Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 3/13/24

Cold/Wind/Sun | Big River | Election Update | Willet of Willits | Skunk Challenged | Ocean Silt | Budget Behind | Daffodils/Oaks | Goodbye Print | Health Food | Dependents | Hydration | Village Events | Mental Illness | Photo Art | Awaiting Things | Yesterday's Catch | Mean Country | Terrific Shoes | Civilized Behavior | Heron Gate | Working Class | Giant Hit | Pulling Vines | Jackhammer School | California Senators | Job Interview | Palestine Nightmare | Cone Flop | Ode to Liberty | Mountain Porter

FROST ADVISORY remains in effect until 9 am PDT this morning.

COLD TEMPERATURES this morning will rise into the 50s beneath clear skies today with increasing northerly winds. Gusty NE downsloping winds in Lake county are likely on Thursday. Highs in the 60s and 70s are likely through the weekend with no major disturbances appearing until mid next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 44F under clear skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. Could get windy next couple days but I think generally east & south of us. Warm & dry into the weekend & clear for most of next week so far.

NO SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE CHANGES with the County Election Team’s latest update.

Mulheren’s small percentage lead increased to 52-48% over Ukiah challenger Jacob Brown in the Second District Supervisors Race. Mulheren has 1,287 to Brown’s 1,191 with about a thousand votes yet to count in that District.

Madeline Cline still has a significant lead in the First District and looks likely to win the seat without a run-off. 

WHAT’S IN THAT BAG, DON?

On Sunday, March 10, 2024 at approximately 10am hours, a Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officer was on routine patrol in the parking lot of the Motel 6 North at 1340 North State Street, Ukiah. The UPD Officer observed Donald Willet, 41, of Willits, a Mendocino County resident that the UPD Officer was familiar with from previous law enforcement contacts, and knew Willet to have an outstanding warrant for his arrest. 

The UPD Officer observed Willet, who was carrying a backpack, get into a parked vehicle on the west end of the parking lot. The UPD Officer approached Willett, who was still seated in the vehicle, and placed him under arrest for the outstanding warrant. While effecting the arrest, the UPD Officer observed a plastic bag containing suspected methamphetamine in Willett’s sweatshirt pocket, along with drug paraphernalia. 

Due to Willet being in possession of a controlled substance, the UPD Officer conducted a probable cause search of the vehicle Willet had been seated in, to include the backpack that the UPD Officer had observed Willett carrying. A .22 caliber Berretta handgun was located inside of the backpack, and multiple rounds of .22 caliber ammunition were located in a subsequent search of an additional backpack inside the vehicle. 

In addition to the outstanding warrant for his arrest, Willet was placed under arrest for concealing a firearm in his vehicle, possession of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Willett was booked into the Mendocino County Jail for controlled substance, paraphernalia, concealed weapon, suspended license and leaving scene of accident with property damage as well as on the warrant issued out of the Mendocino County Superior Court.

CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION CHALLENGES ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW EXEMPTION FOR MENDOCINO RAILWAY PROJECT

The California Coastal Commission is swinging hard on a federal declaration that the Mendocino Railway’s plans to rebuild a collapsed tunnel and rehabilitate the line between Willits and Fort Bragg are exempt from environmental review. At a hearing on Thursday, March 14, the Commission will discuss a letter it plans to convey to the US Department of Transportation, objecting strongly to a process it calls “highly unusual (and) not provided for under the regulations” that govern the management of coastal zones.…

mendofever.com/2024/03/12/california-coastal-commission-challenges-environmental-review-exemption-for-mendocino-railway-project/

JPA: JUST PAY ATTORNEYS, REVISITED: THE TOO LATE SEQUEL

by Mark Scaramella

The Supervisors spent most of Tuesday morning’s mid-year budget update discussion babbling on about general ideas and minor bookkeeping (“adjustments and journal entries”) and again avoiding any specific budget issues. The biggest budget overrun reported for this year is in the Sheriff’s Department (including the jail) which is more than $1.5 million over budget. This year, instead of blaming the overrun on unplanned overtime, the CEO’s staff says the Sheriff’s overrun is due to higher salaries and pensions for law enforcement that the Board negotiated — without any consideration for where the money was coming from. Instead of discussing the overrun and how to handle it, at Supervisor Dan Gjerde’s initiation, the Board simply gabbed about how nice it would be if they could get more law enforcement grants. But, as Chief Probation Officer Izen Locatelli reminded the Board, grants are generally not blank check handouts to cover overruns for existing services, but to fund additional or specialized programs and services. So there probably wouldn’t be any overrun coverage from grants, especially not this year. Nobody else had any comments about how badly this was handled or where the money to cover the overrun will come from or whether the overrun can be absorbed somehow in the Sheriff’s budget.

* * *

As we pointed out just last month, “JPA” which usually means “Joint Powers Authority” in the lingo of Mendo’s bargain basement bureaucrats more appropriately stands for “Just Pay Attorneys.” 

Why? Because just two weeks ago on February 27 the Board rubberstamped without discussion consent item 3o: “Approval of Legal Services Agreement with Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, P.C. in the Amount of $250,000 for Legal Services Regarding Regulatory Issues Related to Negotiation of the Potential Formation of a Joint Powers Authority with Fire Districts to Expand Ambulance Coverage in Remote Areas Effective Upon Full Execution through June 30, 2024.”

As we said two weeks ago, this dubious “Joint Powers Authority” idea has been drifting around County offices for years. In theory it could (emphasis on “could,” nobody really knows) improve billing and revenues for ambulance services and thus, even more unlikely, “expand ambulance coverage.” Nobody has provided any evidence that it will ever do either of those things. Now all of a sudden they are throwing $250,000 at a fancy law firm for open-ended “legal services” associated with this cockamamie idea. 

We looked deeper into the item to see where the $250k is coming from, and found this: “Source of funding: 4016-862189.” 

No further information was provided in the consent calendar item; just this cryptic account number. So we looked at the County’s current budget book and found that Budget Unit 4016 is “Emergency Medical Services (EMS)” which is budgeted at about $1.4 million and which probably includes CalFire Emergency Dispatch services out of Willits. 

“Funding for support of fire agencies is budgeted in separate locations,” the budget book opens unhelpfully. “The direct fire agency support payments from [the] Proposition 172 fund are budgeted in BU 1940 - Miscellaneous, while the Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) dispatch contract is budgeted in BU 4016- Emergency Medical Services. The costs of this [emergency dispatch] contract [with CalFire in Willits] are covered with EMS provider payments and General Fund dollars (including a specific allocation of property tax that comes from the former County Service Area, CSA #3). Both the previous Proposition 172 budgeting practice and revised process due to the fire agencies support shift [whatever that is – ms], is further described through the chart and tables on the following page.” 

But of course that “following page” does not mention how the $1.4 million was arrived at, where it comes from, nor the potential JPA. 

On its face, given the grotesque enormity of this off-hand disbursement to outside lawyers with no clear objective, this looks like a blatant, ill-considered waste of $250k. At least it should have been discussed and approved separately by the Board with an eye toward where the money is coming from and what is going to be reduced elsewhere to pay for these “legal services.” And whether a JPA will really do any good. (Hint: It won’t.)

Budget Line Item 862189 is listed as a generic “Professional & Spec Services” sub-account but there’s no separate budget line for “Professional & Spec Services,” within the EMS budget as implied by the “source of funding.”

On page 58 of the budget book there’s a passing reference to the use of the (already over-allocated) PG&E settlement funds for several things including “JPA assessment & implementation.” However, there’s no budgetary estimate of the cost of the “assessment & implementation.”

We can think of several better ways to spend $250k on Mendo’s cash strapped local ambulance services besides vague legal services for yet another dubious Joint Powers Authority. For example, the County could just hand over the $250k to the three ambulance services operating in the unincorporated area of the County (Covelo, Laytonville and Anderson Valley), aka the County Service Area #3. $250k may not be much in the eyes of Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, P.C., but just a third of it, about $83k each, would cover the total operating expenses for our small, rural, mostly volunteer ambulance providers for a year.

This is only the beginning, the so-called “assessment and implementation” of the “potential” formation of the JPA, the camel’s nose in the tent. Once the County takes this first giant step into the JPA quicksand it will be hard to stop throwing more money at it once it gets going, taking years and years of pointless analysis and meetings. 

The Mendocino County Supervisors, proclaiming time and again how broke they are, scrounging around for every penny of extra revenue and expense reduction, blithely approved this giant waste of money without the slightest hesitation, consideration or discussion.

* * *

That was last month. Now back to Tuesday’s Board meeting.

Typical of this board’s haphazard, irresponsible and completely upside-down attitude toward budgeting was the following “discussion” of the long-stalled and misguided attempt to set up a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) for Emergency Medical Services:

Supervisor Ted Williams, referring to about $1 million in PG&E settlement money which has been allocated to setting up a Joint Powers Authority (JPA): “For the CEO, if we don't use that money everything shuffles around between departments. Where does it end up? Is that something we should be considering to close the budget gap?”

CEO Darcy Antle: “It would go to the General Fund for this board to consider.”

Williams: “Is it possible to ask for Jen Banks [of Coastal Valley EMS, an expensive EMS administration agency in Sonoma County costing the County hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to “administer” ambulance agencies in Mendocino County] and probably Jeff Adair [Banks’ boss] to at a future date bring a presentation about the JPA progress and let the board decide whether we want to continue?”

Antle: “Sure. I had that conversation with Jen [sic] last week and we discussed that at a future meeting I can try and get it on one of the meetings in April so it's around budget time.”

Board Chair Maureen Mulheren: “Just for clarification, CEO, I'm not sure if April would be the best if there are still questions about the legal and the accounting and the contractor that we have to work through. Maybe that is something we can just leave as an open-ended date.”

Antle: “Yeah. I could check on the status as to whether or not…— and I know she mentioned a couple of things that they have done and we also, to supervisor Williams’ point, hired on the legal firm to help us do that process, so I think an update before the board on the status would be okay.”

Williams: “The concern is spending a quarter million on legal expenses to then pull the plug because it's not financially feasible. We should first decide if it is financially feasible before we spend that money. That million could help us close the budget gap.”

And that was the end of that. No other board members even wondered about the expenditure-first/discussion-second approach and nobody reminded the Board that they approved the pointless $250k on the consent calendar last month without any discussion of whether it is “financially feasible.” (Hint: It’s not.)

By the time this board gets around to even discussing whether to spend $250,000 on pointless legal expenses, the money will have already been committed or spent.

PRINT ONLY

Editor,

I am truly sorry to read about the end of the AVA print edition. I’ve been a subscriber for 30 (maybe 40) years. Maybe you could switch more of it to the Laytonville paper since Mr. Shields already republishes most of the Off The Record column, Tommy Wayne Kramer’s column, and even some of the letters addressed to the AVA.

I would subscribe to the online paper but I do not like to read online or scrolling through the cell phone. If I could find a way to print out the AVA so I can sit and read it, I’d be more than happy to do that. But looking at your web site, that seems impossible.

Anyway, I wish you a speedy return to good health and hopefully a continued future with some version of the AVA. Sadly for me, I doubt I will be seeing much of it.

Bear Kamoroff

Willits

HEALTH FOOD

I find a sprout
in my
Margarita

— Don Shanley

HYDRATION

I find an ice cube
in my
Maker’s Mark

— Mark Scaramella

TWO ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE EVENTS this Sunday

AV Village Volunteer Training

Sun 03/17/2024, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM, Anderson Valley Senior Center

Been thinking about giving back to the elders of our community? Now’s your chance, join us for a short volunteer training and learn more about the Anderson Valley Village. The work of our volunteers is vital to our mission of supporting seniors as they age in place, they provide all manner of help, from basic chores, transportation, tech support and errands to check-in calls and visits to skilled services. It’s up to you how, and how often, to volunteer.

---

AV Village Monthly Gathering: Mental Wellness and Social Connections

Sun 03/17/2024, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM, Anderson Valley Senior Center 

Dr. Lea Queen from the AV Health Center will be presenting on Mental Wellness and the importance of Social Connections for longevity and happiness. 

LOOKING BACK!

by Mazie Malone

Life is an incredible ride that is at times bumpy, uneven, grueling very much like the streets of Mendo, hahaha! Sometimes there is even a giant deep dark sinkhole, that you cannot manuever away from and you fall in, free falling into the unknown, alone and unprepared! 

Serious Mental Illness can strike anyone, anywhere at anytime without warning and turn your world upside down. It did mine, I am not the same because of it, it has scarred me deeply which in turn has made me cultivate some hidden talents. Most importantly my ability to write, to talk about these in things in the open and bring people together for change. 

I am grateful in so many ways, we are lucky to have survived 2020/2021! I am amazed that it is now 2024 and we are holding steady, things are good! Comparatively speaking, I would much rather be beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat than experience another episode of long term psychosis of my loved one! The fascinating thing is that it is not really the psychosis that is the issue, although scary and disturbing. The problem is the system itself. The very thing we need for support and care cannot provide us with intervention. But then again who gives a shit about crazy, poor, homeless, addicted and mentally ill folks? I am quite cynical in this regard; we must hold the system to task to begin to intervene and provide necessary support and accommodations for those unable to do so for themselves and their families.

When I look back at all that occurred during such a difficult time it is jarring. I suppose I am still traumatized by those events that left me in the darkest depths of despair with no lifeboat, no helping hand and no way through the system. I am grateful that even after all that we have experienced we have come to a place of calm. However, I also know that the traction we have gained could be turned upside down at anytime. A very frightening thought because the reality is what will happen this time? Will we somehow be shown mercy and love to the predicament of mental illness or will we again be thrown to wolves and have to claw our way out, bloody and thrashed, what if we don’t make it?

Would anyone care? 

This road is full of hazards and hardships that could be greatly reduced if only the system acted responsibly based on human needs, not on bad ideas and false beliefs. I will remain hopeful that the future of intervention and aid for Mental Illness becomes holistic and inclusive, giving our families necessary support and treatment. 

Until then we will keep our head up and march onward, advocating for better intervention and care. 

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP!

April 5 opening of Larry Wagner’s show, “Look Before You Leap. Photo Art to Make You Smile”

Larry Wagner, Fine Art Photography

Cloud Nine Art Gallery, 320 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg

First Friday, April 5, from 5-7, and continuing through April .

Celebrate the fine art photography of Larry Wagner. Larry will give a brief talk about his work with a Q&A at 6:00. Enjoy a glass of bubbly and light refreshments with background guitar music.

Larry Wagner has long been a chronicler of the many facets of the Mendocino Coast, its people, fauna, flora and its landscape. Larry’s display features his approach to his work, capturing and creating a moment. He enjoys telling a story with his images, the story is open to the interpretation of the viewer. Larry would be delighted to engage art lovers in discussion of his work.

In addition to Larry’s show, we have some fabulous whale art celebrating the Whale Festival. David Leonard’s magnificent redwood sculptures featuring a humpback whale and a southern right whale, Alice Stenberg’s beautiful porcelain whale mugs and platters and Nancy Collins’ iconic watercolor painting of whales looking at a very tiny boy in the foreground, titled “Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid”. 

Cloud Nine Art Gallery is open Wednesday Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12-5 and by appointment. 

WAITING FOR A ROOT CANAL

Warmest spiritual greetings, 

Spent an interesting evening watching others being helped into the men's dorm, compromised by too much alcohol and drugs, and being placed on their beds to take rest. The usual argument in regard to the window being open to provide fresh air, versus it being kept closed to keep the indoor air temperature warmer, ensued. Somebody using some sort of vape gadget sent up a plume of smoke. Maybe it is okay. Not sure. A bottle of Captain Morgan rum appeared. The debate continues about the Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center being a "low barrier" facility, or whether it is in actuality a no barrier open drug bazaar. (Shall we count the number of deaths due to overdosing since March 1st of 2022, when yours truly moved in?)

Meanwhile, I am waiting for the dentist to call in regard to attempting to get Partnership of California to approve a root canal, before she saves a small tooth and re-crowns it. 

I am available for spiritually sourced direct action and relative spiritual rituals in response to global climate destabilization and general peace & justice concerns. Am presently doing nothing whatsoever of any importance in Ukiah, California. A daily reading of the New York Times while being detached from the spectacle that America has become, plus keeping up with the implosion of this global civilization, provides sufficient entertainment. To those who are Self-realized, may you continue to understand the samsaric disaster, as we await the arrival of avatars and the scriptural promise of the destruction of the demonic at the end of Kali Yuga. 

Feel free to contact me at any time.

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, March 12, 2024

SEAN AMBROSE, Ukiah. Controlled substance without prescription, probation revocation.

WILLIAM BLETHEN, Albion. DUI, suspended license for refusing DUI chemical test, ammo possession by prohibited person.

JESSICA COUGHLIN, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, false imprisonment, criminal threats.

VANESSA ELIZABETH, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

ANDRA FIMBRES, Ukiah. Resisting.

DOUGLAS GAGE, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, criminal threats, use of weapon during felony, child endangerment.

SHANNAH GRIFFITH, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, leaving scene of accident with property damage.

EMILY RODRIGUEZ, Redwood Valley. DUI-alcohol&drugs, paraphernalia, no license, no registration, no insurance in accident.

CLIFFORD YAPLE, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DANIEL YEOMANS, Fort Bragg. County parole violation.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The majority of Americans alive today were born after 1980, so the whole “There aren’t enough to support the elderly” line is clearly bullshit. More importantly, the majority of Americans never lived in a better country. I remember my dad saying in the late 80s, “This is getting to be a mean, mean country.” He was brought up in a different time, when people cared about each other, and thought it was an outrage for citizens to go unemployed, hungry or homeless.

Those days are long gone.

PROGRESSIVES HAVEN'T PRODUCED RESULTS

Editor,

Regarding: "Voters make it clear: San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city" (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, March 6): Many voters have progressive goals but reject the actual performance of our professed "progressives."

The 2014 San Francisco Board of Education decision to not allow our students to have the option of taking algebra in eighth grade was done with the goal of equity, but it was a bad intervention and disadvantaged our children. 

City voters are appalled that mentally ill people are left to live in the gutter. Voters are sick of not being able to assume that their car will not be broken into. They are dismayed that looting is rampant and that hard-working merchants are the victims. 

Restorative justice is a valuable goal but persons repeatedly committing crimes hurt us all. 

San Francisco voters are expressing frustration at the neglect of enforcing civilized behavior in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. 

It really has nothing to do with being progressive-moderate-conservative. 

It's time to fix the problems. 

Dawn Isaacs

San Francisco 

FRISCO, MACY’S & THE WHITE WORKING CLASS MALE

by Jonah Raskin

Did I cry when the newspapers announced that Macy’s in San Francisco was closing? No, I didn’t, though I have known about Macy’s and have shopped there on and off and mostly off for more than fifty years. The last time I had to buy a suit to officiate at the wedding of two young friends I bought a three-piece Calvin Klein suit at Macy’s and at an affordable price: $200. I have not worn the suit since that occasion, but I consider the purchase a sound investment. I now have a suit for almost any occasion. I have a Macy’s credit card and a watch recently repaired at Macy’s, but my shopping usually begins online these days; if Uniqlo folded now I would be unhappy for 15 seconds.

There are many places in San Francisco for which I would shed many tears if they up and vanished. Golden Gate Park would be one, also North Beach, and the beach at Ocean Beach where I live would be another. I would be sad, too, if the white working class guys who hang out on the corner of Judah and La Playa in the Outer Sunset most afternoons were to fade into the infamous Frisco fog. 

When I first saw them I walked on by and didn’t give them a second look. But after the fourth or fifth time that I saw them, I stopped, said hello, and introduced myself to Tom, a large, jovial fellow, and a native San Franciscan, raised Catholic, who often plays old rock ‘n’ roll tunes on his guitar. Others join him. Still others gab about rock and the state of the city which Herb Caen once called Baghdad by the Bay. Then came the Iraq War and that expression faded into the fog.

Which brings me to the subject of the city of San Francisco which has lost much but not all of its working class identity. Frisco has been shaped by its topography, geography, and by its working class history. Citizens of all sizes and shapes have made San Francisco and San Francisco has also made its citizens — good, bad and ugly — from the gold miners and the nabobs to the workers who participated in the General Strike of 1934, and those who have marched and chanted during the current wave of protests against the invasion, occupation and decimation of Gaza and the killing of its citizens.

I would be unhappy if the guys I know who hang on the corner of La Playa and Judah were to disappear into that infamous Frisco fog. The guys are not bankers, lawyers or judges, but they add to the character and the personality of the neighborhood and to the city in which they live. They are in their 40s, 50s, 60s. Many are retired; others work as carpenters, electricians and house painters, though they seem to be unemployed more than they are employed. That’s the fate of the white working class male, and others as well who belong to the precariat these days in Biden’s booming economy.

Tom rides his bicycle to the corner and brings his guitar which he plays while he sips beer in a plastic cup from the Java Beach Café. Gino, who calls himself “100% Greek,” smokes cigarettes and does something on his laptop all afternoon. What I don’t know. He’s an ex-therapist. Dennis, aka “Dennis the Menace,” as he calls himself, lives on SSI and walks with the help of a cane. He’s Hollywood handsome, has deep lines in his face, and could be a character actor in a Scorsese film. Andrew, with the big bushy beard and long black hair, surfs at Ocean Beach, just across the Great Highway from the café. 

The other day I overheard him in conversation with Dennis the Menace about the 1943 Battle of Stalingrad and about Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt. That conversation surprised me; I had stereotyped them as apolitical. They agreed that the Russians turned the tide against fascism in World War II, and they also agreed that the Russians lost tens of millions of citizens during that war. They dislike Putin’s Russia and they recoil when they hear the news from Gaza.

Occasionally, there’s scuffle among homeless folks; the cops arrive and tell them to chill. Also, occasionally the community-minded owner of the Java Beach Cafe throws a party for the employees with superb Mexican food. Everyone grabs a taco or two, rice, beans and salsa and goes home happy.

The guys, my guys, play bocce and chess in the small park located between La Playa Street and the Lower Great Highway. They use large wooden, hand-crafted chess pieces on a chess board that’s five-feet by five-feet. Someone pooped on the board and nobody has cleaned it up, not since the last time I looked. 

If you want to know about the title for this piece, it’s from a song by the white working class rock band, Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song is titled “Willie and the Poor Boys,” and along with “Bad Moon Rising” and “Fortunate Son,” it’s one of my favorite songs from the late 1960. The guys, my white working class guys, on the corner of Judah and La Playa aren’t poor and don’t play for nickels and dimes. They never shopped at Macy’s. Also, unlike the musicians in Creedence they are neither successful nor famous. But they are my comrades and I love ‘em dearly, far more dearly than I ever loved the unworking class store called Macy’s.

NAME THIS GIANT

VINEYARDS ARE BEING RIPPED OUT EN MASSE — A TROUBLING SIGN FOR CALIFORNIA WINE

by Esther Mobley

This winter, Garret Schaefer has been pulling his grapevines out of the ground.

Schaefer’s family has been farming wine grapes in Lodi since 1894. For the past 60 years, the family had a reliable buyer for their 180 acres of grapes, about half of which is Zinfandel. But in 2019, that buyer — a winery — decided to stop making Zinfandel. Since then, Schaefer has tried relentlessly to find another winery to buy the crop.

“At some point you have to say this isn’t working,” Schaefer said. So far, he’s brought in excavators to dig up 40 acres of grapes, and he expects he’ll remove 14 more this year.

He’s hardly alone. Across California, farmers are ripping out their vineyards en masse. This uprooting is the result of a yearslong oversupply: With wine consumption in the U.S. declining, wineries are decreasing production, which means they need fewer grapes.

Caught at the end of that equation are the farmers, who now find themselves with a surplus of fruit. There are simply too many wine grapes planted in California for the market to sustain.

It’s left growers from Mendocino to Madera with an excruciating decision: Do you continue investing in the vineyard, with the risk that there won’t be a buyer for the fruit, or cut your losses?

“You’re better off to take your loss and not spend that $4,000 an acre to farm your vineyard when you don’t know whether you’ll be able to sell those grapes,” said Craig Ledbetter, owner of Vino Farms in Lodi (San Joaquin County), who has removed 160 acres of vines in the past couple of years.

Some farmers are replacing the grapevines with other crops, like pistachio or almond trees, or even specialty crops like kiwis. Some are renting out their land to solar farms. Many, like Schaefer, are simply letting the land sit fallow.

In the end, Schaefer was able to find a buyer for some of his Zinfandel, but not at a price to comfortably make a profit. His farming expenses have doubled since 2020, he estimated. “I’d love to keep farming grapes; I think I’m pretty good at it,” Schaefer said. “But I can’t. There’s no money in it.”

Pistachio trees can take up to six years to bear a crop, but they’re still more economical than farming wine grapes, according to longtime Lodi grape grower Craig Ledbetter.

In the past six years, California’s wine grape acreage has been reduced by about 18,000 acres, estimated Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers, a cooperative that represents 400 growers in California. Yet, that doesn’t go far enough, Bitter believes. In order to reach equilibrium with the market, he said, California needs to remove an additional 50,000 acres, roughly 8% of the state’s bearing wine grape acreage.

If farmers don’t act on his warning, they’ll inevitably see the value of their land plummet, Bitter said, and many will default on their mortgages: “You’ll just end up with abandoned vineyards.”

The oversupply is a cruel wake-up for the wine industry, which is facing strong headwinds after a long period of unbridled success. For a quarter century, as California’s wine industry boomed, it seemed as if the state couldn’t plant enough vineyards.

“People in this business took it for granted that there was always going to be growth,” Bitter said. Wine consumption skyrocketed in the early 1990s, thanks in large part to the popularization of the so-called French Paradox, which held that red wine was healthy. Consumers demanded more wine, so wineries produced more bottles, so farmers cultivated more grapes. In 1990, the state had about 290,000 bearing acres of wine grapes, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; in 2019, it peaked at 590,000.

In the late 2010s, however, Americans started drinking less, creating something of a domino effect with wineries, which wound up with excess bottle inventory, and growers, who suddenly couldn’t find wineries to buy their grapes. The effect has only intensified. “In the last 18 months we’ve seen a precipitous drop-off” in wine sales, Bitter said.

Bitter has been issuing warnings to the industry since 2019, when he first advised growers to consider removing their vineyards. But it hasn’t been until this year that significant numbers of farmers have heeded his call.

Ledbetter, whose family owns about 3,000 acres of vineyards, mostly in Lodi, replaced the 160 acres he initially removed with pistachio trees. Because it can take up to six years for a pistachio tree to bear a crop, he hasn’t sold any nuts yet. But he says he’s still in a better position than he would be with grapes; pistachios are cheaper to farm and require less capital upfront. Planting a vineyard, even in lower-cost regions like Lodi, can cost up to $30,000 an acre, whereas planting a nut tree orchard is closer to $8,000 an acre.

This year Ledbetter will remove another 140 acres of grapes, “and we’re contemplating another 200,” he said. Some of the land will be fallowed, some rented to a solar farm.

The oversupply is being felt on a global scale: even Bordeaux in France, arguably the world’s most prestigious wine region, is removing about 10% of its vineyard acreage. The French government is subsidizing that effort. No such program exists in the U.S.

Yet, not every part of California feels these effects equally. Bitter recommended that Napa and Sonoma counties remove only 5,000 acres, as opposed to the 15,000 he prescribed for the Lodi/delta area. Demand for high-end wines from coastal regions remains relatively strong, while growers in places like Lodi, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the Central Valley, who have historically found great success supplying grapes for lower-priced wines, are competing with ultra-cheap imported bulk wine.

“With our cost of goods, we can’t compete against Argentina, Chile and even the European countries that produce fruit at a nice price,” Ledbetter said. It’s legal for California wineries to blend up to 15% of this imported bulk wine with California-grown wine, and many industrial-scale producers take advantage of that to cut costs.

Removing a vineyard here is costly — about $2,500 an acre to hire an excavator to pull up the plants, then either grind up the vines and put them back in the ground, or burn the pile of cuttings. (Due to air-quality concerns, burning has become more restricted, which is adding to the cost of vine removal.) That’s still less than it would cost to farm the vineyard for a year, though.

These economics have led many growers to choose to let their land sit empty for now. At least they won’t be losing money.

“About 16% of our acreage is not going to generate any revenue next year,” said Aaron Lange, vice president of vineyard operations for LangeTwins Family Winery and Vineyards in Lodi. Since November, he’s removed 130 of his family’s 1,200 acres, and is about to remove 21 more.

Lange doesn’t see much promise in alternative crop options. Some of his acreage will become sheep pasture. Maybe, in a few years, grapes will look like a smart option again, but he wouldn’t cultivate new vines without a guaranteed buyer in place. “No one’s planting on spec,” he said.

Bitter cautioned that vineyard removals shouldn’t be viewed as a tragedy, but simply as an effect of a changing marketplace. “You cannot invest in an asset that you expect to last indefinitely,” he said.

But many farmers can’t help but feel emotional. “These people identify as grape growers, it’s who they are, they’ve been doing it for multiple generations,” said Stuart Spencer, executive director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission. “That is a hard reality check.”

For Schaefer, the Lodi farmer, it’s especially difficult to accept that his oldest Zinfandel vines — planted in the 1960s and registered with the Historic Vineyard Society — simply don’t make financial sense anymore. The old-vine Zin produces beautiful wines, and Schaefer has a sentimental attachment to it, but its yields are meager.

“The old fields are the ones losing the most money,” Schaefer said. “They’re the ones that have to come out first.”

CALIFORNIA'S PROFILE STANDS TO FADE IN THE U.S. SENATE

by Dan Walters

In the 173 years since California became a state, 43 men and four women have occupied its two U.S. Senate seats, and a few achieved prominent places in political history.

Explorer and soldier John Fremont, one of the state's first two senators, is one of the few historic notables, as are newspaper publisher George Hearst, railroad baron Leland Stanford, political reformer Hiram Johnson and newspaper publisher William Knowland. 

Just one California senator, Richard Nixon, made it to the presidency, only to resign in disgrace, while Dianne Feinstein became the first woman to represent the state in 1992 and served for a record 31 years before her death last year. 

A curious tendency of California's senators emerged in the 1960s. At any given moment, one of the senators would, for various reasons, generate a lot of notoriety in the news media while the other would be the worker bee, quietly representing the state's interests and working on serious national issues. 

The gap in personal proclivities was very obvious during the many years when Feinstein, an uber-serious lawmaker, and Barbara Boxer, who fancied herself a political warrior, were California's senators. 

One senator, Democrat Alan Cranston, played both roles during his 24 years in the Senate, from 1969 to 1993. At first, he was a policy wonk while the other seat was held by two short-termers, John Tunney and S.I. Hayakawa. In the 1980s, however, Cranston became enmeshed in a messy savings and loan scandal and made a very unsuccessful run for the White House while Republican Pete Wilson quietly represented the state. 

When Feinstein died, Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler to serve as a brief replacement, having earlier named Alex Padilla, California's former secretary of state, after Kamala Harris gave up her Senate seat to become vice president. 

Tuesday's primary election pretty much guaranteed that Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from Los Angeles, will occupy what had been Feinstein's Senate seat. He and Republican Steve Garvey, a former baseball star, were the two top finishers in a field of 27 candidates, each garnering about a third of the votes. They will face each other in November. 

The other two potentially viable Democratic candidates, Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter and Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee, were distant finishers behind Schiff and Garvey. 

The outcome was exactly what Schiff had hoped it would be when he spent heavily on reverse psychology advertising to boost Garvey's standing among Republican voters by portraying him as a dangerous Republican. 

Porter-backer Adam Green was bitter about Schiff's ploy, telling Politico, "Adam Schiff put his own selfishness above democracy by lifting up Republican Steve Garvey, who will now turn out Trump voters in key House races that could determine control of Congress." 

Had Porter finished second instead of third, as seemed possible months earlier before Garvey entered the race, she would have presented a serious challenge to Schiff from his left flank, given her image as a progressive reformer. But now, with the Democrats enjoying a massive advantage in voter registration vis-à-vis Republicans, Schiff should be able to coast to a win in November. 

When Schiff, as expected, joins Padilla in the Senate, it means a return to California having two male senators after more than three decades with at least one female senator. It may also end the trend of having one flashy senator and one diligent worker since neither Padilla nor Schiff has a magnetic personality or burning causes to pursue. Both are political journeymen who have patiently climbed the political ladder rung-by-rung. 

(CalMatters.org)

GENOCIDE IN GAZA

Editor, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition: Definitions:

Holocaust (fr. the Gr. to burn, burnt whole) 1: a sacrifice consumed by fire; 2: a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life esp. through fire; 3: (a)[often cap.] the mass slaughter of European civilians and esp. Jews by the Nazis during World War II -- usually used with 'the"; (b) a mass slaighter of people, esp : Genocide

Genocide (1944): the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group

* * *

"Whole districts are being exterminated. Scores of thousands–literally scores of thousands—of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police troops," he said. "We are in the presence of a crime without a name." — Winston Churchill, 1941

Those are some of the words in a Churchill speech that inspired Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (a refugee to the U.S., who lost family members to the Holocaust) to invent the word Genocide, combining the Greek 'genos' - race, tribe, with the Latin 'cide' - killing.

What we are witnessing is both the Holocaust and Genocide of our generation. By the bombing, shooting and blowing up of an entire people and culture in the Gaza Strip, Israel has perpetrated the latest horror of mankind, the ultimate of crimes, for which there are no words.

Except the above. But what is happening now, with the deliberate mass starvation, humiliation and murder of a few million people, and tens of thousands of children, in a matter of a few months - is beyond words. Perhaps a new word will have to be invented, because Holocaust and Genocide do not begin to describe the nightmare that has befallen Palestine.

David Gurney

Fort Bragg

ODE TO LIBERTY

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying,
Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.

— Byron

I.
A glorious people vibrated again
The lightning of the nations: Liberty
From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain,
Scattering contagious fire into the sky,
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay,
And in the rapid plumes of song
Clothed itself, sublime and strong;
As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among,
Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey;
Till from its station in the Heaven of fame
The Spirit's whirlwind rapped it, and the ray
Of the remotest sphere of living flame
Which paves the void was from behind it flung,
As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came
A voice out of the deep: I will record the same.

II.
The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth:
The burning stars of the abyss were hurled
Into the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth,
That island in the ocean of the world,
Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air:
But this divinest universe
Was yet a chaos and a curse,
For thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse,
The spirit of the beasts was kindled there,
And of the birds, and of the watery forms,
And there was war among them, and despair
Within them, raging without truce or terms:
The bosom of their violated nurse
Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms,
And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms.

III.
Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied
His generations under the pavilion
Of the Sun’s throne: palace and pyramid,
Temple and prison, to many a swarming million
Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves.
This human living multitude
Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude,
For thou wert not; but o’er the populous solitude,
Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves,
Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified
The sister-pest, congregator of slaves;
Into the shadow of her pinions wide
Anarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood
Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed,
Drove the astonished herds of men from every side.

IV.
The nodding promontories, and blue isles,
And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles
Of favouring Heaven: from their enchanted caves
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody.
On the unapprehensive wild
The vine, the corn, the olive mild,
Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled;
And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,
Like the man’s thought dark in the infant’s brain,
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,
Art’s deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein
Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child,
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain
Her lidless eyes for thee; when o’er the Aegean main.

V.
Athens arose: a city such as vision
Builds from the purple crags and silver towers
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision
Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors
Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it;
Its portals are inhabited
By thunder-zoned winds, each head
Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,--
A divine work! Athens, diviner yet,
Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.

VI.
Within the surface of Time’s fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder
With an earth-awakening blast
Through the caverns of the past:
(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast):
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew,
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;
One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew.

VII.
Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,
Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad,
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest
From that Elysian food was yet unweaned;
And many a deed of terrible uprightness
By thy sweet love was sanctified;
And in thy smile, and by thy side,
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.
But when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness,
And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, 100
Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,
The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone
Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed
Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown

VIII.
From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main,
Or utmost islet inaccessible,
Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,
Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks,
And every Naiad’s ice-cold urn,
To talk in echoes sad and stern
Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn?
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep.
What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks
Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep,
When from its sea of death, to kill and burn,
The Galilean serpent forth did creep,
And made thy world an undistinguishable heap.

IX.
A thousand years the Earth cried, 'Where art thou?'
And then the shadow of thy coming fell
On Saxon Alfred’s olive-cinctured brow:
And many a warrior-peopled citadel.
Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep,
Arose in sacred Italy,
Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea
Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty;
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep
And burst around their walls, like idle foam,
Whilst from the human spirit’s deepest deep
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb
Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die,
With divine wand traced on our earthly home
Fit imagery to pave Heaven’s everlasting dome.

X.
Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror
Of the world’s wolves! thou bearer of the quiver,
Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error,
As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever
In the calm regions of the orient day!
Luther caught thy wakening glance;
Like lightning, from his leaden lance
Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance
In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay;
And England’s prophets hailed thee as their queen,
In songs whose music cannot pass away,
Though it must flow forever: not unseen
Before the spirit-sighted countenance
Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene
Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien.

XI.
The eager hours and unreluctant years
As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood.
Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears,
Darkening each other with their multitude,
And cried aloud, 'Liberty!' Indignation
Answered Pity from her cave;
Death grew pale within the grave,
And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save!
When like Heaven’s Sun girt by the exhalation
Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise.
Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation
Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies
At dreaming midnight o’er the western wave,
Men started, staggering with a glad surprise,
Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes.

XII.
Thou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then
In ominous eclipse? a thousand years
Bred from the slime of deep Oppression’s den.
Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears.
Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away;
How like Bacchanals of blood
Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood
Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly’s mitred brood!
When one, like them, but mightier far than they,
The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers,
Rose: armies mingled in obscure array,
Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers
Of serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued,
Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours,
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers.

XIII.
England yet sleeps: was she not called of old?
Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder
Vesuvius wakens Aetna, and the cold
Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder:
O’er the lit waves every Aeolian isle 185
From Pithecusa to Pelorus
Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus:
They cry, 'Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o'er us!'
Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile
And they dissolve; but Spain’s were links of steel,
Till bit to dust by virtue’s keenest file.
Twins of a single destiny! appeal
To the eternal years enthroned before us
In the dim West; impress us from a seal,
All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal.

XIV.
Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead
Till, like a standard from a watch-tower’s staff,
His soul may stream over the tyrant’s head;
Thy victory shall be his epitaph,
Wild Bacchanal of truth’s mysterious wine,
King-deluded Germany,
His dead spirit lives in thee.
Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free!
And thou, lost Paradise of this divine
And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness!
Thou island of eternity! thou shrine
Where Desolation, clothed with loveliness,
Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy,
Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress
The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces.

XV.
Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name
Of KING into the dust! or write it there,
So that this blot upon the page of fame
Were as a serpent’s path, which the light air
Erases, and the flat sands close behind!
Ye the oracle have heard:
Lift the victory-flashing sword.
And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,
Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind
Into a mass, irrefragably firm,
The axes and the rods which awe mankind;
The sound has poison in it, ’tis the sperm
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term,
To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm.

XVI.
Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle
Such lamps within the dome of this dim world,
That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle
Into the hell from which it first was hurled,
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure;
Till human thoughts might kneel alone,
Each before the judgement-throne
Of its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown!
Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure
From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew
From a white lake blot Heaven’s blue portraiture,
Were stripped of their thin masks and various hue
And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own,
Till in the nakedness of false and true
They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due!

XVII.
He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever
Can be between the cradle and the grave
Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour!
If on his own high will, a willing slave,
He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor
What if earth can clothe and feed
Amplest millions at their need,
And power in thought be as the tree within the seed?
Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor,
Driving on fiery wings to Nature’s throne,
Checks the great mother stooping to caress her,
And cries: ‘Give me, thy child, dominion
Over all height and depth’? if Life can breed
New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan,
Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one!

XVIII.
Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave
Of man’s deep spirit, as the morning-star
Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave,
Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car
Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame;
Comes she not, and come ye not,
Rulers of eternal thought,
To judge, with solemn truth, life’s ill-apportioned lot?
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame
Of what has been, the Hope of what will be?
O Liberty! if such could be thy name
Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee:
If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free
Wept tears, and blood like tears?—The solemn harmony

XIX.
Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing
To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn;
Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging
Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,
Sinks headlong through the aereal golden light
On the heavy-sounding plain,
When the bolt has pierced its brain;
As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain;
As a far taper fades with fading night,
As a brief insect dies with dying day,--
My song, its pinions disarrayed of might,
Drooped; o’er it closed the echoes far away
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain,
As waves which lately paved his watery way
Hiss round a drowner’s head in their tempestuous play.