Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023

Winds, Waves | Storm Stripes | Fraser Update | Homeless Count | Valley Fog | School Attendence | Book Benefits | Lee & Rob | Robert Giuliani | High Water | Fair Board | Red's Room | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | Rhyming Cookbook | Liquor CRV | Kill Plants | Same Guy | Pole Remote | New Laws | Vote Genocide | Imagine Gaza | Badass Detective | Deep Crater | Gut Feeling | Future Jet | July 1979 | Easy Riders

LARGE SURF pounds local beaches this morning with hazardous surf while another round of minor coastal flooding is expected around Humboldt Bay. South winds persist today, strengthening across coastal headlands tonight as another front approaches. More rain and strong southerlies are expected Friday, then a calmer and drier period is expected over the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 55F with cloudy skies this Thursday morning on the coast. A fresh .99" of rainfall. Maybe a shower today but another healthy system arrives tomorrow then fizzling out on Saturday. Mostly dry Sunday & Monday then more rain on Tuesday. And of course we have a HIGH SURF WARNING posted today!

SAFFRON BLUE FRASER:

Medical Update, Scott Fraser. In the ongoing effort to let friends and family know what's going on around here with Scott. Chemo today. PET scan results. No real surprise, just confirmation. His cancer is metastatic and likely will pop up at will. They found a spot on his liver too. And near his stomach. Dr. Wang said he has some treatment ideas. But really, the fact of the matter is that he will have cancer for the rest of his life. So, that's all I really have. We have a permanent roommate. Today was difficult. Not because we are surprised, like I said, but really realizing that it is so unknown. And that this is our life. And it's not temporary. It is life.

2024 HOMELESS POINT IN TIME (PIT) COUNT

Volunteers Needed to Complete Surveys

The Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) will be conducting its annual unsheltered Point-In-Time (PIT) Count which will be held on the morning of Wednesday, January 24, 2024. The Point in Time (PIT) Count is mandated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is used by the State of California and multiple Federal Departments to calculate allocations of homeless services funding. The data received through the PIT Count will help our local community to identify needs and develop planning to engage and support those persons experiencing homelessness throughout Mendocino County.

The Continuum of Care is a group of agencies that consist of service providers, Tribal Governments, non-profits, faith-based organizations, concerned community members, and Mendocino County staff. These individuals and agencies come together to help address the needs of those who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. This undertaking requires a lot of individuals performing a lot of different tasks in preparation for this event, as well as surveying individuals and families experiencing homelessness throughout Mendocino County. We need volunteers to count along the Coast as well as the Southern and Northern Inland portions of Mendocino County.

If you would like to volunteer, please sign up at https://Mendocino.PointInTime.info/. If you have questions or would like further information, please contact Alex Werner with Applied Survey Research at alex@appliedsurveyresearch.org or (877)728-4545.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you enjoyed the holidays and are looking forward to a healthy and prosperous 2024. We are looking forward to welcoming your student back to school on January 8.

As we enter the New Year, I wanted to ask your help with ensuring that your student attends school daily and on time. Something got a little broken in our society during Covid. My last district remained open through all of Covid except for the first eight weeks of the Spring at the start of the pandemic. We  took incredible precautions and were  able to hold school in person when a majority of the country was closed due to an unfailing sense of collaboration and intensive safety precautions.  The real benefit from that year was that those 700 kids received in-person instruction uninterrupted for a full year while the rest of the country struggled with at-home learning and later on with hybrid learning.  But most importantly, there was no disruption to expectation and routine.   I believe that every school system did what they thought was right for their community. No regrets on that, but it’s time to reset our expectation that daily attendance at school is not optional. If your child has  a fever or diarrhea, please have them stay home. Otherwise, we need them to come to school.

Last week, I met one of our wonderful parent volunteers at the elementary school and she approached me in the parking lot asking if it was true that there would be split classes next year. I explained that yes, the reality of small school systems is that you often have split classes. Most districts’ elementary classes of grades four and above are 28 kids.  Split classes are also impacted in budget challenges such as the one we will be facing next year where the State has reduced our cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) from 3.8% down to 1%.

Our school system, like many rural school systems, is also struggling with declining enrollment. When lumber was industry king, our enrollment was well into the 700s. We are sitting at just 420 students K through 12 at this time. Our budget is based on student enrollment and is further impacted when those students don’t attend school. Our school district, like many in our county, is in red for chronic absenteeism on the State’s reporting dashboard. That means that we have a huge proportion of  students that miss more than 10 days of school a year. With that designation comes additional mitigation measures that we have to do to prove that we are trying to get kids to attend.    Every student not attending is approximately $50 per day per kid. We often have 40 students out a day.  That is $2,000 x 180 days of school.  That is $360,000 in lost revenue we can’t get back. That could theoretically be four teachers your kids won’t have.

We provide rides when a kid misses the bus, do daily phone calls, send texts to let parents know a kid has cut. This is a new phenomenon post-Covid. I’ll be the first one to take constructive criticism when people tell me that our programs aren’t engaging to get kids to school. We will do everything we can to work on that and we have made good strides in the past two years adding additional elective programs at both sites. But I also need to say that I’m tired of hearing parents tell me I can’t get a student out of the bathroom because they’re putting on their makeup or doing their hair or they can’t get them out of bed in the morning. What happened folks?

Attendance wasn’t like this in the “Pinoli era” of  five or six years ago. I can control what happens at school. I am not in your house getting your students ready. That’s your job. That’s your parenting and relationship with your kids that comes into play.  I drove a 1968 Volkswagen bug.  My dad knew what part to pull out of my Volkswagen to make sure I didn’t have a car, if I didn’t follow my parents’ directives. I think your leverage as parents today are cell phones, electronics, and car keys. If you can’t get your kid to school, let’s do some privilege removal. It doesn’t need to be a battle, but it does need to be clear that you as a parent are expecting your kids to be at school.

I also would like to ask parents' cooperation on not checking your students out. Just because you called to let them go to the store to buy a sandwich doesn’t mean that it’s not a cut. Those aren’t my rules, that's the State's rules and they take a deep look at our data. My analogy would be: Does your employer allow you to call out daily and miss the first period because you couldn’t get out of bed? Bottom line: What are we preparing our students for in career and college? 

So, to the 90 percent of our families that make sure their kids get to school a HUGE THANK YOU. You could say, it’s not an issue  because I do the right thing and get my kid to school.   But here is why it matters to you.  Every time another  kid misses a class, it holds them back, but it also holds all the students around them back because the teacher or staff at some point has to catch that student up. If your student is an accelerated learner, your kid  loses out. If your student is a struggling learner, your kid loses  out, if your kid is right on target, they lose out because we are playing catch up.

We need attendance to be a community expectation. Partner with us to ensure your kid and your neighbor’s kid  comes to school. Really excellent school systems have good attendance. I need your help.

Sincerely yours,

Louise Simson

Superintendent

SAMUEL BAKER:

Reading Lee Serrie’s Thank You about Rob Giuliani, I was thinking that it should be us, who know Lee and Rob, who should be thanking them. As a part-time resident, and full-time friend of Rob Guiliani, I can say this is a man to be admired. Interesting, and interested, well read, a lover of good food, wine, and fishing, opinionated, but in a way that invited discussion rather than confrontation; he was a special person. As part of a close knit group who reside on “Vinegar Ridge” above Philo, we got used to his sudden departures during sit down dinners of salmon/cod/rockfish (that he caught and cooked), due to his fire radio blaring. After a full career in the SF newspaper business, he continued to immerse himself in daily print papers, and was a resource for current news and the political winds that howl through our country. Lee, thank you for all the time you and Rob gave us to enjoy your company and friendship.

ROBERT SILVIO GIULIANI (1945 - 2023)

Robert Silvio Giuliani passed from this earth 22 April 2023 at his home. His wife, Lee was with him.

He was born at St. Mary's hospital in San Francisco and resided in The City until 1997.

In 1983 Rob met Lee Serrie on a blind date. They were together for 40 years. In 1987 they bought a property in Anderson Valley on Vinegar Ridge and spent the ensuing 36 years homesteading it.

His mother was a homemaker and his father worked as a newspaper pressman for L'Italia, San Francisco's Italian language newspaper, and the SF Chronicle. While he was growing up his family made frequent trips to the many and varied CA state parks where he learned his lifelong hobbies of skiing, fishing, abalone diving, and windsurfing. He chose Anderson Valley for retirement so he could continue to practice all his hobbies, especially fishing.

Since he knew at an early age that he wanted to follow his father's footsteps into the printing trades he declined an invitation to attend SF's prestigious academic Lowell High School. Instead, he opted to attend SF's Polytechnic High School where he could deepen his knowledge of mechanics. He went on to earn a AA degree in graphic arts at SF's City College during the day while at night he undertook the 9-year apprentice program of the pressman's union. He was 17 years old when his father died while they were working a shift together at the newspaper and Rob became the sole support of the family. After earning his journeyman's card he went on to work at various printing businesses and newspapers in the Bay Area until he accepted a permanent position with the SF Chronicle. He worked for them as a printer, supervisor, and later, the printing plant manager until his retirement.

Rob was a motor vehicle enthusiast. He drove his Meyers Manx dune buggy in the Baja 1000 two times in its early days when the road pavement ended soon after Ensenada. His AV property hosted a bevy of gasoline powered vehicles and tools. It was the SF Chief of Police who first recognized Rob's willingness to help others when he wrote a letter of commendation to him for successfully stopping a robbery in progress and apprehending the perpetrator until police could arrive on scene. Oftentimes he applied his interest and knowledge of mechanics to troubleshoot the neighbor's various non-functioning machines. He served as a volunteer with the AV Fire Department as firefighter for 15 years, and later as a member of the Fire Protection Committee.

The CA branch of the Giuliani family was very small. Rob outlived his younger brother Gary and sister, Gay Ritner. He is survived by his spouse, Lee Serrie, and two nieces; Janet Broders and family of Scottsdale, AZ and Lynn Spinola and family of South Lake Tahoe. His ashes were scattered in the family vineyard during a private memorial last July.

23 YEARS TO FINISH LINE

by Bob Dempel

Some 23 years ago I had some free time and I wanted to serve on a Sonoma County Fair Board. This honor is an appointment made by the Governor. Ironically of all the appointments made by the governor a Fair Board appointment is the most sought after. Fair Board members serve without pay generally for a term until replaced. There are about 58 fairs in California that are state operated. Other fairs are county fairs and those board members are generally appointed by the county board of supervisors. 

Twenty-three years ago I wanted to serve on the Sonoma-Marin Fair which was operated by the Fourth District Agriculture Association. More commonly the Sonoma County fair is referred to as the Petaluma Fair for the town where it is held. The process for appointment is more complex than just showing up at meetings. To be appointed entails filling out a complex form and having some influential supporters. Twenty three years ago the governor was Gray Davis, a Democrat. I am a Republican, so there was the first hurdle. I was friends with Rusty Areas, Democrat Assemblyman from Los Banos. Rusty helped me fill out an application and hand-carried it over to the appointment secretary’s office at the capitol. About three months later I received an appointment to the Petaluma Fair Board of Directors.

One of the reasons I wanted to serve on the Board was that the lease for the fair property from the city runs out in 23 years on the approximately 80 acres right smack dab in the middle of the city and the fair board pays the city whopping $1 per year for the land and all of the buildings.

The first meeting I attended was a report from a company who surveyed what the best use of the land might be. The report was extensive and complete with suggestions and a whopping bill. We filed the report and went on to preparing for the upcoming fair.

I enjoyed being a board member and was probably the furthest in distance and from my profession. All the other members were from the Petaluma area and connected to the dairy industry.

Politically Gray Davis was voted out of office by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I did not see any problem forthcoming since I was a Republican. How wrong I was, just two years into my appointment I was replaced. My concern about the lease for the land went south and year by year went away. No member of the board seemed concerned that the lease was coming due in 2023. Finally in 2022 the city hired another company to do a survey on the best use of the Fair grounds land. This company charged the city $450,000 for the survey. They came up with a report similar to the one I saw 23 years ago. 

The Fair board finally got into high gear and held some meetings. Year 2023 was coming to an end and now was the time to have some meetings with the Petaluma City Council who wanted their land back. Of course $1 per year is a slap in the face for 80 primo acres right in the middle of town.

So here we are on the 25th of December and I am now reading a Community Update. “Petaluma City is thrilled to announce that the fair will continue. An agreement has been reached with the Fourth District Agriculture Association to continue operating their annual fair.”

RED'S RECOVERY ROOM - The Sad Loss Of A Sonoma County Landmark

Simply said, Red's Recovery Room was the true definition of a Dive Bar. It was a falling-down sun-bleached wooden shack. It was dusty. The floors sloped enough to make you think you'd had too much to drink even though you had just arrived. The walls were adorned with team pennants and girlie photos. There was a glass case filled with hundreds of billiards trophys. And it was immortalized in a Tom Waits song called "Filipino Box Spring Hog".

Red's was opened in 1976 by owners Robert ("Red") and Maureen Lehan.  Their bartender, Dee, worked for them for over 25 years.  Dee would keep the customers entertained, having the mouth of a Sailor, a heavy pour, and an endless supply of jello shots.

During the early years, Red's had washers and dryers in a room off the bar.  On the weekends, guys would bring in their bags of dirty clothes, and would buy drinks for the women who would help them do their laundry.

In 2003, Red was toying with the idea of selling.  There was a rumor that one of his bartenders was buying the place.  The bartender, Maria Romani, had tired of hearing the rumors so she confronted Red.  So, I heard I bought this dump.  Exactly how much did I pay and what did I get for it?.  Romani purchased Red's Recovery Room that year and Red, having been ill, passed away in 2004.

A farewell party was held in July, 2009.  Red's had to close because the owners of the 3 acre parcel had plans that no longer included a bar.  I sat next to Romani (she bought me a drink, OK maybe three) and I asked about her future plans.  Romani promises to reopen soon in another Sonoma County location.  Rumor has it the name will be "Red's Roadside Bar".  When asked if her new bar would be anything like Red's Recovery Room, she looked around the place and smiled. Any place is going to be different than this.

Goodbye Red's Recovery Room, we miss you.

— Cynthia Larsen (May 20, 2010)

ED NOTES

FROM THE ARCHIVE: “OH, we’ve probably been robbed a dozen times over the years,” Bert Cohen at Boont Berry Farm casually remarked the other afternoon when I asked him about the latest late-night intruders to loot his store. “They came in to apologize,” Bert said of the most recent Boont Berry burglary, a resigned shrug in his voice, “and we got all the stuff they took back the next day.” 

THE ROBBERS, ignoring the store’s edibles and drinkables, cleaned out a couple of shelves of scented soaps and body oils during their late night intrusion. They hauled their loot out of Boont Berry in garbage bags across the road to where Bruce Patterson and Tricia Berverly then lived where they appropriated Patterson’s car and drove off with their booty to Philo.

THE THIEVES seemed to have second thoughts about the resale value of scented soap so they casually dumped their booty in their driveway and called it a night.

DEPUTY SQUIRES was summoned to have a look at the bags the next day and, putting one and one together, walked up to the door of the only likely burglars in that particular neighborhood and asked them to come along with him for a ride over the hill to the County Jail. 

THE CASE of the Scented Soap took Squires about 45 seconds to solve, which is about 15 seconds longer than it takes him to figure out most local crime.

RICARD, PICK A NUMBER: What we need is a concerted effort to have Ricard’s monstrosity remediated, a kind word for eliminated. The CSD and the Chamber of Commerce — do we still have one? — should petition CDF to have Ricard’s property declared an official hazard to the health, welfare, prosperity, and up-market vibe of neo-Boonville, which it obviously, defiantly, is, and torch it in a training burn. 

JOAN BURROUGHS: Great article re the Ricard property. Years ago I asked a member of AVCSD why eminent domain on the dangerous Ricard property is not being considered by the AVCSD. Bottom line answer: leaving Ricard out of any legal activity is because Ricard has two parcel votes on the sewer/water issue, they needed every vote they could get.

The Ricard property likely is contaminated from unresolved water and sewer issues — it is monitored by the state Water System CA2300733 official name: Haehl Street Water. The report from the state indicates the main well is inactive and raw. It would appear the property might not ever be sold under present conditions. It probably has no value as it now sits, unless the municipal sewer/water system is approved that is.

In 2016 AVCSD gathered water samples on Haehl Street re this municipal monster; they stated they knew where the contamination was located within walking distance of homes in the area. As a result this entire sewer/water fiasco could have been avoided if Mendocino County Public Health had bothered to step up and do its job by alleviating overcrowding and demanding sewer oversight with a board of local directors willing to listen to parcel owners.

Millions of dollars already spent might have been alleviated by working with parcel owners to assure them they will get grant assistance they need through AVCSD. To this day, AVCSD is still determined to go ahead with this monumental undertaking that is simply not approved by most Boonville parcel owners. Until there is a proven substantial need we should not be discussing millions of dollars more to be spent on engineers, planners, map producers, on and on; we should be working toward getting the community of Boonville back on its feet by helping those who truly need assistance. 

(BTW Karen Alturas was one of the original owners at some point in time.)

VALERIE HANELT, Chair, Anderson Valley Community Services District Board:

The Ricard building has been a continual concern of the CSD. The building itself is not inherently a fire hazard as Ricard has removed all sources of ignition. He has also responded to broken windows and break-in access points by applying plywood. He has only received one or two legitimate inquiries into purchasing the building in all these decades. While there is a good well for water, there is not enough space to install a septic system. The lack of a functioning septic system makes this a non-starter for a bank loan as the most recent inquiry discovered. Thus, we are left with an ugly building. We have pursued the urban blight approach and called it in ourselves with no response. We also explored an ordinance to require blighted buildings to be removed, but that would have to be a policy applied fairly and evenly throughout the Valley or we would be subjected to a lawsuit if a parcel owner felt unfairly singled out. We have devoted hours to this discussion over the years.

Truly, there are two reasons this building still stands; One: the unintended consequence of the building code which requires retaining an original wall to call it a “remodel.” To maintain the current set-back which is up to the sidewalk, it would have to retain that front wall. If it was torn down completely it would be “new” construction and would require a 30 foot set back (see the fire station’s set back to get an idea of how that would affect this parcel) and would lose a huge amount of the usable space. 

Two: Lack of infrastructure: It has a good well but no septic/sewer. Without our new municipal infrastructure (which would supply both water and sewer) this lot cannot be developed. Once we get past the public approval of the systems (by end 2024), either Ricard or a new owner can be assured that hookups to water and sewer will be provided and the building can finally be developed. Any interested investors out there?

WATER, promiscuous use of by Anderson Valley’s agro-industrial wine mafia, an annual complaint. In techno-speak desertification is called “cumulative effects.” Yes, some grapes in The Valley are dry farmed. And, yep, summer water is pumped from our depleted year-round streams and sprayed on our two remaining apple orchards. But even more water from our dying streams is squandered on fattening grapes because vineyards are taking much more water these days than is being siphoned off by all other forms of agriculture combined, including what's left of The Valley’s pot plantations. 

AS THE WINE BIZ steals and otherwise misappropriates water, and the County's noise ordinance is waived for the wine people's frost fans as the whole destructive show is classified as “agriculture,” there’s not a peep from the “good” grape growers, the dry farmers, the organic growers. 

THERE ARE NOW hundreds of huge mini-lakes euphemistically called ponds throughout Anderson Valley, most of them either unpermitted or with permit applications filed long after the mini-lake is a fact of the local landscape. 

ALL OF THE RECENT permit applications are for on-stream storage of Navarro tributaries. These are dams, unmonitored and unregulated dams, and there’s no evidence that their architects are limiting their draws from them to “winter runoff.” Even if there was some assurance that the new mini-lakes contained nothing but “winter runoff,” they obviously hold back water which would otherwise be flushing out the creekbeds, keeping them relatively free of debris, human and natural. 

WITH a minimum of respect for the natural world on the part of people not known to respect much of anything beyond money and their names on bottles of overpriced booze, the fish might even come back. (Fish don’t tend to do well without water.) We will note here that none of the local “environmentalists,” whether or not they have previously expressed approval for Off-Stream storage ponds, have protested any of the huge new ponds installed by wine people who don’t live here. These enormous new draws on The Valley’s finite waters were frequently retroactively rushed through the CEQA process, emerging from that pro forma paper shuffle with the great big green light called “mitigated negative declarations.” The frogs are gone and the Navarro closes at its mouth earlier every summer. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, December 27, 2023

DOMINIC FABER, Ukiah. Parole violation.

BEAU HARRIS, Fort Bragg. Vandalism, failure to appear.

ERIC HAYDEN, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

SYLVIA HOAGLEN, Covelo. Controlled substance, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, providing drug paraphernalia to person at least three years younger, probation revocation.

MARSHA JOHNSON, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

VANESSA NIDEROST, Ukiah. DUI.

LENOX REYES II, Covelo. Evasion, ammo possession by prohibited person, probation revocation.

SERENA VERMEULEN, Covelo. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

CALIFORNIANS CAN RING IN 2024 by redeeming their empty wine and liquor containers for cash. Starting January 1, California adds wine and liquor sold in bottles, cans, boxes, and pouches to the state’s Beverage Container Recycling Program to cut waste and pollution by turning more recycled materials into new products.

What’s new for consumers?

Californians pay a 5, 10, or 25 cent California Redemption Value (CRV) deposit on newly added wine and liquor containers and redeem deposits at recyclers or obligated retailers.

Newly added containers are not required to have CRV labeling until Jul 1, 2025.

Bag-in-box containers must be intact to be eligible for redemption.

What’s new for businesses?

Stores update shelf labels and systems to reflect new CRV container additions.

Recycling centers and obligated retailers redeem newly added beverages and container types (with or without a CRV label).

Beverage manufacturers and distributors register and submit CRV payments.

California is implementing several historic Bottle Bill reforms to recycle more beverage containers and make redemption easier for consumers.

In addition to wine and liquor, large juice containers are redeemable starting Jan. 1.

Retailers in areas without recycling centers must redeem in-store or join new dealer cooperative systems starting Jan 1, 2025.

Over $285 million to increase material reuse and recycling sites with funding for:

Hassle-free redemption options like reverse vending machines, mobile recycling, and bag-drop recycling.

Beverage container recycling business start-up costs.

Reuse/refill system innovations for beverage containers.

Collection, transportation, and remanufacturing of materials.

Beverage Container Recycling Program Fast Facts

California passed its Bottle Bill in 1986 to reduce litter and increase recycling.

California collected 491 billion beverage containers for recycling since 1988, including a record 19.5 billion beverage containers in 2022.

California’s current beverage container recycling rate is 70%.

With the addition of wine and spirits, CalRecycle estimates about 1.1 billion additional wine and spirits containers could enter the program each year.

FOR ME, it’s like I’ve gotta ask myself, ‘All right, who are you, what do you stand for? Who are you when things are good? Who are you when things don’t go your way?' It’s easy to be riding high and thinking you’re the man when things are going well, winning games and all that kind of stuff. And you don’t really see a whole lot of adversity in some games and whatnot. And this is the reality of the NFL. …I have to look myself in the mirror, watch the plays, get better, make some cleaner decisions, help my team put up points and score and protect the ball. And when things don’t go my way, it’s understanding I can’t be acting out. I have to be real with myself and be better. But I want to be the same guy every day, be consistent in what I do, how I do things, whether things are going well or not. I know who I am, and I’m not going to waver in that. I’ve said that before, I’ll continue to hang my hat on that. 

— Brock Purdy

A READER WRITES: My Great Uncle Art in 1957, proudly showing off his invention: the TV remote. A pole with something on the end that fit around the dial and changed the channel. Life was good!

CALIFORNIA NEW LAWS FOR 2024: WORKERS GET MORE PAID SICK DAYS

by Sameea Kamal

California workers will be guaranteed five paid sick days a year starting Jan. 1, up from the three days that employers are currently required to provide, thanks to Senate Bill 616.

The bill, authored by Long Beach Democratic Sen. Lena Gonzalez, also extends protections against retaliation to workers who are in a union, but excludes provisions that would have granted railroad employees access to unpaid sick leave.

It was a significant, but partial victory for proponents, including advocacy groups for families and women and dozens of unions. They originally sought seven days, but the final version was reduced in negotiations during the legislative process.

The California Work & Family Coalition hailed the law — one of several measures last session aimed at improving work-life balance — as “a commonsense change.”

But trade associations representing various industries such as the California Grocers Association and California Hotel & Lodging Association, as well as chamber of commerce groups throughout the state, argued that the law would hurt small businesses that have not recovered from the pandemic, are now dealing with inflation and can’t afford the additional cost of covering for sick workers.

The National Federation of Independent Business lists the new law among its top five “compliance headaches” for California’s small business owners in 2024, along with SB 848, which makes it unlawful for employers to refuse as many as five days of “reproductive loss leave” for miscarriages, failed adoptions and other events.

The state Chamber of Commerce had the sick leave law on its “job killer” list and recently issued guidance for employers to navigate the law’s complexities.

There’s no federal law that requires employers to give workers paid sick leave. California became the second state in the nation to adopt a paid sick leave policy in 2014, but now provides less time than 15 states and many of its own cities, including San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley.

Upon signing the bill on Oct. 4, Newsom said too many people were still having to choose between skipping a day’s pay and taking care of themselves or their family members when they get sick.

“We’re making it known that the health and wellbeing of workers and their families is of the utmost importance for California’s future,” he said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time a sick leave expansion has been introduced, but the COVID-19 pandemic amplified the need. In March 2021, a new law required larger employers to provide as many as 10 more days for quarantines or vaccine side effects. But that benefit went away, along with federal tax credits that paid for it, six months later.

(CalMatters.org)

IMAGINE…

Editor: 

As we watch on the nightly news the devastation in Gaza we would think Gaza must be a large country. But it really isn't.

Gaza is 140 square miles. It is approximately 5 miles from the sea on the west to the Israeli wall on the east. About 28 miles from the border with Egypt in the south to the Israeli wall in the north. Think a 5-mile strip of land along the Highway 101 corridor from Novato to Windsor. Now, populate that strip with 2.2 million people. Over 1 million people under the age of 18. Imagine 80% of their homes destroyed. All their belongings gone. No place to go. No place to hide. No food to eat or water to drink. No shelter from the coming winter weather.

Wherever you place blame, the humanitarian crisis is real. And, as the world watches, we offer to send military aid to Israel. To disagree with that is not being antisemitic, it is recognizing that we are all human beings, some by birth being luckier than others.

Lew Larson

Sebastopol

‘BADASS DETECTIVE’: How one California officer solved eight cold cases — in his spare time

by Scott Ostler

The trash truck rumbled through the gated community in Southern California one afternoon earlier this year. Riding shotgun was Detective Matt Hutchison, an officer in the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety.

Hutchison wore the trash company’s jumpsuit, cap and reflective vest, and he sported a few days of beard stubble. He was collecting trash hoping to find something valuable: the DNA of a person who might prove to be a suspect in the sexual assault and murder of an 18-year-old security guard in Sunnyvale in 1969.

It was a cold case, and this was an expensive long shot. But his bosses in Sunnyvale and at the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office have learned that when Hutchison has a plan, you listen. In the seven years since he moved into robbery-homicide, the 38-year-old detective has solved eight cold cases — six homicides and two sexual assaults.

In his spare time.

Sunnyvale DPS officers work cold cases only when they are free from regular duties. In a unique situation, each Sunnyvale officer rotates among duties as a fully trained police officer, firefighter and EMT. The robbery-homicide department is small and often understaffed, with a revolving crew. And Hutchison has a wife and two young sons.

But, somehow, he has found time to become a cold-case ace.

“It’s this magic stuff that he does,” said Rob Baker, deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County. “He’s always just totally out of the box. He has solved more cold cases in three years than any single detective in the last 15.”

Along with poking through trash, Detective Hutch, as he’s known, has posed as a busboy in a bar to gather DNA samples from a suspect’s chicken wings and traveled to multiple states to search for evidence and talk with relatives of long-dead victims who thought their loved ones’ cases had been forgotten.

The trash truck gig required creative planning. Cops seeking DNA samples typically raid a suspect’s trash can at night. But Hutchison learned that this person of interest always put out his can in the daytime, just before the truck arrived. Any deviation from the normal pickup routine might alert the target and blow the investigation.

So Hutchison obtained permission to ride on the truck, and to modify it. He and his partner climbed into the belly of the truck with a tarp and fashioned a catch basin, then had a mechanic disable the truck’s compactor arm.

Then a final detail, choreographed by Hutchison.

“We hooked his can and dumped it,” Hutchison said. “Then we drove to the next can, and the driver, under my instruction, acted as though there was a malfunction of the mechanical arm. We made it look like the arm broke down, then we left the neighborhood with only our suspect’s trash.”

The crime scene photos of a 15-year-old girl, raped and murdered in 1982, were a test for Karol Smith.

It was 2009. Smith had retired from a career in human resources in the high-tech industry, and she was volunteering at the Sunnyvale DPS. Her first task, mostly sorting through old material, was useful to the department, but boring to Smith. She hoped her next assignment would be more challenging.

“I’ll get you something interesting,” one of the detectives told Smith.

The new task was organizing and streamlining the department’s 10 cold case files. Smith’s work was to prep them so the next detective to dig in would have a case summary.

First, though, Smith had to show that she could deal with material so disturbing it can traumatize even trained cops.

“If you can’t leave this behind when you go home every day, Karol, this won’t be the job for you,” the detective said, handing Smith the crime scene photos of a teenage girl named Karen Stitt.

Stitt, a Palo Alto High School student in 1982, was attacked just after midnight near a bus stop on El Camino Real. The autopsy showed she had been sexually abused and stabbed 57 times, 18 times through the heart. Her hands and feet were bound, and she was tossed over a short wall into some bushes.

In the stark photos, the leaves and dirt around the girl’s feet were disturbed, suggesting that she might still have been alive when her attacker fled.

Opening the file, Smith faced a classic fight-or-flight moment.

“It was the first file I had seen, and it was pretty, just, horrifying,” said Smith. “And it just makes you want to solve it. I gotta tell you, looking at those photos, it was like, ‘Whoever did this can’t get away with it. Just can’t!’ After getting over the initial ‘Holy crap, this is awful,’ I just felt I could do it.”

Despite her husband’s misgivings, Smith accepted the assignment. Or, as she puts it, “I got sucked in.”

The department’s overworked cops rarely had time to dip into the cold cases. During Smith’s first four years on the job, some cases got worked. None were solved.

In 2014, Hutchison rotated into robbery-homicide from his previous assignment investigating sex crimes. He was not aware that Sunnyvale even had cold cases.

“Karol would sit in the office with us and talk about the cold cases,” Hutchison said. “I’d hear her say things like, ‘Hey, I think these things can be done on this certain case.’ I went to my boss and said, ‘Can I take one? Can I see what I can do with it?’ ”

“Matt was different,” Smith said. “He really wanted to solve a case. Not to say that the other ones didn’t, but he spent a lot of, I think, personal time. He went through a ton of the files himself. He was like, ‘OK, what’s up, what do you have going on?’

“When he got on a case, Matt was like a dog with a bone. He was not giving up.”

The first case Hutchison worked on, starting in 2014, was the Karen Stitt slaying.

That case hung over the Sunnyvale department. Over the years, more than 20 different detectives had worked on it.

“Everyone wanted that one solved,” Smith said. “I’d been through the file — it was really easy to see why it went cold.”

Stitt and her 17-year-old boyfriend met up in Sunnyvale that evening. They hung out at a 7-Eleven, a mini-golf course and an elementary school. Just after midnight, the boyfriend dashed home to beat curfew, leaving Karen alone to catch a bus back to Palo Alto. Her body was found by a delivery-truck driver the next morning.

When Hutchison first dug into the file, he pulled a photo, a snapshot of the smiling teenager at the beach, printed a copy of the photo and pinned it to the wall of his cubicle. Years later, the photo was still there, a reminder: This isn’t a TV show. Not every crime gets solved.

In 2019, Hutchison decided to try a breakthrough crime-solving tool called Investigative Genetic Genealogy. IGG was first recognized as an effective crime-investigation tool when it was used to break the Golden State Killer case in 2018. It goes beyond traditional DNA matching; a DNA sample is fed into the database of a direct-to-consumer company, producing a list of relatives. The investigator then searches public records to try to zero in on a suspect.

Hutchison submitted the Stitt crime scene DNA to an IGG company. When the DNA from the Stitt crime scene was analyzed, the genetics experts came back with bad news: the case was a lost cause. The matches were too distant to lead to a viable suspect.

But there were other cases, and Hutchison is a multitasker. When one investigation hit a snag or delay, he’d pick up another cold file.

The trash-truck caper involved the case of the attempted sexual assault and killing of Estella Mena. In October 1979, the 18-year-old was one month into her senior year at William C. Overfelt High in San Jose and working as a security guard at Western Electric in Sunnyvale. Locking up the lobby on a quiet Saturday afternoon, she was attacked, stabbed multiple times and left barely alive behind a row of vending machines. She died later at a hospital.

Investigators found only a small blood spot on a door frame several feet away from her body. But there was no DNA-matching available to police in 1979 and the case went cold.

In the early 2000s, Sunnyvale detectives looking into the Mena cold case sent the blood from the door frame for testing, looking for a one-on-one DNA match. They did not get any hits.

But, by the time Hutchison picked up the file, IGG was available, so the next logical step was to find the owner of that blood spot. That search led to his trash-truck adventure.

DNA found in that treasure trove of garbage was indeed a match for the blood spot. Ultimately though, with that evidence and through interviews, that person of interest was cleared. Another dead end? Not to Hutchison, for whom working a case is a process of elimination.

“Sometimes the twists and turns a case takes, you think you know where it’s going to go, and it leads you somewhere completely different,” Hutchison said. “Had we not gone out on that trash truck and (cleared that person), that blood would have been the main piece of evidence we would focus on the rest of the life of this case. Eliminating it was a positive. It made us refocus.”

Hutchison and Smith dug back into the Mena case and came to the same conclusion: Her shoe might hold a clue.

One of Mena’s shoes was found on the floor above her head. Hutchison and Smith concluded that the shoe came off as the victim fought for her life, so it might have picked up DNA from her attacker.

The shoe was tested, and blood was found in two places.

The DNA from that blood was sent to CODIS, an FBI database of criminal DNA. Typically, DNA is sent to CODIS first to see if there is a direct match, like matching a fingerprint. And a direct match was found: Samuel Silva, a man who’d had a long history of theft and violent crime. Silva had died in 2008, Hutchison said, so the DPS closed the case under “exceptional” conditions, meaning that although the suspect could not be tried, the evidence was sufficient to charge and convict him.

Was it too late for closure for Mena’s family, tormented for decades by the unsolved crime? It was for her mother and father, who died in 1992 and 2010, respectively, but not for her four siblings.

Police do not routinely contact a victim’s family when a cold case is being worked, for fear of getting their hopes up. Hutchison, though, believes family members want to know that their loved one has not been forgotten.

“I get uncomfortable getting the attention for these cases,” Hutchison said, “because, really, I’m not doing the hard work. The hard work is done by these families that for 40 years keep hope alive and the memory of their loved one alive. For their psyche and their soul, they need to know that we’re at least attempting to solve their case.”

So in March, Hutchison contacted Marta Mena-Gordon, who was 9 years old when her big sister was murdered. He told her he was digging back into the case, then followed up with updates. Mena-Gordon welcomed the reports.

“When he would call, his voice, he just has this very sincere voice,” Mena-Gordon said. “It was like, OK, he brought us some hope. It devastated my father and mother not knowing anything.”

In early October, Hutchison flew to Portland to meet with Mena-Gordon. He was able to tell her that the case had been solved and closed, and although her sister’s killer was dead, they knew who he was.

“It was quite a moment, definitely,” Mena-Gordon said. “So many emotions. Lots of happy tears.”

Mena-Gordon told Hutchison that the family’s photo albums were lost years ago, so he copied family photos of Estella from the case file and sent them to her.

When Hutchison first contacted Mena-Gordon, she searched his name and found news stories of other cold cases he had solved.

“I pray for Matt, we all pray for him,” Mena-Gordon said. “The pictures he sent of Estella, I’m going to put them on our wall, and his picture, too. I told him he is family. … I told my husband, ‘Oh, my gosh, he is a badass detective!’ ”

Matt Hutchison was born in Sunnyvale, and as a lad he had the makings of a good detective.

“If my parents were to describe it gently, they’d probably say I was very willful as a child,” Hutchison said. “Stubborn.”

Hutchison is the youngest of three boys. Chasing after his older brothers toughened him up. And maybe he inherited doggedness from his mom, who in her 60s has run four marathons alongside Matt.

Hutchison’s stepfather was a member of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, and Matt enjoyed listening to him and his pals tell fire and police stories. He graduated from Adrian Wilcox High in Santa Clara, then went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, intending to become a history teacher. But after graduation, he had a change of heart and joined the DPS.

He started in property crimes, then moved to sex crimes, then to robbery-homicide, where he met Smith and fell into the cold cases like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.

On the Stitt case, Hutchison said, “The genetics company told us it’s very unlikely for this case to ever be solved, that it’s not a case that they recommend continuing forward with.”

Why, then, did he keep plugging away at it?

“That’s not a good enough answer for me,” he said. “They’re the experts, but they don’t know me, and they don’t know how I’m not going to give up. And they don’t know Karen, and they don’t know her dad, they don’t know her family that still cares. They’re looking at data, and I respect that, that’s what they do, but I’m not going to forgive myself if I don’t do everything I can.”

So Hutchison keeps doing what he calls advancing the ball, on this and other cold cases. If he can’t solve the case, he will make it easier for the next investigator, who just might hit pay dirt.

Karol Smith left the DPS in 2017 to move out of state but still contributes to case work, and she was always careful not to bring her work home with her. When friends asked about her volunteer duties at the DPS, she told them she was doing file work. But one day, driving home, she suddenly said aloud to herself, “Barbara is not his wife’s name!”

She spun her car around and went back to the office to share her new realization with Hutchison. And just like that, a killer’s alibi crumbled.

The case was the 1969 murder of Susan DeLeon, a De Anza College student. She was strangled and her body left near the entrance of the city dump.

Charles Maine Jr. was a person of interest. DeLeon was a babysitter for two children of Maine and his wife. Maine, though, had a solid alibi for the night of the murder: He said he had been in a night school class with his wife, Barbara. The alibi was accepted at the time.

The original investigators have passed away and the reports in the file are vague and limited, so it’s not clear how the alibi was checked out, but apparently the investigators believed they had confirmed that a Charles Maine and a Barbara Maine did attend class that night.

The case went cold. Then, in 2008, the DPS received a letter from Maine’s ex-wife, saying she believed her ex-husband might be DeLeon’s killer. The letter was dismissed by investigators because of the night school alibi.

Smith, at the suggestion of one detective, read the letter. It was compelling, but that alibi stood strong. Until it hit her: Barbara wasn’t his wife’s name.

Maine’s ex-wife, who wrote the accusing letter, was named Ellen. It was an inconsistency others had missed. Smith and Hutchison went digging.

They learned that the Charles Maine who attended that class may have been the suspect’s father, Charles Maine Sr., and that Barbara Maine was Maine Jr.’s sister, not his wife.

Smith also found a possible motive, previously overlooked. DeLeon’s autopsy report said she was “newly parous.” Smith looked it up. Pregnant. Perhaps DeLeon told Maine that she was carrying his baby.

Hutchison interviewed two of Maine Jr.’s daughters. The two women were reluctant to talk, but Hutchison persuaded them. One told him that their father could be a violent man. Smith sat in on the interviews.

“As part of what I did, I listened to many interviews, and Matt’s were different,” Smith said. “He could get people to talk even if they weren’t comfortable with it. They would talk about things that weren’t pleasant for anybody. They were much more open with him. I don’t know, he could just draw it out of them. Matt was so good with those girls.”

In 2018, despite Hutchison’s new findings, the Santa Clara DA at the time declined to prosecute, saying he wasn’t convinced the evidence was sufficient. Maine died, Hutchison learned, in an Oregon hospital in early 2019. Again, prosecutors declared the case “exceptionally” cleared.

When Hutchison rotated out of homicide and into the fire department wing of the Sunnyvale DPS for six months in 2019, he took the Karen Stitt file with him, determined to chip away, even though IGG experts had told him it was a lost cause.

IGG, though not magic, is a phenomenal breakthrough in crime solving. Sometimes, though, the process can’t give the investigator a realistic chance of matching the DNA with a specific suspect.

In the Stitt case, Hutchison could get no closer match to the owner of the suspect DNA than three third cousins. Realistically, the owner of the Stitt scene DNA was a needle in a haystack.

Haystack, meet Detective Hutch.

Hutchison contacted the three third cousins and asked for their assistance. The first lived in a remote area of Mexico and his scanty family records were no help. The next one, in Texas, was a child from a closed adoption. Hutchison compelled the court in El Paso to unseal the adoption records, but they yielded no helpful information.

That left one third cousin. The woman, also in Texas, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are keen on genealogy because they believe families can be together after life. She warmed to Hutchison and to the task. In 2018, Hutchison and a partner traveled to her home.

“She welcomed us in,” Hutchison said. “We sat at her kitchen table with a long roll of butcher paper, she was at her computer, and she filled out her entire family tree.”

Using the family tree created in that Texas kitchen, he searched public records and social media. Eventually, in 2019, he determined that the likely killer was one of four brothers. Hutchison located all four and surreptitiously gathered their DNA, ruling out two of them. In April 2022, using Facebook, he found the final piece of the cold puzzle.

In the late afternoon of Aug. 2, 2022, in the town of Makawao on Maui, Hutchison and a group of 14 other law enforcement officers from Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County, Maui and the FBI closed in on a guest house behind a home. Thirteen months after his cold case had hit an apparent dead end, Hutchison knocked on the door and arrested Gary Ramirez, a 75-year-old former Fresno resident, on suspicion of the murder of Karen Stitt.

The crew took Ramirez to jail. DPS detective Tiffany Shillito hopped on a plane to rush a DNA sample from Ramirez back to the lab. It was around 9 p.m. by then, and all the restaurants were closed, so Hutchison and the other four officers from Sunnyvale and Santa Clara County found an open Safeway. They bought cold sodas and cold chicken strips from the deli, and ate dinner standing in the parking lot.

Having worked closely with the lab on many cases, Hutchison knew the DNA sample would get the rush treatment, but it would still be several hours before he would know for sure whether Ramirez was his man.

Long before dawn, Hutchison awoke in his hotel room and checked his email. The lab report was in. Ramirez’s DNA was a direct match for the crime scene DNA.

“I wanted to celebrate, but I couldn’t wake up the whole hotel,” Hutchison said. “The only thing I could do was, I had Karen’s picture on my laptop, and I pulled it up and told her, ‘We did it.’ ”

Ramirez, who is being represented by Santa Clara County’s public defender’s office, was extradited from Hawaii and is being held without bail in the county jail. He has yet to enter a plea and is scheduled to appear for arraignment on Feb. 23. A representative of the public defender’s office said Ramirez’s attorney would not have any comment on his case.

Next year may also be Hutchison’s last in Sunnyvale’s homicide unit. Because of the department’s rotation schedule, he’ll rotate out after 2024, and it’s not certain whether he’ll ever rotate back in. So it could be Detective Hutch’s last year working cold cases. But right now, he’s busy with three — two murders and a sexual assault.

In his spare time.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I get the funny feeling that nobody has the answer. We are just the poor souls who try to survive the day in, and day out lies that everyone promotes.

We have no idea what will happen. I can agree that we all have that gut feeling that something is wrong, and we feel as though we are helpless.

What we are living through is a master plan and we don’t have a copy to read.

Do we have the leadership in this Country for a quick fix? Answer, no!

There will be many changes coming some good and some not so good, but remember, we don’t own a crystal ball.

All I have is a gut feeling that tends to bother me daily.

CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE

Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on July 15, 1979.

Good evening. This is a special night for me. Exactly three years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for president of the United States.

I promised you a president who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.

During the past three years I've spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the government, our nation's economy, and issues of war and especially peace. But over those years the subjects of the speeches, the talks, and the press conferences have become increasingly narrow, focused more and more on what the isolated world of Washington thinks is important. Gradually, you've heard more and more about what the government thinks or what the government should be doing and less and less about our nation's hopes, our dreams, and our vision of the future.

Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject -- energy. For the fifth time I would have described the urgency of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper -- deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as president I need your help. So I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.

I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society -- business and labor, teachers and preachers, governors, mayors, and private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other Americans, men and women like you.

It has been an extraordinary ten days, and I want to share with you what I've heard. First of all, I got a lot of personal advice. Let me quote a few of the typical comments that I wrote down.

This from a southern governor: "Mr. President, you are not leading this nation -- you're just managing the government."

"You don't see the people enough any more."

"Some of your Cabinet members don't seem loyal. There is not enough discipline among your disciples."

"Don't talk to us about politics or the mechanics of government, but about an understanding of our common good."

"Mr. President, we're in trouble. Talk to us about blood and sweat and tears."

"If you lead, Mr. President, we will follow."

Many people talked about themselves and about the condition of our nation.

This from a young woman in Pennsylvania: "I feel so far from government. I feel like ordinary people are excluded from political power."

And this from a young Chicano: "Some of us have suffered from recession all our lives."

"Some people have wasted energy, but others haven't had anything to waste."

And this from a religious leader: "No material shortage can touch the important things like God's love for us or our love for one another."

And I like this one particularly from a black woman who happens to be the mayor of a small Mississippi town: "The big-shots are not the only ones who are important. Remember, you can't sell anything on Wall Street unless someone digs it up somewhere else first."

This kind of summarized a lot of other statements: "Mr. President, we are confronted with a moral and a spiritual crisis."

Several of our discussions were on energy, and I have a notebook full of comments and advice. I'll read just a few.

"We can't go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment."

"We've got to use what we have. The Middle East has only five percent of the world's energy, but the United States has 24 percent."

And this is one of the most vivid statements: "Our neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife."

"There will be other cartels and other shortages. American wisdom and courage right now can set a path to follow in the future."

This was a good one: "Be bold, Mr. President. We may make mistakes, but we are ready to experiment."

And this one from a labor leader got to the heart of it: "The real issue is freedom. We must deal with the energy problem on a war footing."

And the last that I'll read: "When we enter the moral equivalent of war, Mr. President, don't issue us BB guns."

These ten days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my long-standing concerns about our nation's underlying problems.

I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law -- and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.

I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.

It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.

We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of absolute dependability, until ten years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. We believed that our nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil.

These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.

Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like it, and neither do I. What can we do?

First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: "We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America."

We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.

We ourselves are the same Americans who just ten years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.

In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I'm announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America's energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.

Point four: I'm asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation's utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.

We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

Point six: I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense -- I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation's strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.

So, the solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity, our confidence in the future, and give our nation and all of us individually a new sense of purpose.

You know we can do it. We have the natural resources. We have more oil in our shale alone than several Saudi Arabias. We have more coal than any nation on Earth. We have the world's highest level of technology. We have the most skilled work force, with innovative genius, and I firmly believe that we have the national will to win this war.

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation's problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

Twelve hours from now I will speak again in Kansas City, to expand and to explain further our energy program. Just as the search for solutions to our energy shortages has now led us to a new awareness of our Nation's deeper problems, so our willingness to work for those solutions in energy can strengthen us to attack those deeper problems.

I will continue to travel this country, to hear the people of America. You can help me to develop a national agenda for the 1980s. I will listen and I will act. We will act together. These were the promises I made three years ago, and I intend to keep them.

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources -- America's people, America's values, and America's confidence.

I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy secure nation.

In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God's help and for the sake of our nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.

Thank you and good night.