Sy Hersh of our time."

— Caitlin Johnstone

DUM-DA-DUM-DUM… DAH

by James Kunstler

After all, this was a collective effort. In Washington, the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less culpable it becomes. They all did it, so no one did.
— Jonathan Turley

Historians of the future, boiling up a nice spring bouillabaisse of nettles, cattail tubers, and frogs over their campfires, will pore over John Durham’s mystifying RussiaGate report for clues as to what begat the smoldering wreck of the legal system that once girded all the rough-and-ready ways of the old America, turning us into a land of simpering zombies. There was, apparently, a strange, Satanic cult called the FBI that cast a spell over the land, giving license to wickedness and depravity that transformed a once-upright folk into liars, until nobody knew what was the right way to do anything anymore….

Of course, we do not live in the future, only on the thrilling edge of it, and it is still possible to see through the fog of mystification creeping over our lives. Though one Rachel Maddow yet raves on, and the FBI still sends SWAT teams hither and yon to cow the righteous, and an evil mummy resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, our country knows the score. It was hoaxed, played, bamboozled. A trip was laid on us. The law was turned against the people by the very officers of the courts: the lawyers. Shakespeare had the right idea — and forgive me for not spelling it out (but consult Henry VI, Part II Act IV Scene II at your leisure).

Yes, John Durham’s report was a disappointment, but isn’t it obvious that he was already done-in by the bootless prosecutions last year of Michael Sussmann and Igor Danchenko in the gangrenous DC district federal court, which sent the message: Hey, why bother, pal? Any additional cases against the likes of James Comey, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and the rest of the gang would have resulted in the greatest exhibition of memory-loss ever seen in the annals of jurisprudence. And, as to expecting the government to produce documents in evidence… well, who amongst us can hold his breath for, say, seventy-five years?

It is impossible for now to know the constraints placed on Mr. Durham by Attorney General Merrick Garland — though it appears that Mr. Garland is just the latest initiate into the years-long shuck-and-jive that amounts to a seditious conspiracy against the republic. That is, add Mr. Garland to the long list of officials who have a lot at risk and a lot to hide, so he’s used his vested powers to hamstring Mr. Durham. But the heart of the story is out, despite all that, and pretty baldly stated: Hillary Clinton started the whole RussiaGate gag to take the heat off her own turpitudes. The federal agency heads and their lieutenants avidly used Hillary’s concocted falsehoods to foment malicious prosecutions and drive the naively accommodating President Trump out of office, and stopped at nothing until they succeeded.

There it is. We will now have to muddle through and go forward, a savagely deformed polity. Still, it will be edifying to see Mr. Durham testify before The House Judiciary Committee next week, as Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has requested. Mr. Durham may even wish to use the opportunity to redeem his tarnished reputation. Some items for review: Why did Mr. Durham omit to investigate the deceitful Mueller team (especially its actual director, Andrew Weissmann), which was an obvious cover-up operation? Ditto: the role played by President Barack Obama in the scheme to interfere in the 2016 election? Ditto: the operation to hide and then discredit Hunter Biden’s crime-stuffed laptop during the 2020 presidential election? Ditto: what has been the CIA’s role in all of this? I believe Mr. Durham will provide many interesting answers to these queries. It may be the only forum that will ever avail him to speak honestly.

Presumably the House Judiciary Committee members are lawyers, and have a host of aide lawyers to fall back on for legal advice. Can someone please ask Mr. Durham why he did not bring a charge of conspiracy to commit sedition under the RICO act against the whole gang of RussiaGate players based on the “enterprise rationale” that the evidence suggests they were all vested in an effort to defenestrate a sitting president?

We will go forward from this whether we like it or not, of course, because the arrow of time flies only in that direction. What is the best way out of this wilderness of dishonor and disgrace? Take a lesson from the campaign, so far, of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The way Mr. Kennedy has been straight-talking — around the coordinated slanders and scurrilities of an ignoble news media — he makes the current leadership of the Democratic Party look like the most pathetic claque of rascally whack-jobs ever assembled under a gonfalon. Keep your eye on RFK, Jr. He’s moving downfield, even without blocking.

Side-note or post-script, for those interested in how the vaccination story is going: A close friend went into the CVS pharmacy looking for a “get well soon” card. There were none. A clerk on-hand right there in the aisle said, “we can’t keep them in stock.” No “sympathy” cards either. Draw your conclusions.

(kunstler.com)

A CENTURY OF CENSORSHIP

Matt Farwell's painstaking timeline of over a hundred years of American information suppression, secret bureaucracies, and "anti-disinformation" scares

The turn of the last century brought an age of revolutions, industrial warfare and nearly instantaneous communications across long distances. With these developments came an emphasis on another method of war: information war. This was the type of fight waged with what World War II Deputy Director of the Office of Censorship, Theodore F. Koop, called “Silent Weapons,” in a wartime memoir he published in 1946. Wrote Koop:

The censors’ shears were bayonets that not only formed a rear-guard national defense but also struck hard at the enemy in all three phases of warfare—military, economic, and psychological.

Koop would go on to run CBS News in Washington, DC. Well-known as a powerful media figure, he was also a trusted one, the man who hired Walter Cronkite.

Less well-known was that in 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked him to run a secret national censorship program intended for use in Cold War emergencies. He accepted the offer while still a network news executive, serving in that contingency role under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

The methods of censorship had changed over time, matching changes in the communication technology. During World War I, the United States Government used the Postal Service, the Comstock laws and the reliance on publications reaching subscribers by mail as a wedge. When radio and television broadcasts became pre-eminent, the newly formed Federal Communications Commission began using its authority as stewards of the public airwaves to watch over content. Under the FCC Act of 1934, ostensibly private corporations like CBS, ABC and NBC were allowed to use the public airwaves only under license, acquiring revenue and learning the power of shaping the discourse from the nascent field of advertising.

Though it all, one thing has been remarkably consistent. Government targeted for special attention journalists who reported accurately on the ugly truth of American foreign policy, such as John W. Powell. Powell was an American journalist based in Shanghai who wrote a series of articles for the China Monthly Review (later, the Weekly Review), which said the Chinese government claimed the United States was using biological weapons in the Korean War. He was put on trial for sedition in 1959. The case dragged on in federal court in San Francisco for five years before the charges were dropped. It was enough to make him leave journalism forever.

The impulse to use censorship, and call all information that doesn’t square with the official narrative “disinformation,” is a bipartisan impulse, at least historically. Both Republican and Democratic administrations during the Global War on Terror sought to expand and refine the power of what we now call the Censorship-Industrial Complex. The latter was built, piece by piece, over a century of legislation, executive action, and regulation. A little less than a century after the passage of the Espionage Act, Barack Obama’s administration used it aggressively to target leakers. By that time, computers, the internet, and social media were all new platforms for communication and ripe targets for information suppression.

In an era where cultural memory is short and resources for learning about the inconvenient past are becoming more scarce, it’s useful to look at this century-plus progression in chronological order.…

racket.news/p/a-century-of-censorship

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, 19 MAY

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Hiroshima, Japan, to attend the G7 summit in person, sources say, following his attendance at the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

G7 leaders have agreed to impose further sanctions on Russia, adding their support for Ukraine "will not waver."

Kyiv's long anticipated counteroffensive appears imminent as the Ukrainian military says it has made gains along the front lines in recent days. But there's speculation the counteroffensive may have already started.

The Biden administration made an accounting error in assessing the value of military support the US has given to Ukraine, freeing up about $3 billion more in aid.

9 Comments

Nathan Duffy May 20, 2023

Chili Peppers had some good music over the years and we all know good music can come from a very bad place. Anthony Kiedis famed singer for the Chili Peppers covers the depravities of addiction and tells some pretty wild stories in his appearance on the JRE podcast. My favorite is how Rick Rubin brought the Beastie Boys out to California to see the Chili Peppers rehearse and they were so scared out of their minds of these guys who were heavily pumped on heroin and cocaine that they snuck out of the building and scurried away.

Eric Sunswheat May 20, 2023

Thought process on drugs.

RE: Either way I think we can all agree applying drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl to any situation is never good. Basically, we need to stop arguing and all agree drug usage has to stop…
My thought process is much the same as it is for mental health issues. People in crisis often don’t seek help and therefore help must be brought to them.
(SHERIFF KENDALL)

–> May 3, 2023
In this series of analyses, we have broken down the various aspects of the newly released revisions to the CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain to help clinicians, patients, and caretakers alike understand their nuances and to provide expert review of their applicability, potential benefits, and potential concerns.

Herein, we apply the guidelines to a patient case around initiating an opioid in a patient with chronic pain. The following sample case is intended to reflect the changes in the CDC opioid prescribing guidelines (see full background). Below is a step-by-step guide through initiating opioid therapy.
https://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/resources/when-to-initiate-opioid-therapy

Michael Koepf May 20, 2023

Kunstler: Durham report. In 75 years, Watergate will look like a parking ticket compared to what historians will be writing vis-a-vis the Durham report.

- George Dorner May 22, 2023
  
  What nonsense!
  
Stephen Rosenthal May 20, 2023

So the BOS can’t find $250,000 to keep the Coast Animal Shelter open and functional, yet they routinely dole out much more for “consultants” when there are highly paid staff on the books that should be able to do the job. Oh, and let’s not forget the completely unnecessary $400,000 “makeover” of the BOS chambers, or the out-of-bounds pettiness with the Sheriff that likely exceeded $100,00. I could name dozens more wasteful and costly expenditures by this bunch of zombies, but I think those three examples paint the picture: vanity and incompetence is more valuable to them than protecting and saving lives, regardless of the species. Embarrassing.

- George Dorner May 22, 2023
  
  Well said, Mr. Rosenthal. But I would add a correction According to this very paper, the bill for the supes attempt to poach the sheriff’s IT, is four times what you cited. Yep, 400 thou, not 100.
  
Jim Armstrong May 20, 2023

I’m afraid even Emily Post would have found it impossible to teach Scaramella the forks of the Eel.
It is hard to keep track which of PG&E, FOE, CT and AVA is the biggest threat to PVP.
Rules are great. Where do I find the one on bedrock mortars?

- Jim Armstrong May 21, 2023
  
  Bedrock mortar: Acorns in Joshua Park?
  
Craig Stehr May 20, 2023

Just sitting here on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in Ukiah, California at the Ukiah Public Library on computer #5, tap, tap tapping away. Took the pulmonary function test yesterday at Howard Hospital in Willits, which went well. The consultation appointment with the heart doctor in St. Helena for the eventual switch-out of the heart pacemaker, (for a more advanced design pacemaker which will do a better job of heart upper/lower chambers support), will take place on May 30th; the actual procedure is for now slated for July. The dental hygiene appointment is on June 16th for a cleaning and exam at Adventist Health — Ukiah. A September check-in with the head of the Adventist Health-Ukiah cardiology department is scheduled for September 14th.
The federal voucher for a housing rental has been approved, and the zoom meeting of general explanation has taken place, and the Building Bridges Housing Resource Center housing specialists are now searching for an appropriate rental for me. I have no idea whatsoever where to look in Mendocino County.
For those of you who are already enlightened, feel free to contact me. I could be doing something crucial on the planet earth. Thank you very much.
Craig Louis Stehr
1045 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
Send Money Here: Paypal.me/craiglouisstehr
May 20th, 2023 Anno Domini

Mendocino County Today: Saturday, May 20, 2023

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