- Pot Down, But Not Out
- Gimme Shelter
- Have A Fort Bragg Senior Center Lunch
- Anarcho-Syndica…What?
- Ukiah Is Cool?
- Youth Wants To Know
- Jailhouse Beefs
POT DOWN, BUT NOT OUT
Editor,
I continue to receive calls regarding illegal marijuana related issues in Mendocino County. Although we have been seeing a decline in illegal marijuana cultivations in many areas, it continues to be a problem.
We are continuing to combat several issues directly linked to illegal cultivations including Violence, environmental damage and general intimidation of residents in our communities. Many folks who have come to our county to make a quick buck aren’t concerned with being good neighbors nor good stewards of our resources. Drug trafficking organizations are not good for any community.
This week the Mendocino County Marijuana Enfrocement Team served search warrants on 9 locations in Mendocino County.
The locations of the search warrants ranged from Redwood Valley and Willits to the Bell Springs area in Northern Mendocino County.
Working with our state and local partners we seized over 22,500 marijuana plants along with 1,656 pounds of processed marijuana. Also seized were 17 firearms.
Serious environmental damage including stream alterations, trash in the waterways and water diversions were documented and investigations into these matters are continuing.
One arrest was made and several subjects were detained. I anticipate several more charges will be filed against others following further investigation.
I am currently working with state and federal partners to put more resources on the issue. I am optimistic we are making headway.
Sheriff Matt Kendall
Ukiah
GIMME SHELTER
Hi all,
I'm looking to relocate sometime soon to a different spot in the valley. I've been a faithful teacher at the high school for 8 years now but I am uncertain about my living situation for this upcoming school year. If anyone's aware of some potential places to rent then I am exploring all options now and would appreciate any and all information that people could provide me.
Thanks,
Matt Bullington
Boonville
HAVE A FORT BRAGG SENIOR CENTER LUNCH
Editor,
As I ramp up socializing since the darkest hours of COVID, I’ve returned to lunch at the Redwood Coast Senior Center and was recently accepted as a member of the Senior Center’s Board. Lunch was social and fun. Volunteers drove carts with food and drink about the room, serving plates and bowls filled with good food. We had soup, a choice of salad or cottage cheese with fruit, a main course, and dessert. We were also offered our choice of coffee, tea, or milk. All seemed to me more like dinner than lunch.
I remembered again how meaningful, even crucial, complete meals are to anyone and how many seniors in our community truly need the food services offered by the Redwood Coast Senior Center.
I happily touched base with people I had not seen for quite some time. It was evident that friends meet at the Senior Center, sitting at tables for two and more, chatting away as they eat their lunches. People are fed a complete meal in a supportive and familiar environment and socialize if they care to.
The dining room at the Center is open Monday through Friday from 11:30 to 1:30. If you are under sixty, the price is $8; if you are sixty or over, the suggested donation is $5. At this point in my early seventies, sixty years seems young, and I now understand the benefits of being this age, including our community’s Senior Center.
I hope you check out https://www.rcscenter.org/food, look at the lunch calendar and menus, and consider lunch at the Redwood Coast Senior Center!
Linda Rosengarten
Fort Bragg
ANARCHO-SYNDICA…WHAT?
Letter to the Editor
Machtig Redaktor,
Please tell us what “anarcho-syndicalism” is, and why you prefer it as a system of social organization. Please list any references that have influenced you on this subject. Please explain why abolition of tenure will cause a social revolution. Etc.
Thank you,
Jay Williamson
Santa Rosa
ED REPLY: Without consulting Professor Google, which would be cheating and you asked ME, boiled down working people destroy capitalism AND the state to produce necessary goods and services as collectives. If the great tenured theorists were suddenly all fired there would be serious trouble in the land. A little joke was intended, Harry, suggesting that armchair radicals rattling their teacups in lush faculty lounges would actually have to act. The Bolsheviks knocked off a lot of anarchists as undisciplined and impractical. We seem headed for street anarchy in this country out of which may emerge capable LEFT leadership.
UKIAH IS COOL?
To the Editor:
“That Was Cool” was a great article by Justine Frederiksen the other day. It was about how some kids are opting to stay in town. Years ago a local writer had an article in the Boonville newspaper. In it he described—I’m paraphrasing now—how ugly and hot Ukiah was. He was kinda right. But it’s not his grandfather’s Ukiah anymore. Lots of shade trees were planted 20 years ago which have matured adding greenery to the forested hills surrounding us. As for jobs—almost every business in town is looking to hire. Yet you still frequently hear complaints about everything—real or imagined. Working men and women work—bottom feeders gripe.
Sunther Smith
Ukiah
YOUTH WANTS TO KNOW
Dear Editor,
Having read David Giusti’s 5/21/23 letter in the AVA I am convinced it was actually written by one of the muppets. Among the many assertions made by Giusti, one of the most bizarre is his incessive cliam that General Bragg was not a racist slave owner. My knowledge is limited to what I was taught in high school. Would the esteemed Editor be kind enough to enlighten myself and the readers on Bragg’s history? Does Dave raise some legit points on who Bragg really was? Do the proponents of Fort Bragg’s name change have it all wrong?
Alan Sonny Crow
Vacaville
ED REPLY: General Bragg was indeed a slaveholder, and from all reports an unpleasant, argumentative dude, at least according to General Grant. Bragg was also considered the least competent Confederate general. How Bragg's name came to be attached to the lonely, isolated fort on the Mendocino Coast seems to have been a nice bit of butt-nuzzling by an Army lieutenant named Horatio Gibson, who'd served under Bragg during the Mexican-American War. “Hell, I'll score a few points with Bragg, who's a connected guy, by suggesting that that obscure military presence we maintain to hell and gone up the coast be named after him. I prefer Fort Gibson but who cares anyway?” That was in 1858. Fort Bragg had been established to protect Indians against the first-wave white settlers, single men, among them many criminals, who enjoyed Mendocino County because it was large and lawless. More than a century later, a small band of virtue signallers, led by a retired professor who either doesn't know or doesn't care, has advertised the untrue version of local history by claiming that the soldiers at Fort Bragg were Indian killers, which is not true.
JAILHOUSE BEEFS
Editor,
A cry for help to protect and restore our constitutional rights in the Mendocino County Jail! There are two major issues with treatment and punishment in the Mendocino County Jail. First is the laws that prohibit jail staff from the use of punishing a group for the actions of a single individual, also known as "group punishment." The reason it is against the law is obvious. It puts the person/persons in danger of retaliation from other inmates. This is an all too common trick used by deputies to "take care" of the thorn in their side, as they can not just go and slap them around themselves. So hey, manipulate other inmates to clean up for them. This low and illegal move is one of Lt. Siderakis's favorites. He calls it "modified programming." Yet all his subordinates as well as all inmates know what he is doing. Even his boss, Captain Spears, turns a blind eye to it.
Inmates try to use the jail's grievance process for help only to be brushed off. Why? The three-step process is controlled by those who are being grieved. So as an inmate what can we do? Nothing! The process is rigged so bad that the inmates are put in danger every day on purpose. All by the jailers who are supposed to protect them. Not by the rookie deputies, but by the highest of deputies. Even the captain of the whole jail.
We need help. We need lawyers, family, friends! Why? Because our voices and grievances are just wind. We are bullied by Lt. Siderakis and completely shut down. He abuses his power and answers to no one!
Now to the next major issue. Violation of law and our constitutional rights. Mendocino County jail has stopped mail and pictures via US Mail for contraband issues. That's fine. Now our loved ones must write to someplace in Maryland. There our mail is scanned and put on an computer application that we access on tablets provided by the jail. Pictures must also be sent this way.
This sounds great. But what becomes of our mail and pictures after being scanned? We were at one time allowed photos via an online provider, "shutterfly.com." But for unknown reasons this was stopped as well. To me it feels like a monopoly on our mail as our families are charged 25¢ per picture.
Although the real issue is, the jail, as part of this "group punishment" took our tablets. Once the jail chose to use these tablets as our only source of mail and photos, it takes the "restricted use of tablets" out of their hands for a punishment as now our mail and photos are being used as punishments.
Again, we can grieve this but again the grievance is against Lt. Siderakis and Captain Spears. They are the level two and three respondents so we get nowhere.
My wife has called to confront Lt. Siderakis in the past asking if he was group punishing and he said, "Yep!" and he hung up on her. My wife is the complete opposite of me and has never been in trouble. This just goes to show the abuse of power and position of Lt. Siderakis! If you would like to get a hold of Captain Spears as a wife with issues, too bad. You have to go through Lt. Siderakis. And guess what? His professional response is to just hang up. After all, who is going to check them? He is the law! This is a common attitude among all jailers in power positions.
Our confronting of this issue has gotten Sergeant Johnston, Sergeant Grant and Sergeant Hardman to try to quiet us by saying they will print our mailbox but not our pictures! Why not our pictures? Pictures are the most important part of mail in my opinion! Not that it matters, all their promises are wind! No mail has been printed and I'm willing to bet none will.
I have grieved photos all the way up and Captain Spears said she would look into shutterfly being approved to provide photos. Six months later and still not a thing!
We could go on and on about the mental abuse from the jailers, the filth of the visiting area and units, lack of the jail following its own handbook and its own rules. But that's another day! Right now it is about a whole mod being punished as a group and being denied mail and pictures.
This letter is not just to expose use of powers by those who are sworn to protect and serve. Inmate or public, we are human and we have rights to be treated as such. On behalf of close to 30 inmates and their families who are having their rights violated and their mail and pictures withheld, please help! We need support. We need legal help and assistance so we can hold those accountable for breaking laws and violating our constitutional rights. We need prison advocates to help and assist us as we don't know what to file or to whom. This treatment is wrong and puts lives in danger. Without a care from the Mendocino County Sheriff's office!
Shayne Wrede A#2847
Mendocino County Jail
951 Low Gap Road
Ukiah CA 95482
* * *
BACKGROUND:
ALLEGED CASPAR MURDERER ARRESTED. Sheriff’s presser in reduced form: “On Thursday, December 24, 2020, shortly after 5:40 AM, officers with the California Highway Patrol were dispatched to a reported traffic collision causing injury in the 15000 block of Caspar Road near the Pacifica Drive intersection in Caspar.
Upon arrival the initial CHP officer discovered the traffic collision involved a 2003 Chevrolet pick-up truck driven by Shayne Wrede, 35, of Fort Bragg.
Additionally, a 1994 Honda 650 motorcycle was present in the roadway. It was determined the motorcycle had been operated by Mark Hutchinson of Willits who was dead at the scene.
Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to the reported coroner's case. It was learned that Wrede (who was identified as also being on County Parole. Wrede reported being the victim of a shooting earlier that morning in Fort Bragg prior to the traffic collision.
FORT BRAGG POLICE had been dispatched to an apartment complex on South Street, Fort Bragg, where evidence was located that was consistent with a shooting.
FOLLOWING the shooting, Wrede pursued Hutchinson over a 4.5-mile southbound vehicle chase, their vehicles reaching speeds of at least 90 MPH through the city of Fort Bragg and the unincorporated southern portion of Fort Bragg before continuing south onto Caspar Road where the subsequent traffic collision occurred resulting in Hutchinson's death.
Following their scene investigation, speaking with eyewitnesses and reviewing surveillance video associated with the shooting and vehicle chase, Sheriff's Detectives developed probable cause to believe Wrede intentionally struck Hutchinson's motorcycle with his 2003 Chevrolet pick-up truck at a high rate of speed while on Caspar Road.
WREDE was arrested for Murder and Violation of Post Release Community Supervision and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $500,000 bail.
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