Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024

Rain | Puddle | PHF News | Free Mimosa | Ukiah Roundabouts | Road To | Listserv Decision | Candidates Night | Ed Notes | Pelican Bluffs | Grape Pastoral | Financial Predators | Women Celebration | Ceasefire Proclamation | Yesterday's Catch | Red Balloons | Landline Loss | Sk8er | Emergency Visit | Corporate Cookies | Oust Pelosi | Moonshiners | Exploitation Economy | Charlie Plucking | Final Play | Kickoff | God's Army | Answer Wheel | New World | Alien Love | Blonde Joke | Bridge Construction

RAIN WILL BUILD through the day with a cold front mid day bringing a brief period of strong winds and heavy rainfall along the North Coast. Showers will then continue through Thursday with a stronger storm this weekend focused on the southern half of the forecast area. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Valentine's Day I have a few sprinkles under cloudy skies & 51F. Rain today then some clearing tomorrow. A stronger system for Saturday then an even bigger system for Monday. Or so they say. Breezy during the period but nothing BIG in the wind forecast. Yet.

PHF NEWS

by Mark Scaramella

At the last Measure B Committee meeting in December Behaviorial Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller told the committee that the County now expects to issue a Request for Proposals for construction of the 16 bed Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane “by spring,” using the usual loosy-goosy MendoSchedulese. That could mean as early as March 22 or it could mean months after that. Dr. Miller also said that she expected construction to begin “next year” which would mean 2024.

The latest budgeted amount for construction of the PHF remains at about $20 million (an estimate which hasn’t changed for at least two years) for an oversized 16-bed facility. If the jail overrun experience applies, however, the bids will come in at more than $20 million, perhaps a lot more. The selected contractor may or may not be able to meet the County’s aggressive construction schedule either. 

When former Sheriff Tom Allman asked Dr. Miller to confirm that the PHF would not be operational for at least three years, Dr. Miller replied, “Yes.”

A total of about $50 million has been raised by the Measure B sales tax since it began in 2017. About $7 million was borrowed from the Measure B pot last year to cover some of the jail expansion overrun. There’s still a few million dollars of Measure B money left (after allocating more than $20 million for the PHF and several million more for architecture, planning and construction management), but the picture is clouded by the expectation of a state grant of around $9 million that would reimburse Mendocino County for some of the PHF construction expenses — if the project is completed in the next three years as some supervisors hope. 

Dr. Miller said that she was “still going through hoops and legal requirements” for the $9 million state grant, cautioning that she “hopes that with state deficit the grants are not impacted.” Miller said she expects to have the grant contract with the state signed in the next few months, but that the timing depends on the state, not the County. 

If the bids for PHF construction come in significanly higher than what is now budgeted, they will have to re-examine the Measure B funds to see if there are enough reserves to cover the additional cost. 

The project is being designed and planned by the same high-end Sacto consultants (Nacht & Lewis) who provided Mendocino County with a $5 million Crisis Residential Treatment Facility that shouldn’t have cost more than $2 million. 

Last year when the Board turned down the Ford Street Project’s request for a few million Measure B dollars for an expanded treatment facility the Supervisors specifically said they declined that option to make sure there was enough Measure B money to build the PHF after the $7 million loan to the jail expansion overrun which may or may not be paid back.

Also, if the construction bids are substantially higher than expected, the County might even have to consider downsizing the PHF from a 16-bed facility to an eight-bed facility. But that would only happen over Dr. Miller’s dead body.

ROUND & ROUND WE GO

by Andrew Lutsky

The reader will be forgiven for failing to notice when on a hot sleepy Wednesday afternoon last July the Ukiah City Council quietly voted to approve a plan for six roundabouts to be constructed on Perkins and Gobbi streets over the next few years. The council’s unanimous approval came at the close of a workshop it held “to help create a vision for improving the Perkins and Gobbi Street corridors.”

A post on the City of Ukiah’s Facebook page five days earlier announced that city staff had been working with Adventist Health’s so-called Blue Zones Project to produce a draft plan for redesigning those streets: “Some of the predominant features of this vision include roundabouts, wider sidewalks, bike lanes, landscaped medians, and additional trees and landscaping.”

The AH vision includes construction of six new roundabouts, four on Perkins and two on Gobbi, bringing the total number of roundabouts planned for Ukiah to seven. A separate roundabout at Low Gap and Bush St is already “funded” and “in the design phase,” according to Public Works Director Tim Erickson.

The new street plan for Perkins includes a pair of nearly adjacent roundabouts, one at Pomeroy and one at Orchard. The proximity of the circles was a concern for some workshop participants, who may have worried that motorists could become trapped in an M.C. Escher-style infinity loop at that location, causing longer traffic delays and more severe existential crises.

City leaders are promoting the AH roundabout plan as part of its ‘complete streets’ approach to urban planning, which “aims to make travel safe and accessible for all users, including bicyclists, pedestrians, motorists, transit vehicles, and people of all ages and abilities,” according to the City.

Unfortunately the plan for six additional roundabouts approved unanimously (with one council member not present) on July 19 is completely inappropriate given Ukiah’s relatively low traffic volume and the total absence of pedestrian safety concerns. The plan adds risk for bicyclists contrary to its claims and places at least two centuries-old valley oak trees on the chopping block.

Incomplete Streets

Roundabouts help ease motor vehicle traffic and reduce motor vehicle accidents; most studies indicate that they also add risk for bicyclists.

For example a 2021 study by Utah State University funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation concludes: “Although converting an intersection to a roundabout may reduce [motor vehicle] crashes overall, some research from northern Europe suggests that roundabouts may actually increase the frequency of bicycle crashes.”

A 2011 Australian study finds: “Roundabouts experience fewer and less severe vehicle crashes than typical intersections. Yet this safety benefit does not extend to bicycles.”

In his presentation Blue Zones LLC employee Dan Burden argued the opposite. He described an intersection he helped plan near a college in Maui– a locale with ten times the population of Ukiah– that had already secured state funding to build a dedicated pedestrian overpass but at his urging opted instead for a roundabout because “[an overpass is] not going to address the safety issue, nor is it likely that the students would use the overpass.” He told his clients, “Why not put [the money] into rebuilding the intersection?”

If Mr. Burden has evidence that roundabouts are safer for pedestrians and bicyclists than dedicated pedestrian overpasses, he cagily withheld that material from his audience at the City Council workshop. His claim flies in the face of common sense: How can walking or riding on a completely separate elevated walkway be less safe than walking or riding on the surface near circulating motor vehicle traffic?

The Ukiah Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan approved in 2016 contains a section on “‘complete streets” which states that “streets are only complete when they address the needs of all modes of transportation, including walking and bicycling.”

Since the evidence indicates roundabouts lead to greater risk for cyclists, the city should not move forward with a plan to build them at all, much less under the guise of benefitting that community.

If the city wants to promote infrastructure that improves safety for bicyclists and pedestrians there are proven models to do so: Paved dedicated (no motor vehicle) walking and biking paths; buffered bike lanes; elevated walkways for pedestrians and cyclists.

The AH plan mentions buffered bike lanes for Gobbi and Perkins but does not specify that all of the planned roundabouts will include a buffered bike lane. Considering the small dimensions of some of the intersections we can presume there won’t be space for buffered bike lanes in most of the planned roundabouts. None of the other proven safety measures for pedestrians and cyclists are included in the plan.

‘A very good fit’

Describing the roundabout planned for the intersection of Gobbi and Orchard Streets– the exact location where county social services director Dr. Doug Rosoff was run over by a construction truck and killed while riding his bicycle in 2012 and a mile from where Covelo farmer and activist Xamuel Lara was run over and killed on his bicycle in 2018, also by a construction truck– Burden explained that the new construction would require several “legacy trees” be removed in the process.

During the question portion of the workshop Burden called the plan “a very good fit for this intersection.”

“Now, the big issue is you got some legacy [oak] trees, and if you were to put a roundabout in this intersection, the trees would have to be sacrificed,” he said.

When Mayor Rodin asked if there was a way to build a smaller roundabout at Gobbi and Orchard and in doing so avoid removing the trees, Burden was unequivocal:

“The challenge is for the engineer … My engineer does everything he can to save trees. If there was a way to do it he would have pulled it off but he just couldn’t. He said Dan, we’re just going to have to give up on this one. So no, I’m sorry, we cannot.”

Ukiah’s Ur Circle

City leaders hope to launch Ukiah’s circular frenzy by constructing a roundabout at Bush St. and Low Gap Rd, presumably to address regular motor vehicle congestion at the high school’s drop off and pickup times. During questioning after Burden’s presentation Public Works Director Tim Erickson mentioned that the roundabout planned for that intersection is funded and in the “design phase.”

That statement took me by surprise.

In April 2016 Walk and Bike Mendocino solicited input for a letter commenting on a proposed draft of the Ukiah Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan. I was contacted due to my leadership role in the Ukiah Bicycle Kitchen and I contributed my thoughts.

Our letter was sent to the city clerk to be included in the electronic agenda packet provided to the City Council. For some reason it never made it into the 586-page packet. Our letter addressed several concerns about features of the draft, one of which was a roundabout planned for Bush and Low Gap.

We wrote:

“Regarding the roundabout proposed for Bush and Low Gap; if a roundabout is needed, it is needed to decrease congestion. Traffic congestion is not a problem for walking or biking and the current four way stop is not dangerous for pedestrians or bicyclists. Therefore we do not believe the roundabout should be included in the plan.”

At a meeting of the Ukiah Planning Commission two months earlier, on February 24, Neil Davis, head of Walk & Bike Mendocino and current Director of Community Services for the city of Ukiah, said he “is of the opinion the matter of roundabouts should not be in the Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan.”

Davis added, “Having roundabouts in Ukiah would not work because of the layout of Ukiah and the existing configuration of city streets,” and he “does not support the installation of a roundabout at Bush Street and Low Gap Road.”

At the same meeting the commission heard from cycling advocate Tom Zimlich, who noted that “successful roundabouts with similar volume and four entries and four exits would have substantial distance between entry and exit point.”

“I do not think the Low Gap/N. Bush roundabout will work because the intersection is not big enough to handle the volume, slow the vehicles and safely transit bikes and pedestrians. … To appropriately slow non-turning vehicles, the center median would have to be huge, taking up most of the intersection.”

“With the volume of traffic at this intersection, especially during schools start/finish time, a roundabout in England would have a separate structure for bikes and pedestrians, i.e. an overpass or an underpass, or a cross-walk (with a traffic signal) about 20 meters from the intersection. Otherwise, pedestrians would not be able to safely cross the street,” Zimlich said. In spite of these concerns the City Council unanimously adopted a Bike and Pedestrian Plan that evening which included mention of one roundabout:

The City has secured funding to reconstruct the intersection of Low Gap Road and N. Bush Street to provide a modern single-lane roundabout with pedestrian and bicycle accommodation, including median-protected crossings and bicycle ramps. This project will relieve congestion and improve safety at a key intersection in Ukiah.

Zimlich disagreed: “In general roundabouts are a good idea when pedestrian traffic can be routed away from the intersection. When pedestrians are crossing at an intersection, a roundabout is generally not a good idea … [I]t seems to me that significant infrastructure would need to be put in place to ensure all users remain safe.”

From Blue Zones to Green

Seven years later the city appears to be entrusting a lifestyle brand to plan our streets. We have reason to wonder if its trust is well placed.

When Mayor Rodin asked whether the roundabout plan for Gobbi and Perkins would increase commercial development, Burden replied, “You increase property values by 800 percent.” He raised a further eyebrow when he declared that Ukiah’s State Street “is one of my favorite streets in the nation.”

After a short public comment period, when the council seemed uncertain how to proceed, City manager Sage Sangiacomo gave the members a nudge: “If you are ready to point staff in this direction then we could begin working on opportunities and a plan to come back to council about how we recommend engaging to get us off the ground…”

After a couple of false starts the mayor formulated a motion, and that motion was approved. Four weeks after Burden’s workshop the city included a consulting agreement for Burden and his team on its consent calendar (i.e., with no opportunity for public comment) and that agreement was approved.

Those who wonder how many roundabouts might be in the final plan may be relieved to know they can direct their questions to Michael Wallwork, one of four members of the “Built Environment Team” whose title in the agreement is “Roundabouts Expert.”

Whether Burden and Wallwork can make a convincing case for a single roundabout in Ukiah, much less seven, is doubtful.

What is not in dispute is that Adventist Health’s non-profit – founded on fictional so-called “blue zones” where humans purportedly live longer and better than anywhere else – is quite popular and is also … bringing in the green.

Fee schedule included in a Supplemental Memo attached to the consent calendar for the Ukiah City Council meeting on August 16, 2023.

THE ROAD TO . . .

LISTSERVS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK 

by David Gurney

This Thursday, February 15th, the Board of Trustees of the Mendocino Unified School District (MUSD), on behalf of its for-profit subsidiary, internet service provider (ISP) Mendocino Community Network (MCN), will make a locally historic decision. They will either take responsibility for reasonably moderating the Listservs, or announce a secretive behind-the-scenes decision to abandon the lists (and the community) entirely.

The listservs have been plagued by one or two individuals who have used the Discussion list in particular as a venue for personal insults, threats, libel, hate speech, fabricated quotes and false allegations against other subscribers, and other egregious material under the guise of "free speech." MUSD, as a public entity responsible for the MCN lists, has been fearful of litigation from offending parties for violating their First Amendment rights if they are held to certain rules of behavior that would prohibit the above mentioned abuse.

Over the last several years this has been an ongoing issue, with MUSD recently receiving an opinion from their attorneys regarding the actual legal parameters for moderating the lists according to state and federal law. For some unbeknownst reason Superintendent Jason Morse has chosen to keep this information secret, despite two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. And last November, a stacked MUSD Board took an illegal Motion and Second (Brown Act) on a decision to form an undisclosed committee on how to dodge responsibility for the listservs they created.

So far, two entities have come forward, offering to take over the listservs. Local idiot savant Marco McClean has proposed to take over the lists and keep them exactly as they are, thus accomplishing precisely nothing. But a group of six concerned citizens led by Frank Hartzell and Daney Dawson has come up with a complex and comprehensive proposal to assume control of the lists as a private entity, with the relevant dangers of censorship that entails. Their proposal, along with survey results and extensive public comment, can be viewed here: https://www.mendocinousd.org/files/user/1/file/Item%208_6%20BA.pdf

You can witness the dubious final decision on the fate of the MCN Lists by attending the School Board meeting either in person at Mendocino High School (10700 Ford Street, Mendocino) or via teleconference at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84275788245?pwd=TW01bkVJQVlLOGg4dG95MGtsc1prUT09

Passcode: 840492 Webinar ID: 842 7578 8245

"Agenda Item 8.6. MCN ListServes; The Board will review the subcommittee recommendations regarding the future of the MCN Discussion and Announce Listserves (action)." This item will be heard sometime after 5:30 PM.

Full Agenda: https://www.mendocinousd.org/files/user/1/file/2-15-24(1).pdf

 You can let your thoughts be known during public comment.

ED NOTES

THE LATE JOE HOFFMAN was the SEIU rep at the time, circa 2000, when he memorable summed a Mendo Green Party meeting: “The Willits Environment Center is the basement of the lowest rung in hell, where those who are unfortunate to find themselves condemned must listen to interminable bylaw debates between Ike Dullinger, Patricia Kovner and Rafa Borras chaired by Dan Hamburg with Bruce Hering stomping around going, ‘I don’t think we need any damn bylaws, anyway!’ Then Eleanor Lewallen who, after eight years of coming to Green Party meetings is still a registered Democrat, will hand out pieces of seaweed and recite an ocean sanctuary poem and talk about her brain operation. Liz Haapanen will then read her minutes of the October meeting in which my name is pronounced with a resentful sneer about 40 times. Robin Leler will talk about how she lost the Willits City Council race for never identifying herself as a candidate because she has principles that prevent her from seeking votes while in a public meeting. Bob Doyle will recite how he lost the Fort Bragg race for city council because he was moving his girlfriend from San Francisco. Then everyone will nod knowingly, give each other a hug and adjourn without setting the next meeting. I suggest you take your mediation skills, your check for $12 and head there immediately.”

I’VE DISCUSSED my experiences as a Green before, but Hoffman’s is a dead-on assessment. Johnson fancied himself as the one true Green. All other Greens were suspect. Any gathering involving The One True Green was meeting hell, as Hoffman described. Although I was registered Green at the time simply because I’d rather have been on the Megan’s Law list than be a registered Democrat, I quit after my second meeting when I found myself wrestling with the crackpot seated next to me for possession of an asparagus fern, without which one was not permitted to speak. I never got full possession of the fern, and every time I tried to “share” my opinion with the group, the little fascist who’d been appointed “vibes watcher” produced a flute and tootled me into silence. Those were the days…

ROSS TERNAN BURK was once featured on America’s Most Wanted, a popular show in the Anderson Valley like it was and is everywhere. At Burk's on-screen appearance one Saturday night, about half of Boonville bolted upright in their Barco-Loungers, then sprinted for their phones to tell the show’s host, John Walsh, that Mr. Burk, an ace mechanic, had lived among us rural innocents for two years, having spent most of that time as an employee of the late Larry Lombard’s at Airport Estates where Lombard produced small aircraft and aircraft parts.

BURK went by the surname Adam while he lived and worked among us. Much in demand as a handyman, Burk often exchanged work on houses for a place to live, which he had done most recently in Ukiah. The fugitive was universally described by locals as “friendly” and “always helpful.”

BURK’S WIFE, Tiffany, and the couple’s daughter Brittany, a child of five or so, had only recently departed the Anderson Valley. Their last known address in Boonville was the Dilley place on Mountain View Road where he parked his motor home. Burk worked with Dilley at Lombard’s enterprise adjacent to the Boonville air strip. Burk had been seen flying a small plane over Boonville the last Saturday afternoon before his national notoriety, apparently unaware that in a matter of hours his image and misdeeds would be seen by the many millions of Americans who faithfully tune in America’s Most Wanted every Saturday night.

MUCH of the fugitive’s property remains at various sites in The Valley, most of it in the Airport Estates hangars of friends. Burk also often worked on aircraft at the home of John Schnaubelt, whose property in the Airport Estates subdivision northwest of the high school was next door to retired Los Angeles police officer, Kirk Wilder. Deputy Squires also lived nearby. “Lots of people have told me that Burk's wife and little girl were at my house trick or treating a couple of weeks ago!” the deputy said, chuckling at the irony of Burk's proximity to local law enforcement. 

“WE just missed him Saturday night,” Deputy Squires said the Monday after Burk's appearance on national television. “America’s Most Wanted comes on here at 9pm, he left town at 7pm. We were told he’d left to visit relatives in Lafayette.”

BUT AMERICA’S MOST WANTED airs at 6pm on the East Coast. Burk may well have been tipped off that he was now famous east of the Mississippi and all over Boonville, too.

BURK was also well-known in Wyoming, the scene of his crimes. He was wanted in that state for “aggravated robbery” and aggravated burglary,” ordinarily not the kind of crimes that qualify an outlaw for America’s Most Wanted, where serious practitioners of far more spectacular forms of mayhem were featured weekly. Burk must have seriously annoyed Wyoming to have gotten himself up front with the relentless John Walsh, the program’s determined host. Walsh warned viewers that Burk was not only “armed and dangerous,” but that he’d vowed not to be taken alive, always a guarantee that the person who makes such a promise will eventually be confronted with an armed force of the size and firepower equivalent to a small nation.

ACCORDING to the Natrona County (Wyoming) Sheriff’s Department, Mr. Burk is 45 years old, 5’6”, weighs between 165 and 185 pounds, has brown hair and brown eyes, a tattoo on one arm that is not described, and a scar on the left side of his face. As friendly as Burk was during his days in the Anderson Valley, the Unity Club was advised not to try to take him into custody on their own.

AMERICA’S MOST WANTED said that Burk, whose father was an attorney, jumped bond in March of 1993 back in Wyoming where he’d relieved a dope dealer of his drugs, cash and a gun, and had also robbed a legitimate businessman of $30,000 in high performance vehicle parts. The businessman subsequently kidnapped Burk and beat a confession out of him, a generally non-sanctioned means of obtaining information, but in Burk's case upheld by the Wyoming Supreme Court. Burk was convicted of these crimes but had not appeared for sentencing. Soon after his television appearance, Burk was rounded up in the Bay Area by the aforementioned small army, but what became of him is not known, to us anyway. Burk would be in his 70s now, his daughter in her early thirties. I've always wondered if Mrs. Burk stuck by him. 

COME CELEBRATE the 10th anniversary of Mendocino Land Trust's acquisition of Pelican Bluffs on Saturday, 3/2/24. We’ll be taking a hike starting at 11 am and wrapping things up by 2 pm.

The hike is open to the public. Bring anyone you’d like! MLT will have a small table set up with warm drinks and snacks. We also will be selling a batch of the 10th Anniversary T-shirts and stickers. Those who would rather not participate in the long hike can enjoy the short loop trail or stick around the table to chat with folks.

Getting There: This preserve is south of Point Arena. Watch for mile marker 14.3 at the north end of the preserve and mile marker 13.5 at the south end of the preserve. Parking lot is near the south end of the preserve.

For more Information about Pelican Bluffs, please check out this link,

If you can’t attend, but still want to purchase our cool T-shirts (designed by our own Anna Bride), please use this link.

We hope to see you there, rain OR shine.

Questions? Contact info@mendocinolandtrust.org

JOHN REDDING:

File this under “I Shouldn't Have.” I have studiously avoided matters that involve the Mendocino Coast HealthCare District. I know I shouldn't have but I took a peek at the upcoming agenda. Two things caught my eye. One is the Board will vote on re-doing a contract with Redwood Roofers. Ok, no problem. But! "Staff" is directed to carry out the decision. What staff? Here, I think the Board means Adventist Health staff or more specifically, JIL its facilities manager. Hmmm. Is it the Board's intent to shovel money to AH and let them be responsible for the District's money? And then, to confound matters, the Board intends to appoint the AH's Fort Bragg Maintenance Manager to the supposedly independent Measure C Committee. You may recall its is the role of that committee to ensure the parcel tax money is properly spent. When I was the Treasurer and liaison to the committee, AH got caught twice going around the Board and asking the Measure C Committee directly to fund their projects. This is when I began to suspect that AH were financial predators, a fear later borne out when the last act of my Board was to cough up a couple of million dollars on the basis of what I thought was lose analysis and when the current Board, let by then Treasurer Jade Tippet, voted to give AH another $4m for an unstated and undocumented purpose. I have nothing but high regard to the AH Facilities Manager but neither he nor any AH employee should be on the Measure C Oversight Committee when it has the potential to impact their employer financially. If you are concerned about AH's undue influence on financial matters, as evidenced by these two agenda items, please let them know. Each and every Board member refused my offer of bring them up to speed on financial matters during the transition from my Board to theirs. Pretty sure they feel the same way.

FORT BRAGG OPPOSES GAZA ASSAULT

Good evening dear neighbors. 

My name is Laurel Krause. For 20 years I’ve made my home on Pudding Creek Road at The Allison Center for Peace. This evening I am here to encourage the Fort Bragg City Council to consider and support the Sustained Ceasefire proclamation we have put before you.

Our proclamation is made in response to Israel’s unrelenting bombing, killing of women and children in Gaza, and their inhumane genocide of the people of Palestine. Since October 20, 2023, on every Friday in town center at noon, I join a group of local citizens to protest for peace and ceasefire, sponsored by the Allison Center for Peace. As a Jew, I support this proclamation and demand a sustained, permanent CEASEFIRE NOW!

The Allison Center for Peace was established in memory of my sister Allison Krause, who was one of four antiwar student protesters killed by U.S. military gunfire at Kent State on May 4, 1970. The Allison Center is creating a Kent State and Jackson State massacre memorial, where we honor those who stood against war and for peace in May 1970. Populated with sustainable art, the memorial is a developing project to enhance peace and healing via peace gardens and a power art farm. A place for us to get on with our PEACE!

Our proclamation calls for the protection of all people’s human rights, free of terror and bombing, with access to food, water, shelter and medical aid. We call for PEACE in Gaza.

URGING the Fort Bragg City Council to ADOPT the ceasefire proclamation we have put before you. 

JOIN the 47 cities (we’ve since heard 70 cities!) recently passing symbolic resolutions, calling for a halt to Israel’s Gaza bombardment. STAND with other U.S. cities like Richmond, San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit, Michigan, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chicago, Illinois, Atlanta, Georgia, Akron, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, Albany, New York, Wilmington, Delaware, Bridgeport, Connecticut and Madison, Wisconsin to name a few.

Those Quiet During Genocide Are Accomplices! Let the voice of peace be heard!

Thank you!

Endorsed By the Peaceful Party and Kent State Truth Tribunal

* * *

Note: After hearing from a number of other people from the audience in support  for the Resolution, the Fort Bragg city council agreed to put it on the docket for February 26 at 1:56 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, February 13

CHRISTOPHER BAUGHMAN, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, public urination, failure to appear.

AKASHA CLEARWATER, Comptche. DUI, battery on peace officer, resisting, probation revocation.

JOHN HILL, Laytonville. Battery on peace officer, parole violation.

MIREYA MELLO-GARCIA, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

PATRICK PAINTER JR., Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

COLE PARKIN, Ukiah. County parole violation.

CYNTHIA PHILLIBER, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ELIZABETH REYNOSO, Ukiah. Parole violation.

SCOTTY WILLIS, Ukiah. Criminal threats, protective order violation.

I'LL SURVIVE

Editor: 

Regarding the recent articles about “AT&T looking to cut landlines,” I have to say that I survived the demise of 8-track tapes, so I think I will be able to weather the loss of landlines.

Kurt Harrison

Santa Rosa

EMERGENCY!

by Larry Bensky

I was waiting, weak but not in pain, through seven hours, with no foreseeable outcome.

My symptoms had been puzzling: feeling hot when it was cold, cold when it was hot; lack of appetite; insomnia; dizziness.

I had gone on my one block daily walk, accompanied by my 41-year-old caregiver from Fiji, with whom I exchanged pleasantries as we strolled up the street where I’ve lived since 1979.

Now I was in the Emergency Room,

Seven hours later I was still there. It was a busy night I was told. I might have to wait for some time.

“Some time” turned out to be seven hours. All around me as I waited there were people, maybe 10, who could have been in better shape but who obviously were in worst shape than I was. With me, I had my wife, my principal Caregiver, and a magazine to read, which I couldn’t focus on at all. I knew enough Zen to realize that in bad situations it helps to think about nice times. Good times with all the details you can muster. It takes your mind off where you are at the moment wherever that might be. So I thought about things.

I thought about my first wife with whom I had lived a few blocks away. I thought about my daughter with whom I had played when she was a little girl and what fun she was.

I thought about the day Lyndon Johnson visited my workplace. I don’t remember that day but there’s a picture of it in the newspaper this weekend that says he was there in 1964 and I was up on the eighth floor in my office at the New York Times Book Review.

I tried to recite in my mind the first lines of poems or what Bonnie Simmons had played on the radio this week in the Thursday night program that I try to never miss.

Every time, some sort of medical person came through a door and approached, he would take one of my fellow waiting patients. I thought to myself: Great! Progress.

But then that person came back, and I had to start waiting again.

Finally, I was taken to a room. But not to the room where examinations took place. It was another sort of waiting room where I was tested for more things.

Blankets were given to me. They warmed me for half a minute, maybe less. Meanwhile more people came in asking me to sign forms, first asking me questions which I had answered several times already. Then I was told there was a co-pay. The computer stopped. “It’s been that way tonight,” the woman running it said. “Something about the wifi…”

I wanted to scream, “The WIFI!? In this the most technologically advanced neighborhood in a city that tries to lure businesses with its WIFI?

Even homeless (whoops, “unhoused”) people manage to find places to recharge their charging blocks to use or sell to other unhoused people.

But I meekly shut up. Took a $50 receipt which had to be generated. “But you can throw it away,” she said. “And if you’re admitted you can see that “accounting” will put it on your itemized bill of deductions.”

More medical workers, but no doctors. I wanted to ask, “How much of a wait is there now?” My wife assured me a doctor would come. They must be busy.

Seven hours later, she came.

I would have welcomed a goat with a stethoscope by then.

But this was no goat. It was a large, friendly woman who sat down on a stool and started asking me what the problem was. She turned off her cell phone, and made it seem like there was nobody else in the hospital she was concerned about.

“I’ve looked at all your test results,” she said. “And there’s nothing there that I see out of the ordinary.”

“But there are a few more things,” she added. She proceeded to give me a thorough physical examination, but I couldn’t remember what was what, and who had done what to my suffering body before.

Finally she smiled, wished me well. And left, without taking a single note!

“How is she going to remember my condition if she didn’t take a single note?”

My wife assured me that it was all in a computer, and that the doctor could see the computer from anywhere in the room.

Most emergency room doctors work a night or two a month while they have other jobs in other hospitals. But this doctor worked emergency rooms only and had been in the Kaiser system for 17 years.

A printout was handed to me with details of my visit, including many indecipherable statistics of tests. I didn’t remember having taken most of them. During them, I was thinking about strange other things. Like the communal farm in southern Vermont, where I had once lived, and where I had my first dog.

That was 40 years and many, many miles ago, and many dogs ago. All that I learned about raising veggies, apples, and about growing trees, I learned there. In my home in South Berkeley, I have planted many vegetables, but all of them died during my recent medical emergencies.

I also planted many trees in front of my house, which are still there, but had to be rescued numerous times from city employees who said it was their job to cut them down.

In the backyard there was a tree that I planted so my daughter could climb it, a famous kind of tree that grows fast and kids love to climb on.

It has now been cut down and she lives hundreds of miles away and is 27 years old. She now has five children.

I get to talk to her most days, but the grandchildren don’t recognize me, except as a face that comes into their lives via Zoom.

I don’t feel close enough to other people to impose my list of ailments on them.

(Larry Bensky can be reached at: Lbensky@igc.org. Mr. Bensky’s wife says that he has a very strong life force, and will probably be around to read your messages.)

ED NOTE: Inedible And Unhealthy. The Girls Oughtta Bake Their Own Rather Than Peddle These Corporate Death Disks 

OUST PELOSI

Editor,

Regarding “Endorsement: Nancy Pelosi is the best candidate to represent S.F. in Congress. But there’s a catch” (Editorial, SFChronicle.com, Feb. 10): You must be kidding, endorsing Rep. Nancy Pelosi for reelection. 

Lately, Pelosi has been in the news for her outrageous, absurd and dangerous accusations regarding activists who come to her house to implore her to call for a cease-fire and to stop funding the genocide in Gaza with our tax dollars. 

Pelosi shook her finger at me and said, “Go back to China where your headquarters is” when I pointed out that nearly 80% of Democratic voters want a cease-fire. Then on national television, she said that cease-fire is “Putin’s message.”

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted for a cease-fire resolution. Pope Francis has called for a cease-fire. The slaughter of innocent children and families in Gaza is collectively traumatizing everyone I know.

What about a cease-fire is “Putin’s message”? What about saving the lives of civilians who have nowhere to go to escape the relentless bombing in Gaza? Pelosi is unfit to serve in Congress. 

Cynthia Papermaster, Bay Area coordinator, Codepink

San Francisco

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS, Western North Carolina, 1930s...

Three men pose for a picture at a moonshine still hidden deep in the Smoky Mountains...

INVISIBLE HANDS IN THE CITY

by Rebecca Solnit

In my own 44 years in San Francisco, travelling on foot far more than most, I have never been menaced by a homeless person. Though a highly visible minority are mentally ill or suffering from substance abuse, many unhoused people are employed, are parents, are seniors, are students (including 2370 of the children enrolled in San Francisco public schools in 2022) or otherwise quotidian citizens. Illness and addiction are often the consequences, rather than the causes, of the devastating precarity, shame and stress of being unhoused. Market-rate housing is out of reach for a great many people, working or not, which has made finding employees for lower-wage jobs in retail, restaurants and vital services difficult for local employers. Here, too, San Francisco has an extreme version of a problem widespread in wealthy urban areas.

Perhaps the existence of the unhoused, stranded in an outside with no inside to retreat to, along with tech’s offerings and ideology, has encouraged people to stay indoors, or to venture into public spaces only with reluctance or trepidation. The proliferation of delivery services has made eating restaurant food at home common. “The exploitation economy is just as unhealthy and dehumanizing for the customers as it is for the workers,” Andrew Callaway, a San Francisco gig-worker, wrote in 2016. “You never even have to see the person who is cleaning your house or your clothes. Plenty of people requested that I drop off their food at the door. Customers grow to love apps that make the worker anonymous.” In this system, the invisible hand of the market can actually bring you a burrito.

THE ‘WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN’ SUPER BOWL MOMENT THAT WILL HAUNT THE 49ERS

by Alex Simon

It’s never just one play that makes the difference between winning and losing in football. But for 49ers fans stewing after again falling short of the franchise’s sixth Super Bowl — this loss perhaps the most painful of them all — identifying the play that cost you everything is, frankly, human.

None may have been bigger than the final play for the 49ers offense in overtime: Brock Purdy lined up with an empty backfield on third-and-4 from the Chiefs' 9-yard line. What appears to be an offensive line miscommunication killed the drive, forced a field goal and gave Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs a chance to drive down and score the game-winning touchdown, handing the Niners a 25-22 loss.

When the ball is snapped to Purdy, the right side of his offensive line doesn't block All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones, letting the big man rush Purdy untouched. Jones is in Purdy’s face within a second, forcing Purdy to chuck an errant pass early in the direction of wideout Jauan Jennings.

On the Niners offensive line, right guard Spencer Burford down blocked to his left, while center Jake Brendel pulled left to pick up a blitzer. It left right tackle Colton McKivitz and tight end George Kittle to block two players: Jones and defensive end George Karlaftis. Kittle’s block appeared to be a “chip” block, where he releases from his block after a moment to go out and catch a pass. 

McKivitz seemed to know Kittle was only chipping Karlaftis, and immediately turned to his right to help block him, despite Kittle forcing Karlaftis far out wide. It appears that McKivitz didn't even realize that Burford down-blocked to his left, only putting his hand up on Jones for a moment before turning to his right.

It means that Purdy never saw wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk beat Chiefs cornerback Nic Jones, who slipped after Aiyuk’s initial juke, and started towards his back-of-the-endzone route essentially uncovered. By the time Jones slipped and Aiyuk was set to run, Purdy already had started his throwing motion towards Jennings.

Jennings, too, seemed to run his route well, getting separation right at the first-down mark at the 5-yard line. 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said as much after the game. “It looked like Jauan killed him, won pretty good,” Shanahan said, according to The Athletic.

If missed chances in past close Super Bowls for the Niners are any indication, this one could haunt them for years.

THE DEBACLE of ‘God’s Army’ at Eagle Pass

by Jim Hightower

Perhaps you heard about the recent surge of invasive foreigners into Eagle Pass, Texas — the Rio Grande border town that finds itself at the hot center of the US-Mexico immigration crisis.

Only, this “invasion” (as Donald Trump’s MAGA crowd likes to call it) was not by Latin Americans, but by Anglos descending on Eagle Pass from the North! Indeed, it was an invasion by Trumpista partisans claiming to be “God’s Army.”

Organized as a Christian Nationalist crusade, they boasted that a mighty convoy of 700,000 trucks from all across the US would be streaming toward Eagle Pass to “Take Our Border Back.”

What a show of strength! But just when you think the whole country has gone full-tilt bonkers, reality shows up. “God’s Army” actually consisted of about 20 trucks, a babbling rant by Sarah Palin, and a forlorn crowd of maybe 200 people. Seriously. That was it. The greased pig contest for children at a small county fair in Texas draws more than that.

And, very significantly, many of the Trump “patriots” who came from afar were stunned to find that his frantic claims of hordes of rampaging criminals flooding into the US didn’t exist. “That’s kind of eye-opening, said one who’d made the long trek to repel the “invaders.” And a 29-year-old local resident expressed the rude truth about the loudly ballyhooed caravan: “What is all of this for? For show,” he exclaimed!

Adding to the sleazy spectacle, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had convened a dozen other immigrant-bashing GOP governors in Eagle Pass to take advantage of the caravan’s political glow. Imagine their chagrin that their number of high-powered governors, political staffers, and media entourages outnumbered the crowd.

For an honest depiction of God’s Army, go to Vote Common Good: votecommongood.com

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Cheap drones and missiles mean even small organized militias can disrupt supply chains or army bases or cities or small countries in hostile territory. The military can no longer project force with naval assets far from home. It’s a new world.

A VENTRILOQUIST was touring clubs in Florida. With his dummy on his knee, he went through his usual dumb blonde jokes when a blonde woman in the audience stood up on her chair and shouted, “I’ve heard enough of your stupid blonde jokes! What does the color of a person’s hair have to do with her worth as a human being? It’s guys like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and from reaching our full potential!” The embarrassed ventriloquist started to apologize when the blonde started yelling again. “You stay out of this mister! I’m talking to that little bastard sittin’ on your knee!”