Letters (April 23, 2024)

• Bill Bradd R.I.P.
• Too Late To Save?
• PG&Egregious
• How Can We Not Help You?
• Just In From Chamise:
• Uplift On The Upswing
• At The End Of The Road
• PG&E’s Faulty Plan
• The Ticket Around The Bend
• A Salute
• An AVA Wake?
• Who's Illegal?
• The Night Lee Edmundson Took On Cockburn
• Did It.
• The Times Done Changed
• Differences Eclipsed

BILL BRADD R.I.P.

Editor,

Bill Bradd was a poet, my friend, my employee and a special human being. He will be missed by everyone who knew him and many who didn’t. After the Sea Gull fire he wrote the article at the link below: thinkinthemorning.com/sea-gull-cellar-bar-remembered

David Jones 

Navarro

TOO LATE TO SAVE?

Dear AVA Editors and Readers,

I think that we should collectively look into ways to save the print AVA.

As I mentioned in my "Goodbye to the Paper-Paper" piece, I once proposed to Bruce Anderson that I hold down the editorship if he was incapacitated (like now) or take over most of those duties when he and Mark Scaramella passed on to emeritus status. A post-Anderson-Scaramella paper may be heresy, but they could still be a presence from the beyond, just like Cockburn and Caen are now. Is it possible to assemble a team? We'd need a Circulation Manager to pick up from the printer, drop off at the shops, and deal with the post office—thankless jobs, it's true. We'd need someone to write Valley People and handle local news—either the same person that did the circulation, or someone else. We might need a separate webmaster too.

I could handle Off the Record and general editor duties. I'm not Bruce Anderson, but I'm as close as we're going to get, an editor/publisher with just as many years of experience. I could corral the current crew while bringing in some who are new, and expand national distribution through my own networks.

Impossible shoes to fill? Sure. But the AVA is a community paper, and we're a community of sorts. It could be done, with Bruce Anderson and Mark Scaramella remaining at the helm for hopefully years to come, but them delegating some of their duties and the rest of us rolling up our sleeves to help, and eventually stepping up.

Aaron, Cometbus Magazine

New York

ED REPLY: We appreciate your sentiment, J, but it's not doable or we would have done it.

PG&EGREGIOUS

Editor,

Once again, the California Public Utility Commission is doing the bidding of investor-owned utilities by proposing yet another increase in electric power rates. Now a monthly flat fee of $24 per customer, more than doiuble the national average. The fee is uncapped and could rise to $80 per month at any time.

Thje commission has been in the pocket of utilities for so long now that the state legislature had to introduce AB 2054 to block retired commissioners from working for the utilities for ten years.

What can you do to stop this latest utility fee? Tell your legislators to vote for AB1999, which would cap it it at $10 per month.

Sandy White

Fremont

HOW CAN WE NOT HELP YOU?

Editor: 

The following is my experience with changes at the Social Security office in Santa Rosa. I took a day off work to drive my mother from Cloverdale to the Santa Rosa office to obtain a replacement Social Security card. We took a number and waited for about two and a half hours. We were finally called up to a window. We were then told that effective the previous Friday we can no longer walk in but rather need an appointment for this two-minute interview. Long story short, after pleading and explaining my situation, I will be taking another day off work to bring my mom to the office with the same documents for our two-minute interview. Please do not let this happen to you.

Monica Gomez

Cloverdale

JUST IN FROM CHAMISE: 

Hi All,

My Preliminary Hearing on April 15 is going to be rescheduled to a date not yet known. Unfortunately, the special prosecutor hired by the DA resulted in Judge Victoria Shanahan needing to recuse herself. A new judge has not yet been assigned. I appreciate those of you who may have arranged your time to allow you to attend. Thank you for your continued support. I will let you know when there is an update.

Thanks, 

Chamise Cubbison

Ukiah

UPLIFT ON THE UPSWING

Editor,

It sure would be wonderful if you could end your print run a bit more upbeat, unlike the current issue.

Then again, nothing seems to change these daze. Except the price of groceries.

Get well soon!

Richey Wasserman

Point Arena

VISIT MENDOCINO COUNTY’S OVERSPENDING

Editor,

Is anyone paying attention?

Similar to that of the county, Visit Mendocino County’s draft budget for fiscal year 2024/25 shows a projected $302,027.57 shortfall. With a total budget of $1,455,000, one would think that balancing their budget would be a matter of figuring out what’s working and what’s not. With 45% (!) of their entire budget going to Personnel costs, one might suspect that some cost-cutting measures could be gained in that particular area. How about the $96,100 (!) for event and festival guides? I’ve been around the printing world and unless you’re printing something really, really special, I’d say it would be hard to generate those kinds of costs for a bi-annual printing of a few thousand booklets and brochures. Visitor signage is important, but $80,000 for it?

Come on Visit Mendocino County. You can do better than this. Try cutting your payroll and putting stakeholders’ money into where it’s meant to be spent: marketing the county.

Signed,

Disgruntled

Ukiah

AT THE END OF THE ROAD

To the Mighty AVA et al,

I knew this day would come, oh dread. With no computer or such sKills, I feel as if I’m living at the back of a long, dark cave. Which is close, me being the last one living at the end of Hearst-Willits Road.

I really liked Off the Record and County Notes. The County will probaby go wild, or wilder! Here’s hoping the Laytvonille Observer might pick up some of the slack. The Willits Weekly doesn't seem to have the gumption to ride herd on those in cahoots of the BOS chambers. I gave up on the Press Democrat and Daily Journal years ago. The weekly arrival of the AVA has been truly the highlight of the week here in Hearst.

All the best to One and All!

Casey Pryor

Willits

PS. My letter to the CPUC, as anticipated, fell mostly on deaf ears although the robo calls are down to four or five a day instead of 12 to 15. None on Sundays. So that’s some relief.

PG&E’S FAULTY PLAN

Editor,

Regarding California’s proposal for a $24 flat fee on utility bills in exchange for lower electricity prices. The subtext of this proposal should have been: Change will incerase the electricity bills of most customers.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s proposal calls for a monthly fixed charge of $24 while decreasing the cost per kilowatt hour by five to seven cents. Simple math says this only benefits those who consume large amounts of electricity. The commission’s table on page 229 of its proposal shows that the aveage single family customer (non-low-income, consuming 850 kilowatt hours per month) will pay $6.45 more per month. The incease is worse for those who consume less: $16.73 per month more for 400 kilowatt hours consumption and $20 higher for 250 kilowatt hours consumption.

To have no change or save on your monthly electricy bill under this proposal, you would have to consume at least 1,134 kilowatt hours per month.

This proposal benefits utility companies and high-consumption users, not the average customer. Surely thie commission can do better than this.

Todd Silverstein

San Rafael

THE TICKET AROUND THE BEND

Editor,

As I picked up one of the last paper copies of our beloved AVA at Down Home Foods I thought, now this is getting very serious.

As most of my good friends are no longer upright and now our paper AVA on the brink of never again, there must be something that can be done about it… Just maybe Bruce….?

So how about raising the price to $2.50 or more per weekly issue and calling on volunteers, say four, once per month, to help with the distribution. I will gladly sign up now, today.

And the best for you brother in your struggle as there is a ticket waiting for us all just around the next bend in the road…

Also many thanks for the joys, tears, enlightenment and just pure enjoyment you have brought to us over all the decades …

We are with you here at Spring Grove Co-op,

Gary Moraga

Fort Bragg

A SALUTE

AVA,

I salute your paper as it is the only one I have looked forward to every week for the last few years. I can’t get enough of the different stories, thoughtful columns and especially the irreverent, witty but mostly just spot on Off The Record.

I wish The Editor the best in in his health battle. He is a great man.

Mike Gardner

Willits

AN AVA WAKE?

Editor,

Is any kind of a celebration… commiseration… remembrance… party… extravaganza planned for the release of the last print AVA edition? If so I want to come (and no, I don’t want to oraganize one…)

The print edition deserves one IMHO.

Katy Tahja, word scribe 

in Comptche

ED REPLY: The Editor is unable to travel. Soooooooo, we're going out quietly. We hope people will continue with us in cyber-space or, better yet, subscribe to Jim Shields' Mendocino County Observer outta Laytonville. The Major and The Editor appear there in print weekly. For more info go to:

WHO'S ILLEGAL?

Editor: 

The workers on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore came from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, diplomats from those countries told the Associated Press. They were doing night work, the most lethal kind of work, and were taking a break in their trucks when the bridge fell beneath them. Legal? Undocumented? Waiting? Families in Baltimore? Or Tegucigalpa?

Bridge builders, grape harvesters, hop pickers, cattle ranchers, strawberry pickers, tree planters, road crews, house cleaners, fast food workers and sous chefs are all essential workers. Their hard work and work ethic benefit all of us, their employers and our overall economy. If former President Donald Trump succeeds in rounding up, imprisoning and deporting workers “suspected” of being in America illegally, who will work the night shift filling potholes on the Francis Scott Key Bridge?

Judy Kennedy

Santa Rosa

THE NIGHT LEE EDMUNDSON TOOK ON COCKBURN

Dear Editor,

I'm attaching shots taken of my and Alex Cockburn's debate about the relative differences between George W. Bush and Al Gore for President. Maggie O'Rourke moderated. 

Alex posited there wasn't a dimes difference between them, and so vote for Ralph Nader. I took the other side: There was a dollars difference between Bush and Gore, and that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. The year was 2000. Three guesses as to who won. 

Alex was a gentleman throughout. Gracious and wrong. Time unfolded, and here we are. Whoopee. 

I'd like to debate him again this year, alas, he's gone. Regrets. 

Use these as you will, or not at all. Alex was a superior mind, and I miss his wisdom and insights and mind. 

Salute Alex.

Lee Edmundson

Mendocino

PS. I have severe health issues of my own and empathize deeply with yours. No one gets out of here alive, as they say… I side with Woody Allen on this one: “I thought they would make an exception in my case.”

So it goes.

“Time passes. Listen… time passes,” as Dylan Thomas reminded us. Way back when.

You are the paragon among the pantheon of Mendocino news reportage. You, Mark, Jim Shields, Mike Geniella… so many great writers too numerous to name. You made it happen, Bruce. Kudos.

Keep writing. Keep reporting. You ain't through yet. You'll die on your feet.

DID IT.

Editor,

Just read your “mission statement” for your first issue of the AVA, and by god, you do exactly what you said you would. Damn, how often does THAT happen?

Paul Modic

Redway

THE TIMES DONE CHANGED

Editor: 

I grew up in the United States in the 1950s while Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House. Back then, honor and integrity were paramount, and any candidate for the highest office in the land had to prove he was worthy. How different our country is today, now that a candidate who is clearly unfit in so many ways is the front-runner for what was our great Republican Party.

Paul Schumacher

Santa Rosa

DIFFERENCES ECLIPSED

Editor,

The solar eclipse on Monday April 8 served to unite humanity in the witnessing of a celestial spectacle in which racial, economic and partisan differences were set aside, however briefly, in a peaceful, awe-inspiring and communal experience of sublime wonderment.

As the sun was slowly yet inexorably obscured by the moon, all of our earthly human rancor seemed petty and ephemeral by contrast.

Compared with the magnitude and magnificence of our planet and its sun and moon and their heavenly dance, humankind’s quotidian travails and grievances are cosmically inconsequential, even if we foolishly and hubristically imbue them with incommensurate vehemence and import during our relatively fleeting lives on terra firma.

Mark Godes

Chelsea, Massachusetts.