Valley People

WE'VE BEEN HOUNDING Deputy Squires to submit to a debrief in the form of an interview, but the Deputy says No. We had a title all ready to go: “A Great Cop Hangs Up His Cuffs.” But the Deputy said No, even after we tried to bribe him into it with Giants tickets. And when Deputy Squires says No he means No, as many dismayed miscreants have discovered over the three-plus decades that the Deputy has maintained order in the Anderson Valley. Nobody will ever dare confirm, least of all him, that Squires was originally assigned to The Valley because he could handle the tough guys. And there was a legendary load of tough guys in the 1970s before The Valley's blanding down into its present stoned passivity. The Deputy, and this is pure rumor, handled certain people informally, and 'handled' might be the operative word here, but it wasn't long before the tough guys knew that when The Deputy said No it definitely meant No. For many years, Squires was a central figure in the life of this place. He was never off duty. Everyone knew where he lived, everyone had his home telephone number. If you needed him at 3am he would be there. He knew who needed to go to jail and who needed an emphatic warning to “Go home and stay there.” And he knew everyone, and he knew exactly who was doing what. It's no exaggeration to say that Deputy Squires saved the County many thousands of dollars by resolving matters before they involved arrests and the courts. When he wasn't in uniform he was coaching youth sports. Put a cop like this guy in every neighborhood in the country and the crime rate would be a third what it is now. I don't want this to sound like an obituary, but it is unlikely The Deputy will be back on duty. He's got back problems, shoulder problems, leg problems that haven't quite immobilized him but he's considerably slowed down. At a minimum he ought to be Grand Marshall for this year's Fair parade. We all owe him, and owe him big.

FARM CHICKS ANTIQUES opened this weekend in the space formerly occupied by All That Good Stuff in the Farrer Building in downtown Boonville. Proprietors Jennifer and Janice Pronsolino, reinforced by Vanessa Spacek, have already accumulated an intriguing collection of country furniture and garden items, both antique and modern. Over time they expect their inventory to also include collectibles, furniture, crafts, olive oil, jewelry, soap, and other items you might find in or around a country home. The store is conveniently organized on original plank flooring hidden for years beneath carpeting. Jennifer Pronsolino said they planned to be open from Friday to Monday “to start.” By prior arrangement they will accept consignments, which is a polite way of reminding people not to haul their garage sale stuff into Boonville for the ladies to sell for you. If you have an item you might be interested in consigning to Farm Chicks, run a photo in first.

THE PROCESS FOR HIRING A NEW FIRE CHIEF took about half an hour of discussion at last Wednesday's Community Service's District board meeting. Newly Seated Director Neil Darling is heading up an ad hoc hiring committee of local firefighter volunteers supplemented by fire chiefs from Hopland and Fort Bragg to conduct the recruiting and screening of candidates. The board had previously decided to open the position to any qualified candidate, but last Wednesday Mr. Darling pointed out that it might be better to ask the department’s current volunteers what they think about hiring from within the department versus an open hiring. Mr. Darling is sending out a survey to the volunteers to see which they prefer. So far the two current volunteers who have expressed an interest in the job are Andres Avila and Clay Eubanks, both of Yorkville. Mr. Darling expects to make a recommendation on how to proceed at the board's next meeting on Wednesday, June 19 along with a progress report on the hiring process.

OUTGOING FIRE CHIEF Colin Wilson has stated his intention to retire in November of this year. Health insurance for the new fire chief is currently budgeted at $1400 per month, which translates to almost $17,000 a year making it a “big ticket item” for a little ticket volunteer fire department. The budget committee is currently exploring less expensive options. Chief Wilson did require health insurance through our Community Services District because he was covered by his wife's coverage from the school district.

ALL CANADIANS contribute to publicly financed healthcare, regardless of their use of the system. Publicly funded health care services are available to all on the basis of need, regardless of ability to pay. When we look at the relationship over a lifetime, only the most affluent (the top 20%) contribute significantly more to health care than they receive. For other income groups, the value received from publicly funded healthcare is approximately the same as or more than the value of taxes paid to fund those services. The redistributive effect of publicly funded healthcare in Canada is a 16% reduction in the income gap between the highest- and lowest-income groups. Without the publicly financed health system, the lowest-income Canadians would be at risk of going without needed healthcare or of being impoverished by paying for it. (Courtesy, the Canadian Institute for Health Information.) We will be paying the new Fire Chief a very large amount of money for his health insurance because we don't have a rational health care system in this country.

GREG KROUSE reports that the Grange is buying “a 6 foot white grand piano via Spencer Brewer and associates. That means lots of cool piano music in our Grange.” Greg says the Grange will be holding fundraisers to pay for the piano, which will certainly get a workout at the Grange. Spencer Brewer, by the way, is a Ukiah-based musician-impresario.

THE SWINGIN' BOONVILLE BIG BAND will perform at Lauren's Cafe, Saturday night June 1st. Show starts at 9pm. Donation at door is $5. Proceeds to fund the Adult Ed Program in Anderson Valley. See you all there.

LAST TUESDAY, Supervisor Dan Hamburg reminded his colleagues of the May 29th meeting at the Apple Farm in Philo regarding replacement of the Philo-Greenwood Road Bridge. “There is a community workshop coming up on May 29 and it will be held at the Apple Farm, which is on Greenwood Ridge Road, and this is with regard to the bridge replacement at the Navarro River, the so-called 'River Rest Bridge,' and that meeting is going to convene at 5:30. Actually, we are going to meet on the bridge, then have a public meeting at the Apple Farm. So all of you in Anderson Valley, there's a lot of interest over there. Everybody wants a new bridge, but they want it to look exactly like the existing bridge! [Laughs.] They don't know why we can't just go over there with some trowels and cement, and, you know, some new 4x4s, and just, — rebuild it! Just like it is! Quincy Engineering will also be on hand to answer questions for local residents. This will be our second workshop on the bridge.”

Supervisor John Pinches: “The public needs to realize that when it goes to bridge replacement, when you are getting about 96% of the money from the federal government, you've got to go by their standards.” Hamburg: “Damn. It just pisses me off.” (We wonder who'll be the first supervisor to break the f-word barrier.)

WHAT “EVERYBODY” WANTS is an assurance that the replacement bridge is structurally and aesthetically proportionate to the site, which the old bridge is. But if federal money dictates the thing, the new bridge could destroy the site every which way. Some people are unconvinced that the bridge needs replacement (it’s over 60 years old and is deteriorating, especially at the base), saying they liked the rural look of the old bridge. We all do, but if the thing is falling down only the most evolved aesthete is willing to risk his or her life to drive over it every day. Others were against widening it on the grounds that a wider bridge would encourage speeding. Many attendees at the last meeting were in favor of bridge replacement for one reason or another, all of them legitimate. And indeed it was made clear that federal money means federal standards, but we all want a new bridge that is not a concrete monstrosity.

LAST WEEK a trailer load of large horses landed at the Boonville Fair Grounds. The four horses were being shipped to their new homes in Lakeport and LA when the Sacramento woman hauling them seems to have tried to bring them over winding Mountain View Road from the South Coast. I happened to be over at the Fair Grounds walking my dogs when I saw the woman trying to get the thrashing, flailing horses to their feet to release them from the trailer. Three of the horses had fallen to the floor of the trailer during the ride over the hill. The driver only had one partition for four horses, and had hauled all four horses crushed next to one another without virtue of individual partitions. That, in combination with a curvy road, spells trouble. Two Percherons and one thoroughbred had fallen. The owner of the horses is Melody Underwood of Gualala. She is selling her property and moving back to LA to be closer to her family. She said she received the two Percherons, which she’d had for one month, from a Lodi farmer who'd released them to her as rescues. She’d been trying to restore them to full health. (The horse market is glutted with Percheron Premarin mares rescued from Canada.) When the driver called the owner to check in she asked the owner what to do about three of the horses down on the floor of the trailer all tangled up. The owner told her to get them out of the trailer immediately, to pull into the Fairgrounds and release them from the trailer into the stockyards there. And she did. One of the draft mares was in serious trouble; her head lay at the bottom of the pile. She was eight years old and had to be euthanized the following morning when she was unable to stand. Her partner, twenty, suffered leg contusions and will probably survive. When I spoke with the driver about her trip, she said, “When I came down into Boonville…”That usually means Mountain View, which drops down into the Valley. I said, “What road did you try and take?” to which she responded somewhat correctively, “128”. I wonder… The driver went on to complain that it wasn’t her fault, as the horses were probably weak and fell over from anemia. The driver complained that the animals had bent her partition, and now she’d have to deduct that from her expenses. It didn’t sound like she had insurance or was ready to take responsibility for the botched shipping job. Mendocino Animal Control Officer Warner appeared several times to monitor the disposal of the dead horse by a rendering works truck from Petaluma. He had already inspected the two draft horses a few weeks earlier when they had arrived in Gualala after their initial rescue. The horses are supposed to be removed from the Fair Grounds Tuesday the 21st when a new trucking company will be hired to take them home. (- Debra Keipp)

A 2010 RED TOYOTA COROLLA careened off Highway 253 last week near the Miner-Anderson Ranch six miles east of Boonville. The badly damaged vehicle was not visible from the road. Its driver, subsequently identified as Steve G. Tackett of Fort Bragg, managed to extract himself from the wreckage and was found not to have been seriously injured. Tackett said he'd fallen asleep at the wheel. The Corolla rested in the creek bed where it had landed for a week. Bob Maki of Starr Automotive retrieved the car Monday afternoon.

OLIVIA ALLEN, the talented AVHS grad of last year, has appeared in her first college-level stage production at UC Irvine. First-year drama students are seldom cast for on-stage parts, but this kid is special, as all of us know who've seen her perform here at home.

SPEAKING OF PERFORMANCES, that large crowd at the Boonville Fairgrounds Saturday night turned out to hear a well-known Michoacan singer, Noel Torres, belt out Corridas Nortenas Romanticas.