Press "Enter" to skip to content

Letters (May 16, 2024)

By AVA News Service on May 16, 2024

* * *

WILDFLOWER SHOW THANK YOU

Dear Editor,

We would like to thank everyone who made the 2024 Wildflower Show such a success.

Many members volunteered to help collect, sort and bottle hundreds of wildflower specimens from around Anderson Valley, over the course of three days. We also received valuable assistance from outside the Club whom we would especially like to thank: Lisa Nunes, Scott Morgan, Anita Soost, Rick Bonner, Heather Morrison, and Jade Paget-Seekins. These spry helpers climbed up cliffs and down trenches, braved swamp and poison oak, to collect things we couldn’t have gotten otherwise! Jade and Heather were also our official Botanists, helping to identify all the specimens.

Each year our collection is enhanced by provision of tree cuttings from Scott Hulbert and wild grasses from Bill Harper and Kathy Bailey. An invasive plant table with specimens, pictures, and information provides a counterpoint.

Our vendors are selected to enhance the Show, and indeed they did so, once again! The Sanhedrin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society was there with books and posters to offer, and was busier than ever sharing their knowledge with so many people. Suzanna Macedo’s display and sale of all crafts ‘wildflower’ was very popular. The Galbreath Wildlands Preserve provided an informative poster and brochures about their mission. Finally, Lisa Nunes donated her lovely wildflower photo cards for us to sell at the check-in area.

Thank you to th4 AVHS art department, whose students produced paintings for display at the show. The Club volunteers voted on the art and gave the top three artists $50 each.

A big thank you to 6th grade teachers Kelsey Pearl and Yuri Cruz, and to Deleh Mayne with the Teen Center, for the delicious food served in the tearoom on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Also, Linnea Totten and Evette LaPaille worked to arrange the students’ educational visit Monday morning.

A special thank you to the businesses and people who donated auction gifts. Their generosity in the few years we’ve had a Silent Auction has enabled us to DOUBLE our scholarships! So, a very big and special ‘Thank You!’ goes to the following for their support of our community:

Anderson Valley Brewing Company, Bee Hunter Wine, Boont Berry Farm, Boonville General Store, Boonville Hotel, Brashley Vineyards, California Native Plant Society, Dancing Dragonfly, Disco Ranch, Farmhouse Mercantile, Foursite Wines, Goldeneye Winery, Gowan's Heirloom Cider, Gowan's Oak Tree, Greenwood Ridge Vineyards, Husch Vineyards, John Hanes Gallery, Long Meadow Ranch, Maggie Hawk Wines, Mendo Mindset, Mosswood Market, Navarro Vineyards & Winery, Offspring Pizza, Pennyroyal Farm, Philo Ridge Vineyards, Roederer Estate, Rossi's Hardware, Sun & Cricket Shop, The French Press, Toulouse Vineyards, Twomey, Weatherborne Wine Corp., Wickson Restaurant, and Witching Stick Wines.

A heartfelt thanks goes to Becky and the Fairgrounds staff for all their help. Thanks to Robert Rosen, the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, and the AV Methodist Church for allowing us to place our banners on their respective fences.

Finally, we wish to thank the following people who helped our club members with plant donations, set- up, and/or cleanup: Lynn Halpern, Hans Hickenlooper, Tom Condon and Rick Bonner.

We are extending an invitation to community members to join us in next year’s wildflower adventure. We would love additional plant propagators, collectors, and especially those interested in identifying plants. Contributors with new ideas can only help to improve this special event. We want more of our community members to be an integral part, and to help make this show even better. Interested? Please contact Jean at (707) 272-8243.

Anderson Valley Unity Club Garden Section

Jean Condon

* * *

THE OPPOSITE OF TRANSPARENCY

Dear Editor,

I just watched the BOS supervisors meeting today and I must say, I am appalled by how item 4i Discussion and Possible Action Including Adoption of Resolution Amending the Position Allocation Table as Follows: Budget Unit 4050, Add 1.0 FTE Director of Health Services, Salary Range $162,593.60- $197,620.80/Annually and Delete 1.0 FTE Director Behavioral Health, PN 4472; Budget Unit 4010, Delete 1.0 FTE Director Public Health, PN 4567 (Sponsor: Human Resources), was handled.

As someone who has watched all the BOS meetings the last two years, I don’t recall it ever being publicly discussed to consolidate Behavioral Health and Recovery Services (BHRS) with Public Health. I knew that the last Public Health director was fired and that there was a vacancy. I had heard rumors that the Executive Office (EO) was working with the Director of BHRS to consolidate the departments. Sometime, I believe in January or February, the director of BHRS was referred to as the director of both departments without much fanfare. It seemed like the decision had been made behind closed doors.

During today’s discussion, there was quite a bit of tension between the BOS and the EO. Most of the supervisors thought the consolidation was temporary and requested a long-term plan while the EO argued that deleting two positions and creating a new position was merely administrative cleanup. In my view, this was a move to quietly restructure the County, consolidating more power into fewer department heads then denying the public adequate notification and the opportunity to comment. This is the exact opposite of transparency and is a disservice to the public.

After the BOS tabled the item and directed staff to return with a presentation on the proposed consolidation, the item was reopened at the discretion of the chair to allow managers that serve under the director of BHRS to present the board with an impromptu petition demanding that the director receive a pay raise. I find it highly inappropriate for department managers to circulate a petition, forcefully coercing their fellow co-workers into supporting a pay raise for their superior while on the clock. The board sets policy for staff to follow, not the other way around.

I want to thank the three supervisors that voted for transparency.

Adam Gaska

Redwood Valley

* * *

PS. REPRIMANDS CALLED FOR

Editor,

I just drafted and emailed this complaint about how item 4i was handled at Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting. It was sent to the Executive Office, Human Resources, and all five supervisors.

To the Board of Supervisors and Executive Office,

After watching the May 7th Board of Supervisors meeting, I was appalled at how item 4i was handled.

I feel it was highly inappropriate for the board chair to abuse her position as chair to reopen an agenda item that had already been heard and voted on to allow for additional comments from County staff that were disgruntled that their director did not receive a new position classification with accompanying raise in salary as they had so hoped.

I also find it highly unethical that a high-level manager(s) abused their position(s) to forcefully coerce their subordinates into signing a petition in support of a pay raise for a person who has control over their livelihood and career, then to take that petition to the board in an attempt to sway policy decisions.

I am requesting that the County initiate an outside investigation into this matter. Any and all managers or supervisors who participated in this effort should be interviewed and reprimanded appropriately.

I am also requesting a public response regarding the County’s plan of how they will be responding to this situation and how it will be avoided in the future.

Adam Gaska

Redwood Valley resident

* * *

SIXTEEN & COUNTING

Editor,

From my senior residence in Fort Myers, Florida I read today that you were discontinuing the print publication of your Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Sadly it was inevitable and joins about 3,000 weekly newspapers that have been shut down in the US.

The AVA’s strength was your ability to “dig in” to issues and events of importance to your community and the abundance of good writers you attracted over the years.

I loved the publication and thank you for providing this service that so many people looked forward to.

Over the last ten years or so you published sixteen (I checked) of my articles. For this 1960s small college English major who abandoned what he loved, writing, to make a living in the electronic media business, being published in such an intelligent weekly magazine was a meaningful and joyous personal experience. I was proud to show friends and family “America's Last Newspaper” and on occasion to send them an article found in the paper.

Knowing a bit about the economics of newspaper printing — I was once CEO of a company, Multimedia, located in Greenville, South Carolina, that owned 30 some weeklies and a dozen dailies in the south — and have been following the transition all media are having to make (streaming video content and now digital in print), I believe you can make an all digital version financially viable. Seems many people, particularly the young, are increasingly consuming content from computer and phone screens. Even this oldie is reading books on Kindle.

Bruce Anderson, a standing ovation for what you achieved over so many years. You touched and enlightened many lives in a way few could by providing meaningful and relevant information and entertainment to all your readers.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Sincerely,

John William Grimes (previously resident of Ross, CA,) and now a resident of Fort Myers Florida

* * *

HUFFMAN? NEVER AGAIN

Editor:

It’s dumbfounding to me that Rep. Jared Huffman could vote to approve another $20 billion toward Israel’s genocide in Gaza and in his lengthy excuse for doing so, and in nearly a single breath, write, “I support continued funding for Israel’s security needs,” and yet “innocent civilians in Palestine are out of time.”

Shame on Huffman. He is a smart man. He knows the scale of the human atrocities now being committed in Palestine. He knows American munitions comprise about 70% of the bombs and drones and bullets being wielded in Gaza. He knows children are being blown to pieces in front of their parents or otherwise starving, that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that none of this would be happening if the U.S. denied Israel its political and economic support.

We expected more of Huffman, but he has hewed to a dangerously centrist party line. He will never again get my vote.

Greg King

Arcata

* * *

CORRECTED

Editor,

Historian corrects mistake…

Sometimes when reading handwritten accounts of history figuring out handwriting can be a challenge. Reader Carol Eastwood pointed out that in my recent story on shipwrecks I gave the wrong year for the “Pacific Enterprise” crashing just north of Point Arena. The correct date was 1949 for the wreck. Any serious historian welcomes feedback and new information about a mis-statement, including me.

Katy M. Tahja

Comptche

* * *

OPEN UP

Editor,

We are living in a country where democracy is on trial. Yet New York’s restrictions on cameras in the courtroom deprive the public of live video coverage of Donald Trump’s hush money trial.

The public has to rely on details described by reporters, some sequestered in a different room with a video feed, others in the courtroom. Meanwhile, nuances like facial expressions, body language, interactions with legal teams and verbal outbursts are left to courtroom sketches shared with the public through the media.

While juror anonymity must be protected, there should be live audio-visual coverage. Mr. Trump’s trials are more critically important than any other in U.S. history. With a presidential election looming, citizens should be able to witness the courtroom activity through their own lens. It is not just Mr. Trump’s freedom at stake.

Cynthia Gardner Bruml

Cleveland

* * *

LEGITS ONLY

Editor:

A family member is disabled so we depend on and need available disabled parking spaces. I see vehicles parked in these spaces without proper plates or a current placard hanging on their rearview mirror. This can make our life more difficult as we need to find another open handicap space near our destination with room for the wheelchair lift. It makes me angry that some people have total disregard for these important parking space and the people they help serve. Do violators not care or are they just mean spirited? My hope is that everyone will understand the importance of these handicap parking spaces and do the right thing.

Jim Barnes

Santa Rosa

* * *

COYOTES IN SF

Editor,

When I moved to San Francisco 50 years ago, no coyotes were living in the city. Now coyotes are everywhere and their population is increasing.

The other day I saw a cat that a coyote had shredded along the bay. A month ago I encountered a raccoon along Buena Vista West that a coyote eviscerated.

Last spring I had the misfortune of running into a coyote in Golden Gate Park that must have been protecting pups because she stared me down and followed me as I backed away. It was scary.

After that incident I called San Francisco Animal Care and Control and was told that coyotes had as much right to be in the city as I had.

Is it going to take an attack on a child before anything is done about their growing presence in San Francisco?

Coyotes do not belong in the city.

They need to be trapped, tranquilized and relocated to an area where they can thrive.

Gloria Judd

San Francisco

* * *

CALCARE, NOT GREEDCARE

Editor,

No networks, no premiums, no deductibles and no co-payments. That’s what you get with CalCare, the proposal for a universal single-payer health care system before the California legislature.

Payments would come from taxes, which won’t be cheap but will be less than the $13,493 that the average American and the $31,065 spent by the average family of four last year.

Legislation for CalCare, AB2200, is far from approval. In addition to political resistance, it will face pushback from powerful profit-seeking corporations that will not be disgorged of their billions without a fight.

You will be deluged with disinformation and hear cries of Creeping Socialism. That would be false because every aspect of care delivery will remain in private hands. You will also hear about the Slippery Slope, but we’ve been on that slope for almost a hundred years and haven’t slipped yet.

Please ask many questions and make yourself an informed health care consumer.

Dr. Gilbert Simon, Professor, California NorthState University, College of Medicine.

Fair Oaks, Sacramento County

* * *

THIS IS ‘LURID’?

Dear Editor,

It is dumbfounding to me that the media has almost uniformly reported that Stormy Daniels related “lurid” details in court about her sexual encounter with Trump. Lurid means “gruesome, horrible, revolting,” according to the dictionary.

I rummaged through a spate of articles in national media sources and could find only these not particularly graphic details: When she came out of the bathroom, Trump was reclining on the bed in his boxers and a T-shirt; Trump asked her if she had been tested for STDs; Daniels was reluctant to have sex, but did it anyway after spanking him with a magazine; Trump did not wear a condom; Daniels stared at the ceiling during missionary position sex; her hands were shaking when she gathered up her things afterward.

Wow, some half century after pornography was first legalized in America, media decided to call this sort of description “lurid”? Maybe at a Puritan church service in 1640, but today?

Was this reflexive exaggeration necessary to satisfy the supposed ethical or religious gentility of male media executives? I can just hear them chirping, “We would never speak of such vivid things in a public setting.”

Yeah, sure.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah

* * *

NOT FOOLING ANYBODY

Editor:

How long are PG&E’s TV ads going to tell us how wonderful they are for starting to put their lines underground while, of course, charging us for the privilege?

Thirty years ago at least, we started requesting that they put their lines underground both for safety and aesthetics. No, it would cost too much. How much have houses destroyed by the fires cost? How do you measure the cost of lives lost, careers destroyed, hope shattered? Please stop telling us how wonderful you are.

Jennifer Nichols

Sebastopol

* * *

CLUELESS LEADERSHIP

Editor,

That recent Chronicle editorial on PG&E’s fixed-fee plan shines a bright light on the dysfunction of California politics, led by the state Public Utilities Commission president who can’t understand why it’s getting so much attention. This illustrates just how out of touch an unelected leader of an unaccountable state agency can be.

And what about our state legislators who voted AB205 into law apparently without even reading it? Most of them seemed surprised there was a fixed fee for utilities in it. But killing a bill in committee (AB999) that would have limited the utility fee to $10 a month is inexcusable.

The Commission had killed rooftop solar, despite state mandates to eliminate gas-powered cars and natural gas home appliances, while approving over 30% in electric rate increases the last two years.

There has never been a better case for rooftop solar for all. It’s the only way to protect ourselves from the plunder, greed and extortion by PG&E.

Lawrence Bothen

Pacifica

* * *

EQUITABLE SOLAR POWER

Editor,

The media advocate for using all forms of renewable energy — including community solar — yet the California Public Utilities Commission has delayed its vote on the Access Program Tariffs and Community Renewable Energy Program until May 30.

The Commission’s decision that will have major ramifications on the future of community solar and in turn for the future of equitable, affordable, reliable energy choice in California.

In March the Commission approved a watered down version of a community solar programming structure that will not scale or provide meaningful benefits to citizens.

This flies in the fact of a bipartisan, industry-wide proposal called the Net Value Billing Tariff that could take advantage of state and federal funding to bring more scalable and equitable renewable energy t4o California.

I urge the state Public Utilities Commission to work with all stakeholders to ensure that the best program is considered for all Californians.

Sarah Moon, co-founder

Fieldworks Power, San Francisco

* * *

WHERE’S NEWSOM?

Editor,

The California Public Utilities Commission is appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom and consequently he is the only elected official with significant influence over its decisions.

Newsom’s voice has not been heard regarding the decision on fixed fees for utilities and many other decisions by the commission. Most notably the Commission's vote to radically change the compensation for home solar, which could result in the loss of thousands of solar jobs and the closure of hundreds of small businesses.

The governor needs to reclaim his environmental credentials and rein in the utility loving Public Utilities Commission.

Tom Gruly

Berkeley

* * *

FAIR PLAY FOR BOYS

Editor:

Try turning the tables.

For the record, I am a white male boomer. In today’s world that’s strike one, two and three, but I’m going to press on. I was taken aback and offended that you chose to print M.A. McCrea’s letter in which the author says all the troubles of the world are the fault of “cruel and insane” men and their “testosterone.” And not any specific group of men, we’re all thrown under the bus.

Let’s assume I submitted a letter stating I thought women were irrational and erratic due to their estrogen and menstrual cycles. One of two things would happen. First and most likely, it wouldn’t get published. Second, if it did, given my demographics, I would be utterly crucified. A perfect example of society’s acceptance of specific groups of race, ethnicity or gender commenting on those outside their group with impunity. But it doesn’t work in reverse for those outside those groups. It’s like a one-way street that can change direction at any given moment depending on who’s driving on it.

The author said they might be showing ignorance. Other than suggesting professional help, I’ll leave that to readers.

Gregg Grubin

Santa Rosa

* * *

LATE EMPIRE CHRONICLE: THE FINAL PLUNGE

Editor,

Yesterday Anne and I were in the Fort Bragg medical system so that she could be seen by her primary care physician. Anne had to fill out a form which instructed her to choose from a menu of every conceivable gender configuration. And then the next instruction was… I'm not making this up:

CURRENT GENDER____?

Michael Nolan

Comptche

* * *

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Editor,

We dedicate one day a year to Mothers a Tribute and beautiful sentiment of love, recognition and celebration of Mothers and their selfless contributions to raising their children. Mothers like me who have adult children with Mental Illness, they are often unrecognized and abandoned on Mother's Day, by those same children they brought into the world with love and care. Mental Illness has the capability to destroy all that is good in one single instant, including the celebrations most people enjoy with those most important in their lives. For the rest of us, the warriors of terror and 1,000 deaths it is a day often wrought with pain and agony, we hole up and hide hoping that the wrath of Mental Illness stays calm and does not appear. It is so painful for us to witness the joyful appreciation of Mothers on TV and social media while we suffer in silence, alone and wonder where we went wrong?

Painful, Mother's Day is just that painful, not fun, not joyous just full of misery. I myself always try to go to the beach where I can calm my nervous system and regroup. It really does help to get out and it is so important to know you are not alone and it does and can get better, but it is a long arduous road that you must not drive off, you may run into the ditch but must pull yourself out and get back on the road. Why? Why even bother it is so freaking hard, but the truth is because you are MOM, the mother the bearer of life! Most people will not experience our burdens, the level of trauma and disregard we face when our children have a Serious Mental Illness. If people understood what we endure when our children, whether adult or not are sick with a Serious Mental Illness is catastrophic. Financially, legally, personally and on all fronts, we are devalued in any capacity to help them on a daily basis. Then that one day a year comes around every Spring celebrating the Joy of being a mother, we are bombarded with images and stories of happy healthy loving relationships. It is hard to witness and not feel, shame, guilt and disgust at all the loving displays of appreciation for Moms of healthy well-functioning adult children. We did not win the grand prize! We were awarded the booby trap by default!

To all of my friends and fellow Moms who love an Adult Child with a Serious Mental Illness, I wish you peace, support and Love on this Mother's Day! Although we may not be acknowledged by our loved ones, or the system, I salute you! I honor you for your love and dedication to your children and their well-being! You are the gift to your loved one, do not give up!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mazie Malone

Ukiah

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

-