RICHARD POOLE JR. and Scott Anderson came by the Boonville office the other day. They’d driven down from Willits where Poole owns property at 195 E. Oak, a couple of blocks from Main Street. Poole is in his late 50s and is a disabled veteran. He’s a big man who travels with a pair of small, well-behaved dogs. It wasn’t easy for Poole to get up the office stairs, and when he sat heavily down I could hear his lungs. Anderson did all the talking as Poole stared at me and occasionally nodded assent. Whenever I looked back at Poole he smiled ruefully and shrugged his shoulders in a total gesture of, “Isn’t this a mess?” I don’t think he quite knows what’s happening to him. The two of them, Anderson and Poole, made me think of Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men.
I’VE KNOWN Scott Anderson all the way back to his days at Boonville High School. I knew his parents. We all knew his mother Terry who was instrumental in forming the Anderson Valley Health Center, which has grown into a small hospital. I knew that Scott was doing pretty well in Willits as a property developer when he started turning up in the Sheriff’s Log. And kept turning up in the Sheriff’s Log. He's lost everything he’d had, including his wife who died in an automobile accident on the Willits Grade. An irrepressible kind of guy, Scott said he's on the rebound, and looking ahead to better times.
THE STORY the animated Anderson told was a confused one, but the gist of it was that Poole is about to lose the home he bought with a VA loan back in 1999. Then there were refi’s and eventually fixer-upper loans from the City of Willits, and Poole got in deeper and deeper.
SCOTT ANDERSON said the City of Willits owes him money. He says he wants to give that money to Poole so Poole can get himself out from under the avalanche of loan defaults and liens on his maxed-out property. Anderson made it sound that this simple act of charity he wanted to do for his friend Poole was being stymied by the City of Willits, but the City of Willits says it doesn't owe Anderson any money.
HERE’S THE TRUE SITUATION: Mr. Poole is, at this point in his difficult life, disoriented from his multiplicity of disabilities. How he got that way can be debated, but here he is. I’d say he needs a judge to appoint a conservator, but it’s probably too late for that because in a few weeks Mr. Poole will be out of his house.
EVERYONE AGREES that Poole’s case is a sad one, and everyone I talked to about it has tried to help the guy because he’s the kind of guy people try to help. He’s probably gotten more help over the years than any other single citizen of Willits. That help has been repeatedly extended by the City of Willits and the various entities Poole owes money to, including family members, but everyone is out of help and Poole is about to be out on the street.
POOLE LIKES TO HELP PEOPLE, TOO. He has no criminal history, but people who do have criminal histories have moved in with him. As one Willits resident put it, “If we lose a Willits tweeker we know we can probably find him at Richard’s house.”
IF YOU LOOK up Poole’s property you’ll see that 11 persons are alleged to be living on his tiny plot at 195 E Oak. As presented by Google Earth, Poole’s place is covered with an assortment of structures, many of them apparently inhabited.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO, Poole got a nice loan from the City of Willits to rebuild his crumbling house. Not long after it was made fully habitable, and Poole and re-fi'd the property further encumbering it, the house began to crumble again from lack of basic maintenance. Keeping property up requires energy and focus. Poole doesn’t have it. He’s not well. The loans and the re-builds and the clean-ups went for naught.
AS 195 E. OAK became a consensus eyesore and habitat for people who long ago parted ways with the conventional world, the City of Willits paid people to clean up the property. And Poole said he’d keep it nice, and keep the deadbeats out, too. But try as he might, Poole, running as fast as he could, fell further behind on his loans as his property seemed to fall down around him. Willits several times re-negotiated the terms of the loans but the result was always the same: Poole would make a few payments and then the payments would stop.
THE CITY OF WILLITS cannot by law make endless gifts of public money. At some point the City has to at least try to get its money back, but Poole’s so far in to Willits that even when the City abates him right out onto the street, which will happen in a couple of weeks, and Willits sells the place, Willits still won’t recover all the money they’ve got invested in Richard Poole. Maybe one more deal can be worked out, maybe Willits will let Poole stay on under some sort of conservator arrangement. But Willits has already exhausted itself making deals with Poole, and in a matter of weeks the big guy with the bad lungs and the two well-behaved little dogs will no longer be at home at 195 E. Oak.
JOHN DALTON, now 58, has been in federal prison for more than 17 years on marijuana-related charges. Dalton was put in prison by rogue DEA agents who seduced his wife, making her their informant. At one point, the DEA had Dalton's wife place a tape recorder under the couple's bed in their Redwood Valley home. And the DEA took Mrs. Dalton joy riding in government helicopters and engaged her in sexual relations in a so-called Ukiah safe house. When Dalton sued the DEA for "egregious government misconduct," federal judge Susan Illston, in a contorted ruling, found that outrageous government conduct requires "more than negligence or poor judgment," declaring that tax-paid seduction of a citizen's wife by government agents was merely "inappropriate." Dalton is presently incarcerated at the federal prison in Lompoc, Central California. We are re-printing Tim Stelloh's follow-up piece on the Dalton case this week because we think what happened to Dalton is an ongoing outrage, one of the worst miscarriages of justice we know of arising out of Mendocino County.
THE SECOND MENDO judicial railroad was that of Mark Sprinkle, a Ukiah man sentenced to 45-to-life for what amounted to 90 seconds of sexual touching. Three underage girls, one of whom was the daughter of Sprinkle's embittered former girl friend, suddenly took off their clothes in Sprinkle's car. Instead of running from the vehicle Sprinkle stayed while the voluptuous 14-year-old daughter of his former girl friend rubbed up against him and cooed birds and bees questions to him that she'd known the answers to from a couple of prior years hanging around the Ukiah truck stop late at night. In a related persecution of the unfortunate Sprinkle, DA Eyster recently dispatched his second in command, Paul Sequeira, to argue against parole for Sprinkle as if he were some kind of playground perv. Sequeira attended the parole hearing because Beth Norman, Sprinkle's prosecutor, claimed she was still too afraid of Sprinkle to sit in the same room with him. Which, if true, should get her removed from her job as psychologically too precarious to do the work.
THE GRAND JURY has found that the Leggett schools are dangerously short of students, so short that the schools may not survive. The two-school district consists of a school in Leggett and another school 90 minutes to the northwest at Whale Gulch. The school in Leggett has 70 students, Whale Gulch 45. Add in a history of administrative turmoil and Leggett may be compelled to revert to the days when Leggett-area students were bussed to Fort Bragg, Whale Gulch youngsters to Garberville and South Fork. The GJ reports that the new administration is an improvement over those of the recent past, but the funding picture remains grim.
WAYNE MILLER has died at age 94. Some of us will remember him from the 1990's when Miller frequently represented the smaller, family-owned Mendo timber interests at public hearings. Miller was best known as a photographer. He organized the famous 1955 Family of Man exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art and provided the photos for Dr. Spock's best-selling, "The World Is Young." Miller is survived by his wife of 70 years, Joan Miller, and several children, among them Dana Blencowe of Fort Bragg.
RANDOM OPINION: Ukiah City Councilman Phil Baldwin has been widely denounced for devoting two hours of recent Council time to a failed resolution opposing US involvement in Syria. The denunciations of Baldwin boiled down to the opinion that big picture political issues are not what city councils are elected to address. Two hours does seem more like a filibuster of the most excruciatingly tedious type, but I agree with Baldwin that discussion of this or that imperial disaster like the one looming in Syria should not be left to the people creating them, the experts. Look where leaving it to them has gotten US. If city councils and boards of supervisors routinely addressed national issues I think we'd be a healthier country for it because it might give pause to career officeholders like our Congressman, Spike Huffman, before he signs off on the next catastrophe. Imperial military adventures do affect us at the micro-level of American life by diverting public money from programs Americans need, even Ukiahan-Americans.
I DIDN'T KNOW THAT. Robert Ripley, of Ripley's Believe It Or Not, was born and raised in Santa Rosa. A new biography of Ripley says he began life in the Rose City in 1890 when Santa Rosa was “a colorful California whistle-stop.…where folks shot each other over card games, stole horses and robbed banks.” Known for “drinking like an acquitted convict,” Ripley compensated for “fanged teeth and jug ears by building a gymnast's physique” and “dressing like a paint factory hit by lightening."
SANTA ROSA hasn't changed much. Folks now shoot each other over dope deals, steal cars instead of horses and there have never been more bank robberies. What has changed is the town's journalism and the people who practice it. They're about as colorful as a sack of marshmallows, and write like it, too.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How does the Fed lending trillions of dollars created out of thin air at zero percent interest to banks that then buy federal debt that pays 4 to five percent, money that we taxpayers have removed from our income and property by the IRS, how does that create jobs again?
"THE NORTH COAST COMMUNITY needs a fully funded, fully functional 2 year accredited junior college to serve the needs of local citizens to have access to public education at relatively low cost. Graduating high school seniors from Fort Bragg and Mendocino Unified School Districts deserve the option of a proper junior college path to a four-year education and beyond. Our community is somewhat isolated and needs this fully functional and fully funded junior college. That's why I created a petition to Fort Bragg City Council and Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, which says: 'We, the undersigned citizens, petition the Fort Bragg City Council and the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors demanding that there be a functional and fully funded Community Junior College at the present campus in the city of Fort Bragg which will serve the North Coast community.' Will you sign this petition? Click here: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/the-north-coast-deserves?source=c.em.mt&r_by=7244206
Thanks! — Jessie Lee VanSant"
THE GRAND JURY conducted mandated jail visits as well as visited local law enforcement agencies. The GJ found all facilities to be safe and well functioning within budgetary restrictions. All visited agencies expressed the need for additional staff. There was one issue that came up repeatedly, the impact of 5150 arrests on departmental resources and public safety. A 5150 is an individual displaying high-risk behavior posing an imminent safety risk to themselves or others. Every 5150 arrest takes an officer away from patrol duty for hours at a time as they wait for a crisis worker to arrive or until preliminary procedures are complete. The severe cuts to the County's Mental Health budget have resulted in less staff and resources. As a result, there is one crisis worker on duty for the entire county after hours and on weekends. Crisis workers have the authority to release patients over the objections of police, hospital staff, and psychiatrists. The lack of Mental Health workers is costly to law enforcement and local hospitals as well as to the safety of all citizens. Additionally, there are conflicting opinions on how this County’s Health and Human Services Agency treats dual diagnoses. The GJ is recommending Mental Health administration continue and expand the search for a county psychiatrist for the jail, provide additional crisis workers after hours, and re-examine the 5150 hospitalization and release procedures. Mental Health needs to make funds available to implement a discharge plan to aid the mentally ill released from jail. The medical provider at the jail is currently using a doc-in-a-box (telepsychiatry) in the absence of a psychiatrist. There is a psychiatric nurse on site. The GJ observed and determined the position of the camera was inadequate. Jail administration needs to move the camera closer to achieve personal contact. Telepsychiatry provides prescription service only, no counseling...
MAN BEATER OF THE WEEK: Ms. Miranda Mullins of Willits. Miranda, 18, is a large, attractive young woman whose bail was set at the minimum $10,000 for an allegation of domestic violence. Big women, like big men, are generally perceived as somehow capable of greater violence than smaller people, but that's never been true unless you plan to rassle the large person.
Quick story here: In another life I was a volunteer captive at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego where every member of Platoon 199 got feloniously assaulted at least once a day. There was also what was called the Bad Ass Platoon, made up of kamikaze types who'd slugged a DI and were otherwise nameable to military discipline. Or any discipline at all. The Marines didn't kick these guys out, they put them in this Bad Ass Platoon where the guys in charge, all veterans of the Korean War's heavy combat, some of it hand-to-hand, were the kind of guys who could kill you three different ways before you hit the ground. And they were not large, more like middleweight fighters. But at even the hint of insolence, down you'd go, down hard, too. All day long the Bad Ass Platoon did physical training; no classes, just running, push-ups and lots of late night bare knucks in the quonsets. We did the same thing but with time outs for instruction and lots of close order drill, aka marching. 15 weeks of it, at the end of which all of us could at least take a punch. That was 1957. The point is, I don't think Ms. Mullins needs to be put in the Bad Ass Platoon, but a lot of people would benefit greatly.
GJ CONTINUED: During a visit to the County jail, it was reported close to 20% of all inmates have Mental Health issues. Due to the lack of Mental Health services and facilities in this County, people arrested for behavioral issues end up in jail. There are people in jail who are not accepted by Mental Health facilities, not deemed competent to stand trial, or are waiting for conservatorship status. Reduced resources within the Mental Health department have resulted in reduction of staff and less funds for hospitalization of the mentally ill. At the time of the GJ visit, it was reported there were 254 inmates, of which 46 had mental health issues. One third of these are women. Twelve inmates are acutely mentally ill (half men, half women) and should be hospitalized. This includes one inmate with a misdemeanor waiting months for a Mental Health bed.
THE GJ heard testimony at the jail that their biggest issue is mental illness.... Since there is no psychiatrist available for the jail, management at the jail insisted that a Mental Health nurse be available to administer drugs and provide some counseling. The medical provider offers telepsychiatry two hours a week. Services consist of diagnoses and prescriptions for medication, no counseling. Telepsychiatry (doc-in-the-box) is an impersonal replacement for a psychiatrist. During a visit to the jail, the GJ participated in an interview with the telepsychiatrist. The placement of the camera focused on the doctor all the way across the room. Repositioning the camera to focus on the doctor’s face would make the experience more personal. This limited service would not work without a psychiatric nurse on staff to provide patient evaluations. Telepsychiatry costs the same as an on-site psychiatrist but does not provide the same level of service. There is no other facility in the County for mentally ill who are acting out. The only place to confine them is jail. Patient inmates are often placed in solitary confinement for their own safety, as well as the safety of others. Jail staff quoted, “solitary confinement in jail is the worst thing we can do to someone…safety cells are a horrible, horrible necessity. There is no other way.”
GJ CONTINUED: A senior jail official stated, “We provide more mental health services than the Mental Health Department. We are the end recipient for the people the Mental Health Department no longer serves.” County jail personnel and Mental Health staff are working on the development of a follow-up program for released patients deemed mentally ill.
Law enforcement officers stated they no longer have confidence in statements made by Mental Health. The Willits Police Department refused to sign a MOU with Mental Health due to lack of trust. In an effort to control costs, County administration has decided to contract out Mental Health services in 2013. It is unclear, at this time, what the final contract will include. Since the county has put the Mental Health service contract out for bid, the department is having difficulty replacing staff.
SF MOMA STRIKES AGAIN. Crissy Field is the large expanse of field on San Francisco Bay, a bracing vista of green on the bay with a cluster at its west end of stately old structures left over from the days when the Presidio was a functioning Army base, the whole of it looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge. All that natural beauty must have been too much for the black-clad pseuds at SFMOMA who saw major eyesore potential in all that empty space. So they plunk down eight separately huge collections of randomly welded lengths of steel, enough to destroy the area's visuals for the year the things will rest there, with one of the monstrosities phallically aimed at the Bridge. It's insulting, really, and shouldn't be permitted. But there they are, the worst public art in the city since the Vaillancourt Fountain at Justin Herman Plaza.
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR in a recent SF Chronicle:
"The emperor's new clothes? How is it that SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra can foist this litter on San Francisco? The pleasant, wide-open space of Crissy Field is marred by this visual assault. Apparently these sculptures speak to art reviewer Kenneth Baker but in some arcane language known only to himself. As to seeing them for what they are, I see that they are not unlike the barriers the German army placed on the beaches of Normandy to prevent the Allies from landing in France. Diana Knight, Fairfax. Sign the petition to remove the Crissy Field sculpture.
THUGS AND REEFER. Gil Kerlikowske has been Obama's “director of national drug control policy” since 2009. Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said last week that there's a strong correlation between drug use and crime. He said that his studies revealed that 54% of the people arrested for one thing or another tested positive for marijuana, with cocaine and crank running a strong second. Mr. K said that his office has concluded that federal drug policy should be assumed to be more of a public health problem and approached from that assumption rather than being addressed primarily as a criminal justice problem. He said “it means abandoning simplistic bumper sticker approaches, such as boiling the issue down to a ‘war on drugs’ or outright legalization.”
A YOUTHFUL MALE VOICE on our Tuesday afternoon hotline told us that Darryl Cherney would be on KZYX at 3pm. My reaction to certain names, Cherney's high among them, is a moment of groaning despair and, maybe, if it's the end of the workday, a revivifying shot of Maker’s Mark. I tuned in on the off chance it was a call-in but, of course, this subject and many others at free speech radio being strictly one-way, it was not to be. And, it seems, this was a music show not a talk program, and here came the minstrel man with a breathless tale suggesting that an FBI bomb expert named Frank Doyle had given a 1990 bomb training class to a bunch of cops at the College of the Redwoods then trundled on down to Oakland to blow up Judi Bari. Cherney told the credulous woman hosting the show — the Bari Cult never appears anyplace where they're likely to be questioned — that he had Doyle on tape telling another cop that the Bari bombing was “the final exam” for the class he'd just given up north. That was Cherney's conclusion anyway. But, Cherney said, Doyle had his back turned in the film of the scene so audio forensics would be necessary to definitely attribute the “final exam” remark to him. And since Doyle now worked for the tv show Myth Busters, Cherney was in San Francisco to get himself in the media's eye in front of the Myth Buster office. Maybe the show would bust Doyle's myth, Cherney said, without saying they might also bust Cherney's myths while they're at it, but I've never seen the show so I don't know what kind of myths they bust.
AS IT HAPPENS, Judi Bari herself played that tape of Doyle for me, if it is Doyle. I remember driving all the way from Boonville to her cabin on String Creek east of Willits because she said she had a big new development in the case. I already knew that things weren't what she was putting out there because, for one thing, a person who'd survived an attempt on her life sure as hell wouldn't be living off in the woods where she could so easily have been finished off. Anyway, we walked over to Joanne Moore's house where there was a tape player to listen to alleged Agent Doyle. The recording was faint but I distinctly heard a male voice say, “This is the final exam.” I thought it was cop humor, and I still think that, just as I think it highly unlikely that Doyle would have practiced blowing up cars in Eureka then, a short time later, blown someone up with a car bomb. I mean really. Double duh. But Cherney, a cash and carry guy all the way, knows that all you have to do to get the slo-mo sectors of the “left” to write checks to you is say the FBI did it. If you say the ex-husband did it the "left" sits on its smug assumptions.
IN AN ARTICLE Judi wrote about Doyle and his bomb class for my paper, she identified an Oakland cop who'd attended Doyle's class. Doyle, she said, had addressed his little joke to that guy while they were at the scene of her bombing.
ONE MORE TIME: If you think an FBI agent would give a bomb class for a random bunch of cops and young people wanting to become cops then, a week or so later, blow up a well known person in the middle of a major American city and also implicate himself at the scene where any old body could overhear him, get out your checkbook and tell Cherney to fill in the amount.
CHERNEY never mentions that the whole Bari Scam-a-rama could have demanded early on that the feds and/or the Mendo authorities subpoena the dna of likely suspects to compare against the known dna drawn from the confession letter signed by the bomber as The Lord's Avenger. And Cherney never explains why Bari, soon after the bombing, applied for limited immunity from prosecution to the FBI. (They said No.) Or why the Bari family has never demanded resolution of the case. Or why Cherney suggests on the one hand that the FBI committed the crime, but on the other can be trusted to turn over pristine evidence.
THIS THING is a huge fraud, front to back, but Cherney has lived off it all these years and continues to live off it because there's always a fresh new crop of dummies coming along who believe everything he puts out, and speaking of dummies, another young person, this one female, calls up Tuesday and says, “I thought you'd want to know that Darryl Cherney is talking right now to Dennis Bernstein on KPFA.” Gog and Magog!
ONE MORE THING: Contrary to Supervisor Hamburg's cretinous remarks on the Bari case to his amen chorus on listserve, I don't “hate” Mike Sweeney, and I certainly did not “hate” Judi Bari. I have to admire Sweeney for what he's pulled off here; how many ex-husbands can blow up their ex-wives and get away with it? (I don't think, though, that Sweeney acted alone.) And Judi Bari was a good friend of mine. She wrote for my paper and organized Redwood Summer using my paper as her megaphone when no other media would even talk to her unless it was to malign her. (KPFA jumped in right around the time of the bombing, and KZYX had non-personed Bari early on and un-non-personed her when she became famous.) When I finally said to Judi (and I'm ashamed to admit I pretty much bought her version of events until I met Steve Talbot) I thought she should tell the truth about what happened she never spoke to me again. I think now, all these years later, I was probably the only real friend she had.
A LOW INTENSITY war is underway between Mendo law enforcement and Meredith Ford, the County's Auditor/Controller over Prop.172, a sales tax measure from the 1990s designed to help fund “public safety.” The money is earmarked for law enforcement but some goes to fire agencies. And some goes, County administration maintains, to the general fund as “a required maintenance of effort,” which seems to mean the County's take for administering the money. If the County meets the state standard it gets the revenues beyond what is devoted to public safety. Ms. Ford has been battling cancer and has been out of her elected office a lot, which makes resolution of the dispute more difficult than it need be.
REPORTING on the hospital strikes, particularly the ones at the UC hospitals, hasn't explained the nut of employee beefs, which boil down to continued layoffs, which means more work for fewer employees and a generally deteriorated quality of care for patients. The boss at UCSF, for example, was paid $1.3 million last year as he laid off 300 people.
PERSONAL NOTE and observation from my experience visiting family and friends who've been patients at UCSF: The level of care at UCSF seems all right but ragged around the edges because doctors, nurses and ancillary staff are asked to do too much. The patient presses the buzzer for help and help maybe shows up, maybe shows up twenty minutes later, maybe doesn't show up at all unless your friend or relative jogs out to the nurse's station to state the prob directly. The staff at UCSF needs more help but isn't getting it.
FROM MY OWN emergency stay at St. Mary's a couple of years ago, also in San Francisco, I couldn't help but see how much more efficient St. Mary's was compared to UCSF, and how much less harried and happier staff was at St. Mary's. Of course as a wheeze covered by MediCare I had a choice of hospitals, and I'm here to tell you St. Mary's offers a level of care that's far and above UCSF. If you've got to go under the knife, St. Mary's is the place to do it.
WE KNOW WHERE WALDO is, but where's Glenda? Glenda Anderson, the Press Democrat's one-person “North Bay Bureau” hasn't filed a story out of Ukiah in months.
ALEXANDRA STILLMAN has been appointed as Arcata's rep to the North Coast Railroad Authority. As reported by Hank Sims of Lost Coast Outpost, Ms. Stillman said of her appointment, which was resisted by the area's mossbacks, “I just figure it’s important because Arcata has so many rail lines going through it, and we have the rail-with-trail project… Arcata is very affected by rail.” Or eternal lack of. Ms. Stillman told Sims she wants to focus on feasible projects like rails with trails for the publicly-owned but rail-free rail line.
LAST MONDAY (May 20th) at about 2pm Scott Walecka and his daughter Hilary Walecka of Santa Cruz were returning from a day on the bay practicing in their 38-foot sailboa Animal for last Friday’s Spinnaker Cup race from San Francisco to Monterey when Hilary saw someone jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Within seconds they heard over their radio that the Coast Guard had been alerted that someone had jumped and that a cutter and a CHP chopper were being dispatched. Hilary saw the chopper hovering over the area where the jumper landed and directed her father to the spot. Upon arrival Scott Walecka threw the man a life jacket on a rope. “He was alive and wanted to be rescued,” Scott Walecka said. "His legs were broken, but he grabbed the life jacket and pulled himself to the boat." Mr. Walecka described the man as apparently homeless and 31 years of age. Besides his broken legs, he seemed otherwise in good physical condition. The man said he was from Alabama, but was in too much shock to say anything else, Walecka said. The Waleckas took the jumper to the Sausalito Coast Guard station where he was turned over to fire-rescue personnel and taken to Marin General Hospital but his condition in the hospital has not been reported.
LIKE MANY SUICIDAL BRIDGE JUMPERS since 1937, the 31-year old homeless jumper probably regretted his nearly fatal decision as soon as he left the bridge. It’s not clear what prompted the man to jump on Monday, but those involved said he was lucky that the Waleckas were in the area and on the alert because most jumpers die a grisly death, with massive internal injuries and broken bones, on top of shock and lung failure leading to drowning in the Bay’s frigid waters. The bridge authority’s board of directors has approved a nearly invisble metal net system to prevent suicides. The final design for that project is expected to be completed by the end of the year. However, the system would not be funded with bridge toll revenue, but by private donations and it is currently $45 million short of its $50 million budget.
ON TUESDAY May 14th, the County of Mendocino and the Mendocino County Management Association, yet another County bargaining unit, received approval from the Board of Supervisors for a Memorandum of Understanding that extends through September of 2014. Management was among the first four bargaining units to take a 10% reduction in October of 2010 in response to the economic crisis facing the County. The current MOU adopted by the Board of Supervisors last week largely extends the prior agreements, and the 10% reduction, through September of 2014 with no enhancements to benefit or salary levels in the contract.
IT TOOK US a while to figure out the specific nature of the scam at the North Coast Railroad Authority. There’s no way a railroad that runs almost no trains can be financially viable even if they rent their silent right of way to their own “operator,” Northwestern Pacific Inc. Which also doesn't run trains except for a token run once in a while with a little feed grain or the occasional miscellaneous freight between Windsor and San Rafael.
HERE'S THE SCAM: THE NCRA gets federal money for maintaining and even upgrading track for trains that will never run on those tracks. The NCRA is a pseudo-agency used by the NWP to launder the federal and state track maintenance money to NWP. NCRA tells people they’re going to run a freight service some day. SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit) tells people they’re going to run a commuter rail line some day. They’re not, of course, because there’s nowhere near enough sustaining freight or ridership to do either. But that doesn’t matter because as long as NCRA maintains the fiction that trains will run some day, they can keep getting money from the feds and the state to repay the track maintenance loans they got from NWP — with substantial interest; the same money NWP loaned NCRA to give right back to NWP to do the “maintenance” which is paid back with interest when the state and federal reimbursement money comes in later. NCRA itself skims enough out of the federal and state track maintenance money via “rental” from the NWP which is nothing more than a share in the interest money that NCRA was charged by NWP.
IT’S JUST CONVOLUTED ENOUGH to keep most bureaucrats and the public in the dark about what’s really going on. And it all depends on the complete and utter fantasy that there will be an economically viable train service running some day. And that’s why the NCRA (and most of its captive “board of directors”) is so dead set against abandoning those fantasies — even though, as a practical matter, they know there will never be a viable train service on the abandoned line.
IT’S BRILLIANT, when you think about it. As long as the feds, the state and most of the public falls for this choo-choo sucker play, NCRA can keep chugging along indefinitely fixing and upgrading tracks for a mythical railroad.
LATE LAST MONTH The Mendo Board of Supervisors discussed possible capital expenditures put off for several years due to budget restrictions. Among the items in the pipeline is an upgrade of the County’s antiquated assessor’s parcel tracking system on which all the property taxes and associated assessments are maintained. Mendocino County has about 56,000 parcels (not all of them developed, of course) with a total assessed value of about $9 billion for an average assessed value of about $170k. According to Assessor-Recorder Susan Ranochak, the computer and software maintaining the parcel database were originally obtained from Sutter County in the 1960s. It was updated to some extent in the 1970s and again in the 1980s. It went “live” in 1996, apparently meaning that staffers and the public could access the data with computer terminals at the Assessor’s office which they got for free from another county who abandoned them when they upgraded more than 15 years ago. “It’s an obsolete system,” said Ranochak, stating the obvious. “If it fails, I don’t know what would happen. We no longer have staff to maintain the software. Younger staff members know nothing about it and have to spend time learning an obsolete system. Until now our Information Technology people did a great job keeping it up, but the only person familiar with the system retired last year. In addition, too much information is in people’s heads, not in the computer system. It would take a year or two before any new property tax system could be implemented. We need to start the RFP (Request for Proposals) process to see what’s out there.”
SUPERVISOR PINCHES suggested that some of the recently improved Teeter Plan proceeds be spent on the computer upgrade, but his fellow Board members were reluctant to slow down the Teeter Debt payback plan which has been relatively successful.
AUDITOR MEREDITH FORD added, “We have one person in our office with lots of parcel spreadsheets. It’s hard to keep up on parcels and all the associated activity. A supplemental run we had to produce recently blew up in middle and we had to finish the run with manual attention.”
SUPERVISOR John McCowen, who has rightly been pushing the County to “deTeeter” some of the unsalable, tax defaulted parcels in Brooktrails to save the County some money, added, “We only heard about this when we dug into Teeter. Now we hear about it. It sounds like there was a significant disconnect. Where was it? I don't know. It’s a big disappointment to be at this point [with very little choice and not much time]. We can't afford to continue to use the obsolete system and all the extra staff time. It puts a stress on several offices, and we have to do it with reduced staff at the same time. We can't afford to put it off any longer. The timing of the replacement depends on financing. Plus, it will take more staff time to develop and implement a new system.” McCowen noted that a new system should be similar to systems in use in other counties in the state, but Ranochak pointed out that there would still be “lots of RFP work to do; then staff would have to decide how to tailor it for Mendocino County. That could take months. Then we’d have to go through demos and testing.”
SUPERVISOR CARRE BROWN reminded staff that the County should make sure they don’t get into the kinds of trouble Marin County had with their huge accounting system upgrade fiasco. According to a January 2013 Marin Independent Journal story: “High-tech experts who had been following the County of Marin's legal battle over a $30 million computer problem were left wondering what happened after county officials — who spent $5 million in legal fees — announced a $3.9 million settlement last week with no public explanation. Dropped in the deal crafted behind closed doors were all claims against Deloitte Consulting LLP, software giant SAP and former county Auditor Ernest Culver, who managed the computer project for the county before quitting to join SAP in 2007. The county board, claiming fraud, racketeering, bribery and other wrongdoing, filed two high-profile lawsuits in 2010, saying the county was ripped off when a sophisticated fiscal accounting system failed to work right. Officials later decided to scrap the inefficient system that a grand jury calculated had cost taxpayers $28.6 million by 2009. It remains ‘stable’ and in use while officials determine what system to buy next. Although officials contended for more than a year that their case was strong despite setbacks in court, the county bailed out last week and officials declined comment, with elected leaders citing a settlement gag order.”
MS. RANOCHAK suggested that the County begin to prepare an RFP which can be done without specifically committing capital equipment funds. That funding decision can wait until August when next year’s budget is finalized. Meantime, two crucial County offices will muddle through with computer systems so old that only a retired guy can get them to work.
IS WILLITS READY for at least two solid years of deafening pile driving? CalTrans’ contractor, Utah-based FlatIron, has been carrying out test piledriving this week. Piledriving, which is so loud that it splits eardrums of nearby wildlife, is one of the major environmental and quality-of-life impacts of the project. Unless the Bypass is stopped by the people of Willits, Willits will be dealing with and associated heavy construction for at least a few more years. A new video at www.Savelittlelakevalley.org courtesy of Chris Hardaker, shows (or more accurately blasts) just a small snippet of Caltrans driving test pilings on the Bypass route near Hearst-Willits Road.
WILLITS WILL GET NO HELP from newly elected Congressman Jared ‘Spike’ Huffman and, of course, Wes Chesbro remains among the missing. According to a recent post on www.Savelittlelakevalley.org Congressman Huffman told the Ukiah Democratic Club — Val Muchowski, Joe Wildman and the Superior Court of Mendocino County — that it was too late for him to get involved and that he would “get engaged” … “if any agency is not living up to its mitigation requirements.” Huffman, who represents the 1st Congressional District spanning the entire California North Coast from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border, was sworn in to his new job this past January. Previously, the Willits area’s representative in Congress was an instrumental supporter of the Caltrans bypass of Willits, Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), who intervened at multiple stages to make sure the project moved forward.
TAKE IT AWAY, Spike: “If I were stepping into this way earlier in this process, I think [City Councilwoman] Madge [Strong] and many of you make a compelling case, there could be alternatives that make more sense. There are some apparent shortcomings in this that would cause me to have all the same concerns you are laying out. But, I have to also respect that all of the approvals at every step in a very deliberate and extensive and lengthy process are in place, and we now have a court case that is pending. It’s just something that, as a member of Congress, I have to have respect for the process at some point. I told Madge, and I’ll tell you again: There are two things that could cause me to engage differently on this project. One is that if the court decision goes your way. If we get a court ruling that says now you need to go look at other alternatives, including the one on the rail right-of-way, which seems like something that would merit a second look if that’s the case. Then you’re gonna’ see me shoulder-to-shoulder with all of you urging Caltrans to do that, and I think that would be respectful of the process as well. The second way I would get engaged is if any agency is not living up to its mitigation requirements. I want to make sure that if this does move forward as it’s been permitted and approved, that all of the mitigation takes place and that it’s done in the most environmentally responsible way possible. That’s not going to satisfy a lot of the folks in this room, I know. But, I gotta be honest with you, that’s where I am, and I can’t unwind a process that’s this far along. But I certainly respect what you’re doing as well.”
ACCORDING TO A RECENT 2013 GRAND JURY REPORT, in 1985, LAFCo (Mendo’s Local Area Formation Commission) “commissioned a study by Culp/Wessner/Culp Engineering to determine the feasibility of combining the City of Ukiah, Millview, Willow and Calpella water systems into one agency. In December 1986 this study resulted in two recommendations: that the City of Ukiah be the sole supplier or that a new district be formed that included all four agencies. The recommendations failed because the city did not want to join a separate district and Millview did not want to secede to the city.”
THE 2013 Grand Jury report notes that “there is a proliferation of special districts in the Coastal and valley areas of Mendocino County,” but can only muster a pointless suggestion that LAFCo “provide the leadership to facilitate the consolidation of some of the resources and services of the valley…”
BACK IN THE 90s a bolder Grand Jury specifically suggested that everyone’s best interest would be served if the multiple water agencies in the Ukiah valley were consolidated. But, of course, nothing changes because none of the balkanized little boards each with their own irrational collection of water rights, obviously including Millview, want to cede their prize water rights to anyone else. (And don’t forget that some of the water rights are used for the proliferation of vineyards in the Ukiah Valley.) Among the results of this pathetic situation are a damaging competition for underlying groundwater which is already overallocated and overappropriated and a patchwork of widely varying conservation measures between districts whenever there’s a drought — which may well happen again this year. In the last drought, homes across the street from one another were told, on the one hand to cut back their water usage by 50% and, on the other, to engage in voluntary conservation, creating unnecessary animosity among neighbors, some of whom continued to wash their cars while others avoided flushing their toilets.
TECHNICALLY, the Board of Supervisors, acting as the County Water Agency, could issue some regulations that would apply evenly to all water districts in the County (such as gauging and rate setting) but that would require the “leadership” that the Grand Jury incorrectly calls on from LAFCo. Historically, the Board of Supervisors has never shown any interest in “leadership” outside what little they do internally with the County’s management structure. There’s no indication that they have any will to do so now. And the Grand Jury recommendation to LAFCo, instead of the Board of Supervisors, just gives the Board yet another free pass on the subject until the next drought comes along.
OH, WE FORGOT TO MENTION SEWER SERVICES which are also in dire need of “leadership.”
THE SUBJECTS OF WATER AND SEWER are so untouchable that no Supervisors have ever even put the Ukiah Valley water and sewer problems on their agenda for open discussion. Development and vineyard interests always take precedence over “leadership” in Mendocino County.
FRIDAY NIGHT, MAY 31st, The Mendocino Coast Jazz Society, will honor this year's music scholarship winners, Mariana Cooper and Spencer Crowell, as part of the regular Fri. night Jazz show at the North Coast Brewery in Fort Bragg. Mariana and Spencer will play a short opening set at 6:00, and then will be presented with their scholarships. Jazz pianist Richard Cooper and saxophonist Francis Vanek will then play till 9:00. The Brewery is located at 501 N. Main, Fort Bragg
TWO IMPORTANT BYPASS ISSUES arose at the May 22 Willits City Council meeting. According to the Council’s agenda for May 22 under a cryptic item under “City Council and Committee Reports” and “Ad Hoc Committees — Caltrans” we later discover, we think, an account by Linda Williams of the Willits News that tells us what it was all about: “The Willits City Council listened to more than three hours of testimony by a series of local citizens objecting to the way the city was dealing with ongoing violations of the city's highway relinquishment agreement with CalTrans. The issue was placed on the agenda by Councilwoman Madge Strong and in the end her motion to change the timeframe for negotiations died due to lack of a second.”
SO WE CAREFULLY RE-READ the agenda. No such “issue” was on it. But it must have been in there somewhere because “a series of local citizens” certainly did object to the way the City of Willits is handling the “relinquishing agreement with CalTrans.”
MADGE STRONG is the only outspoken Bypass opponent on the City Council. We’re pretty sure she wanted to do more than simply change the timeframe for negotiations with Caltrans. (Hopefully, she will provide more on that later.)
PARTICULARLY INTERESTING for example, was this item: “Strong and several of the speakers expressed concern about whether CalTrans was actually going to complete the scheduled reconfiguration of the Sherwood Road interchange as stated in the city's agreement with CalTrans.”
“CALTRANS is fully committed to improving the Sherwood Road intersection. The funds have been programmed ($200,000 for right of way, $3.5 million for construction, and $2.5 million for development and support), geotechnical studies have been completed, and the design is being finalized,” said CalTrans spokesman Phil Frisbie.
REALLY? An earlier piece by Ms. Williams reported, “When the bypass was approved by the California Transportation Commission in March 2012, a series of ‘child’ projects were also approved as part of the main project. These projects were the Sherwood Road interchange for $6.25 million, the Ryan Creek fish passage, the City of Willits relinquishment, and the environmental mitigation. The money was ‘programmed’ to be spent in future years. This means the projects have money reserved for them and will move forward unless there is a significant change in the project or estimate.” (Our emphasis.)
THAT WOULD APPEAR TO MEAN that when the Bypass project over-runs, as it inevitably will, there will be no Sherwood Road interchange, no Ryan Creek fish passage, no relinquishment and no mitigation. The money will be “reprogrammed” to cover the overrun and Willits will have to settle for leftovers, if any.
AND THE CALTRANS BAIT & SWITCH will be complete.
THE OTHER MAJOR ISSUE that locals complained about was “why the contractor is not installing a haul road along the bypass corridor and is instead using city streets.”
CALTRANS SPOKESMAN Phil Frisbie responded, “The haul road clearance is part of our permit from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. At this point the issue is not that we are experiencing difficulties with obtaining clearance for the haul road [which they obviously are, but Frisbie chooses to ignore it because they’re using city streets], but that the contractor believes [our emphasis] using city streets to deliver materials will be much more efficient, and could [our emphasis] shorten the construction time by as much as [our emphasis] a full year. This would be beneficial for everyone [if it happened — it would be especially “beneficial” for Caltrans and their contractor if no one else]. The city provided Caltrans with a 90 day grace period for the contractor to use city streets.”
THIS “grace period,” by the way, was interpreted differently by the Willits people who were complaining, saying it applied to negotiations, not actual use of the road.
THIS TRANSLATES AGAIN to the Bypass Budget and the inevitable overrun. If it means that using Willits’s over-burdened city streets will save Caltrans and the Contractor some money — never mind how much costly damage is done to those streets by Caltrans and the contractor’s heavy equipment — Willits will just have to suck it up.
THE HIGH-HANDEDNESS of Frisbie and Caltrans in their dealings with Willits is breathtaking. The City Council (with the obvious exception of Ms. Strong) has no idea how one-sided this all will end up, with the City of Willits holding a very big, very expensive bag.
JEFF COSTELLO, DRIVING THROUGH UTAH, NOTES: “Road notes in progress. After driving across Utah, it makes perfect sense to me that the loudest, most violent and intrusive aspect of the Willits bypass project is being done by a Utah company.”
COLLEGE OF THE REDWOODS: ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOW ABOUT THE EARLY YEARS? A READER WRITES: “It would be nice to hear a full-blown history on the beginnings of the ‘college.’ I worked there as a student during the nursing program days, dabbled in classes prior, as many citizens ridiculed the ‘basketweaving’ classes, I took law, real estate and drawing. I think how it happened and who made it happen is important. I do know the vote to affiliate with C/R (in Eureka) was the animosity coastal residents felt towards the city of Ukiah where Mendocino College is located. When I worked on the coast campus during the Kavanaugh days, Joan Penrods' nursing program graduates were testing consistently highest in California for their state exams. People were commuting from the city to take the two year RN course and internationally for the woodworking classes. An offer was made during that time to build dorms for students, by a private individual. He was excited about his offer, as I remember. Davis made a bid to put a satellite campus on the coast (Point Arena) many years ago and its offer being rejected seemed to me a sign of something denser than the Washington rain forest in the fog. How did the college start, before the affiliation vote? Who were the players and what was their vision? Regardless, what little we have is a lot to lose. Even if it is to socialize and open windows in our own world. Thanks for listening.”
SUPERVISOR DAN HAMBURG doesn’t communicate much with the AVA, but this weekend he sent us two strange messages:
FIRST: “Calling The Major: Dear Mark (aka The Major): There is a good deal of speculation that you are using the name ‘Paul Baum’ to inhabit the MCN list serve. Is this true or not? It would be good to clear the air. Thanks, Dan”
THE MAJOR REPLIED: “Dear Dan (aka The Supervisor), It is instructive that you feel this question is worthy of your time, much less mine. I will say that I have never felt the need to use a pseudonym since I have no reason to hide my identity. As I would hope you know by now, I have never hesitated to put my name on whatever I publish. Also, most of what I’ve seen on ‘the listserve’ is of no interest to me from people I don’t much care for. But you have my permission to conduct a full inquiry if it’s that important to you. Best, Mark Scaramella.”
THE SUPERVISOR immediately posted the Major’s response on the listserve with the introduction: “Mark's assertion (‘I...never hesitated to put my name on whatever I publish.’) means little. Just because he publishes articles his [sic] name on them and [sic] doesn't mean he's not a troll (in his sparetime). I'm sorry that Mark doesn't care for us.”
NOTE HAMBURG’S clubby use of the word “us.” We all know who he thinks “they” are.
BUT THE SUPERVISOR did not bother sending the Major his second unbelieving observation. “If he wasn’t going to believe my answer, why did he ask?” the Major wondered.
SECOND MESSAGE FROM HAMBURG: “Mark, The ‘Mendo Broadband Denied’ piece (5/22) is a good example of misleading journalism beginning with the headline. Had you spoken with someone from the BAMC or better yet, the California Emerging Technology Fund which wrote the Padilla bill, you could have provided a more complete picture. SB 740 will likely pass out of the Senate this week. It has been raided by the telcos (an important fact you fail to mention) in ways that are unfavorable to us. But there is an active strategy being employed to resurrect the funding and definitions of ‘unserved/underserved’ on the Assembly side. It's a much more complex situation than you relate to your readers. Dan”
TO THAT, the Major replied: “I was simply reporting your useful update on the subject at the Supes meeting, and adding what happened that same week in Assembly. I have no doubt that the subject is more complex than that snapshot portrayed. Perhaps you failed to read beyond the headline in your attempt to find a complaint when none is called for. We’d be happy to have you (or someone from the Broadband Alliance) provide an updated assessment of whatever ‘more complex’ developments have occurred since then. We were under the impression that Carole Brodsky was working on a story along those lines which we’d be happy to have (since she’s written about it for us before).”
LATER the Major added, “It looks like The Supervisor really did not read the report before he complained, just the headline he objects to. I quoted Hamburg saying that ‘the telecom lobbyists in Sacramento are trying to squelch our efforts. But we have some good political support on our side and we are fighting the battle.’ Then I simply added, ‘But later in the week, news out of Sacramento reported that funding for Padilla’s broadband infrastructure bill (via the California Public Utilities Commission) had been cut by $100 million, and the bill was amended to substantially restrict the definition of ‘underserved’ to include language that would limit funding to areas where no big telecom company had applied for a permit which isn’t very many areas in California.’ Hamburg says I failed to mention that when it’s right there.”
THE MAJOR CONCLUDED, “I thought I was helping by giving a bit of coverage to what The Supervisor himself reported, which the other local media have ignored. Instead, Hamburg complains that I didn’t say enough about the issue without telling us much about what he thought should have been included. Oh well, no good deed goes unpunished. I wonder if The Supervisor has noticed that the Fort Bragg Advocate hasn’t even mentioned the Broadband meeting Hamburg attended in Fort Bragg.”
I DON'T READ the Mendo listserve. The Major looks in once in awhile simply to see what's fretting the crackpots — "Was it a chem trail that took down Building 7? Will tinfoil keep the CIA out of my molars?" — and to see if Hamburg, our supervisor, has said something of general interest about the public's business. For Hamburg to suggest that we'd go to the trouble of adopting a pseudonym to contend with a handful of outpatients on an obscure listserve is really insulting, but his constituents, not all of whom worship at his clay feet, might wonder why their supervisor doesn't communicate directly with us on the public's business.
ON SECOND THOUGHT, maybe I do belong on the Mendo listserve. Last week there was an earthquake centered near Mt. Lassen where earthquakes had hitherto been unknown other than rumbles from Lassen, an active volcano. I read somewhere once a remark by a geologist that the entire earth is like a cracked hard-boiled egg, with every fault line connected, however tenuously, to every other fault line, Sri Lanka to Petrolia. That observation has stuck with me although I have no idea if it has any basis in scientific fact. Anna? Dan? Dave?
A SENIOR TICKET to see the Terracotta Warriors at the Asian Art Museum costs $16 bucks; once you're inside you're informed they are five life-size facsimiles, not that anyone could tell, and what the hey, what's one more little swindle in the Land of Swindles. Or, as George Carlin famously put it, "This country runs on bullshit. Take away the bullshit and everything collapses." And on a Thursday morning I was surprised to have to wait in a long line, surrounded by wheelchairs and walkers and barely ambulatory decrepitude, aware that I was only a stutter step away from the wreckage myself. I might have been the youngest person on the premises and I'm in my seventh decade. I'd seen the upstairs exhibits, and was mentally kicking myself about paying $16 to see five concrete statues when a kid in an usher's blazer walked up and said, "I'm sorry, sir. You'll have to check your backpack." I went immediately to senile mode: "You can't have my checkbook, and if you ask me for it again I'll call the police." He walked off, presumably to consult with his supervisor, but no one reappeared to make an issue out of it. Back out on the street I was pleased to see a street preacher on the steps of the appellate court shouting through a bullhorn about sin. At least he was yelling at the right people. I've seen the same guy on Market Street with his aurally weaponized bullhorn. He's a tough-looking old bird even in his suit, and so loud-angry that you have to listen carefully to understand that he's not looking for a fight but urging passersby to give up their wicked ways and follow Him, which isn't a message that finds much receptivity in San Francisco even when it's delivered by a man who doesn't look like he'd rather slug you than pray with you.
SATURDAY, there was only one crazy guy on the 1 California, the most sedate of Muni lines at all hours. Youngish, maybe 35, conventionally dressed in shirt and slacks except for a hole punch he wore like a bolo tie. "Are we there yet?" he asked no one in particular several times. Suddenly, opposite the hospital at Laurel he screamed, "Off! Let me off!" The driver let him off in the middle of the block.
I STOPPED at the Ferry Building to pick up a sandwich for the ballgame, Giants vs. Colorado, which started down the street at 1:05. For $5.70 you can get a la di da "rustic baguette with Mt. Tamalpais triple creme cheese, fruit jam, arugula, and black pepper." Even if I have a few extra bucks I don't buy ballpark food, not out of hostility for negative food value viands but out of hostility for Giants ownership and the South Carolina concessionaire that pays the concession workers about one dollar out of the ten dollars they charge for a beer. And you'd think at least a couple of the ballplayers would step up to the plate for the people who make the game go, people making an average of $11,000 a season. From a couple of blocks away the concession workers were picketing the ballpark. I'd bought a $20 ticket from this scalper-dude I kinda know and was chagrined that now I'd have to turn around and go home, never having crossed a picket line and reluctant to start at an advanced age. But a picketing lady said it was fine to "go on in and enjoy the ball game — just don't buy anything." No prob for me. I always bring the cheese sandwich from the Ferry Building. Inside, most of the concessions were closed. 70 years ago the whole city would have been on the picket line, but 70 years ago anymore might as well be 700 years ago. No one remembers, no one cares, it's every pre-schooler for himself.
SEATED BEHIND six women of my vintage, one of them sporting a gray mohawk, the tanned woman's back directly in front of me featuring a butterfly tattoo with a bumble bee forever hovering over a flower, the girls of many summers were talking about the concession strike. "I don't care," the tattooed babe said, "I bought a beer and I'm going to buy another goddam beer, strike or no strike." The old lady next to her commented, "Gawd. What are they trying to do, starve us?" Later in the game, which ended in mass ecstasy with Angel Pagan's inside-the-park homerun, Zito hit the Rockies centerfielder, Crawford, on the hand with a Zito fastball. "The tattooed lady exclaimed, "Eighty miles an hour fastball? Big goddam deal. He's not hurt. Play ball!" They were a ruthless bunch, commenting knowledgeably on both the game — "Belt got under the tag. He was safe" — and the sartorial deficiencies of female passersby, "Why not let it all hang out, honey?" And, "I wonder how she got her tits up that high?" one wondered. "Maybe with a forklift," answered another. That kind of thing, always to the chuckling agreement of the other ladies.
IT WAS A WONDERFUL day high up in View with these long gone Golden Girls, the wind whipping the stadium flags, the sun and the sailboats all afternoon on the water, the delirious game-ending heroics of Pagan.
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