Off the Record (May 31, 2024)

I MET JIM MARTIN in the pages of the eclectic, all-inclusive Boonville weekly after I'd commented, apropos of whatever the provocation was, that I thought, and think, Wilhelm Reich's orgone box was pure quackery, especially coming from the brilliant author of the prescient, The Mass Psychology of Fascism. (It's here, Wilhelm!) Not long after that odd exchange on an arcane subject of no interest to anyone except us, I met the man himself, who I took an immediate liking to, and who wouldn't enjoy a guy who laughed a lot and was open to argument without taking it personally? Jim, and Ed Gehrman, another Reichian who'd also argued for the efficacy of the orgone box, made me a big fan of Flatland, the monthly magazine they produced that delved into all kinds of arcane subjects from a skeptical perspective, which led them to the mystery of Wanda Tinasky and the mystery of how Mike Sweeney got away with bombing his ex-wife, the latter a question that cannot be asked anywhere in Mendocino County except here. Without veering off in obsessive directions, Jim and Ed persuaded the famous attributionist scholar, Don Foster of Vassar College, to examine the writings of the pseudonymous Tinasky, author of scathing assessments of Mendo poets, to discover who Wanda really was. Foster, a fine writer himself, discovered that Wanda Tinasky was an erudite old beatnik retired to Fort Bragg, who amused himself by writing hilarious literary evaluations to the only two papers who'd publish him, the ava and Marco McClean's Memo/Coast Peddler. Foster irrefutably found that it was a man called Tom Hawkins who'd created the Tinasky persona, and further discovered that Hawkins had murdered his wife, mourned over her for nearly a week before setting fire to their home on Trillum Lane and then driving himself into the Pacific near Westport, an ending radically unlike his jolly epistolary adventures with the ava and always-up-for-fun-guy McClean. We were wrong about Wanda at book length in a collection called ‘The Letters of Wanda Tinasky’ as we made the totally wrong case that Hawkins-Tinasky was the reclusive writer, Thomas Pynchon. That wrong book, incidentally, is something of a collector's item these days, going for a little over a hundred bucks for a new copy, a reasonable 30 bucks used.

FOSTER also evaluated The Lord's Avenger letter, another pseudonymous literary construct of a much more serious provenance in that it was written by the man who bombed Judi Bari, a well-known Mendo enviro figure of the late 1980's until her death in 1997, her life abbreviated by the after effects of the pipe bomb that nearly killed her when it exploded in her car in Oakland in 1990. Because the bomb didn't kill her, the bomber, Bari's ex-husband Mike Sweeney, naturally intent on diverting attention from himself, devised a thunderous, faux Old Testament confession signed The Lord's Avenger and mailed it to Mike Geniella of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where, incidentally, it has since disappeared. Professor Foster concluded, again irrefutably as in the Tinasky case, that Mike Sweeney, by then a Ukiah-based recycling administrator, was the author of The Lord's Avenger Letter. Ex-spouse Sweeney managed to elude suspect status throughout, the only ex-husband in the history of wife murderers to achieve that unprecedented status. This is all a long goodbye to Jim Martin, without whom neither of these “mysteries” would have been solved.

CRAIG STEHR has lived on the Northcoast for many years. Craig's one more unique character in the vivid human tapestry of our area and, given his good humored vivacity, and his years of postmodern, uniquely Hindu environmental agitation, futile but always amusing, and given his age and medical condition, Craig cannot be permitted to become unsheltered, especially via a formally bureaucratic eviction letter from the Building Bridges shelter where he's lived for more than a year. (Building bridges to homelessness for old guys?)

MIKE JAMISON WRITES: “Maybe there is a lawyer that can take Stehr’s case up and explore civil action. Maybe also a referral to the state Attorney General for possible criminal charges? Sending a 74-year-old man with heart disease to live outside might constitute a violation of various criminal statutes? I’m aware of shortcomings in the local voucher program, due to stories shared with me. Lack of available rentals is one factor.”

DANIEL ARMAS is youngest son of murder victim Joan Lefeat who was murdered at her country store in Brooktrails by Chris Coleman (with a gun given to him for that purpose by his teenage friend Jamison Jackson) back in 2001. For the last few days Mr. Armas has been trying to reach DA David Eyster or one of his staffers to oppose the parole of Coleman who is up for parole today (Thursday, May 23). Mr. Armas has called and left messages with the DA’s office several times with no response from Eyster or his assigned deputy or his Victim-Witness office. Given the cold-bloodedness of Coleman’s execution style gunning down of the popular store owner as she begged for her life behind her store counter, you would think that the DA would want to weigh in at Coleman’s parole hearing (being held via zoom at 8am Thursday morning). But, Mr. Armas says he hasn’t seen or heard a word from the DA or his office. Coleman, 15 at the time, was tried as an adult and received 25-to-life back in 2003. Coleman’s co-murderer, Jamison Jackson, was tried as a juvenile and was paroled back in 2010 after eight years in the California Youth Authority, only to commit another murder and attempted murder in a vehicular shooting murder in Covelo in 2021. At that time the DA issued a strong press release about the conviction of Jackson mentioning the earlier murder by Coleman and Jackson, so there’s no doubt Eyster is quite familiar with the Coleman case. Given DA Eyster’s consistent record of openly opposing parole for serious criminals like Coleman, we were surprised to hear of Mr. Armas’s complaint. (Mark Scaramella)

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THAT PAROLE HEARING scheduled for Thursday morning for the convicted murderer Chris Coleman who shot Brooktrails store owner Joan Lefeat back in 2001 when Coleman was 15 turned into a bust. It was effectively canceled before it began when it became clear to everyone, including Mr. Coleman himself, that Coleman’s poor behavior record in prison basically disqualified him right off. Deputy DA Jamie Pearl attended the virtual hearing, but the Parole Board never really considered Coleman’s parole application after his bad prison record was presented to them. Coleman might be eligible for reconsideration in a year or two, but only if he improves his record, which seems unlikely. (Mark Scaramella)

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Scary Ride Up The Northwestern Pacific Railroad Along The Eel River Years After The Railroad Closed

by Tom Proctor

2007 footage of crazy washed out tracks, stunning river gorges, and a redwood trestle.

The first part of the film includes a short trip up the first section of track north of Fort Seward with my daughter. This was the easy part, a straight and safe section about 1 mile. The next day the footage continues where we left off. The young girl did not venture down the more unsafe sections of track with us. This footage is of the historic closed railroad taken from a modified Suzuki Samurai “rail cart.” It starts north of the Fort Seward Railroad Depot and goes past the 226 mile marker north of Eel Rock (The “Begin South Fork Block/End Fort Seward Block” sign is where we start here). The Northwestern Pacific Railroad was one of the most scenic and expensive sections of railroad in US history because of the awesome scenery it offered between San Francisco and Eureka. This footage goes over a redwood trestle bridge at Brock Creek, with stunning river views around the 222 mile marker, then over tracks hanging in the air. The Samurai plows blindly and boldly through 10 foot high vegetation in a thrilling ride better than Disneyland. We were the very last “car” ever to venture up this track and it's some interesting footage. The track has long since further deteriorated with landslides and mass movement of the hillside, and the overgrowth has made it completely impassable. Here, we had on and off track capability as some sections were subject to landslides (or a missing piece of track!) and we had to 4-wheel around some areas. On this occasion, I took the most video and we went the furthest we ever did. Cool stuff for rail buffs. There is very little record of this storied rail line on video. 00:00 - A quick look at the Samurai01:40 - Start traveling north at 1/2 mile north of the Fort Seward Train Depot 18:22 - Redwood trestle bridge at Brock Creek 19:28 - Stunning river views around the 222 mile marker 20:30 - Tracks hanging in the air from mass movement of hillside 26:30 - Pulling a log off the tracks with a winch 28:53 - Passing the old bulldozer 30:00 - Continuing North 38:30 - Plowing through high vegetation south of Eel Rock 40:38 - Eel Rock Rd. 45:54 - Big landslide blocking the tracks after mile marker 226 north of Eel Rock. We couldn't get around it, so we headed back to Eel Rock Rd, where the video ends. The Samurai was originally built by local legend and friend Johnny B. That vehicle had nine lives.

MIKE GENIELLA:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIM EDDIE.

This fine gentleman turned 89 this week. Jim is a sterling example of a longtime local - the Eddie family has been in Potter Valley since the 1850s - who stepped up and served on the county Board of Supervisors with distinction. He was knowledgeable and fair and made preserving the county's ag land a priority. Personally, Jim is a good man and a great storyteller. Everyone adored his late wife, Judy.

MAZIE MALONE:

Happy Wednesday…

BOS… PHF… Measure B…

I have stated before the PHF is a band aid which is true, the only thing it will achieve is lightening the load on the ER, but not by much. 2026 is a long way off to allow the suffering of families and their loved ones with Mental Illness to continue to struggle. People in Mental Illness Crisis sometimes are in the ER 3 or 4 days before a bed is found elsewhere in another county at a PHF. That is unacceptable but there are not enough psych beds statewide. The PHF is brief and it is what occurs within the system before and after a psychiatric crisis is where change can occur and it is necessary. Until the system stops feeding off false ideas we will never solve the issues with addiction, mental illness and homelessness.

How many service committees do we have working on this? …

All that money for a PHF and nothing gets accomplished.

It is very disturbing and we should focus on providing appropriate and meaningful service to families.

That is the infrastructure necessary to support a PHF.

Families!

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BERNIE NORVELL:

The PHF is not a stand alone solution. It will be a part of the care system. for example, we had a woman sleeping on the streets for months. cold wet rainy nights refusing any services including the Emergency Winter Shelter. What we found out is she is bipolar schizophrenic not taking her meds. no drugs, no alcohol. She walked away from permanent housing in Santa Rosa and for some reason ended up here in Fort Bragg. After months of CRU time establishing a relationship with her, trust was finally gained. We did get her into the EWS a few nights but not being on her meds her decision making was erratic at best. Collaborating with RCS we were finally able to get her conserved. I believe one night in the ER and then off to an out of county PHF where her meds were stabilized. Without the PHF it is my opinion she would not being doing well and not back into permanent housing, which is her current position. Instead she would still be on the street suffering. The hurdle in the entire process was the high threshold to conserve someone. The PHF is just one piece of the puzzle.

SHERIFF MATT KENDALL:

Over the years I have received a lot of advice from some folks who have watched a few episodes of “COPS”.

I am constantly amazed at the solutions the untrained can come up with. While many are well meaning folks, nicking someone’s gun hand isn’t a true solution. Although it did seem to work well for Roy Rogers.

These folks have been largely uninformed and often I ponder the outcome if a new television series titled “PILOTS” was brought to prime time. I wonder how many people would be offering advice to airlines pilots on how to “stick the landing”

Don’t get me wrong I have been a student of YouTube university from time to time. Mostly due to a lack of understanding regarding how to replace a stater in a motorcycle. That being said when it comes to defusing the atomic bomb although my viewing experience urges me to not cut the red wire… I can promise you I will stand back and refrain from offering advice to the EOD team on the operation.

REDWOOD VALLEY COMMUNITY GROUP:

This morning my daughter caught a man filming a young adult, possibly teen girl, in the gym in Redwood Valley. She pointed him out to me and I saw what he was filming… He was zooming in on her rear end while she was on the stair climber. I went into mama bear mode, walked up to him and told him to stop. Then I told the girl and pointed him out to her. He tried to say he was filming himself working out but my daughter has a photo of him sitting on the bench doing nothing but filming the girl. He tried to argue and I said nope, I saw you. He got his stuff and left. We reported the incident to the gym right after he left so hopefully they can track him. Watch your back friends, and look out for each other!

COAST HOSPITAL DISTRICT is sitting still for a “seismic compliance” evaluation. Brick and mortar structures, of which there are few anymore, collapsed in the big one of '06, and a lot of tenuous structures will fall down in the next big one, but a lot won't fall down. Seismic upgrades are probably a good idea but, seems from here at the pontificato desk in Boonville, that mega-disasters are mega-disasters no matter how much seismic upgrading is done, as we also note that these upgrades are invariably inflicted on deep-pocketed public entities.

A READER WRITES: “I miss the paper paper, but am enjoying learning to navigate the AVA online. More difficult than our daily East Bay Times, but I’m getting it. What I’m missing is any updates on YOU. How are you now? Things getting easier? We’re as critical as you of the mainstream media, but check out Ayman Mohyeldin Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. He’s picked up the slack from Mehdi Hasan’s departure and does a pretty good job covering Gaza and Israel, etc. And you can see Mehdi on his own new site, Zeteonews.com.”

EVEN MSNBC can't miss the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, but it must pain them terribly to be at odds with the Biden Construct.

ME? The irony of my affliction at my age is that if the affliction doesn't kill me my age will, as the two run neck and neck (sic) to put me away. The affliction, the medicos say, is “very slow moving” while the years aren't. I'd say the odds are even.

I DO HAVE a new sympathy for the mute who, in my recent experience as I become part of the furniture while the visitor and the family think to themselves, “Should I ask him a question if I have to wait while he writes his answer?”

ACCORDING to the Marin I.J. the latest biennial tally, which is mandated by the federal government, recorded 1,090 homeless people in the county.

THESE FARCICAL COUNTS, as we know from those in dependably farcical Mendocino County, are conducted by people whose jobs depend on the numbers thus garnered. The more homeless counted the more money kicked down to the county from the feds. In practice, these counts work like this: homeless-dependent people drive around in pairs early in the morning, prowling the areas where the unhoused are assumed to be domiciled. “Look, Debbie, there's two of them!” No effort is made to establish the bona fides of the counted, or can be, due to the volatility of the countees.

A HOMELESS EPISODE recently involved my grandson's Little League team. A couple of homeless guys were living in one-man tents just over the right field fence. A long fly ball hit to right apparently prompted one of the homeless guys to say something “inappropriate” to the outfielder, perhaps a critical comment on how the kid made or didn't make the play. The offending comment itself was never revealed, merely described as “inappropriate,” the lib's catch-all pejorative applied to everything from mass murder to sloppy table manners.

WHATEVER the homeless guy said caused great consternation among Little League officials and parents, so much consternation that a delegation of appropriate monitors went to a meeting of the Fairfax City Council demanding that the bums be removed from right field. Which they duly were. (I expect to see them soon in centerfield.)

KEEPING CHILDREN away from the sight and sound of the inappropriate has got to be a full time job in these times, and a futile job at that given our culture's celebration of the inappropriate, or what used to be considered inappropriate. Check that: What used to be considered unthinkable.

THE CRACKDOWN on "inappropriate" comments on the MCN chat line is described by a couple of the worst offenders as “censorship,” but I daresay for everyone else who finds MCN a useful community billboard, the removal of constant insults from and among the deranged are long overdue.

THE MAGAS seem more and more het up that children are being taught homosexuality. I remember a loud debate locally that instruction in all manifestations of sexuality should be banned from the classroom, some parents holding out for no sanctioned sex talk of any kind while other parents maintained that pertinent instruction in the basics was a good idea. The more hysterical segments of the right-wing, as we know, think that homosexuals represent a sort of gay Taliban that won’t rest until the whole world is paired up in same sex couples. It’s an odd anxiety, especially put up against such far more imminent menaces to the general welfare as Puff Daddy and Joe Biden. Knowledge of homosexuality is hardly the same thing as a how-to class. Jeez. Please, let’s make basic distinctions here.

OLD but not quite destitute, we make our economies, one of which was almost my long-time subscription to The New Yorker magazine. I've always thought of it as a one-in-three mag, meaning one-in-three issues there's something I wanted to read. Lately, and I'll concede the culture has passed me by, I seldom see anything that grabs me for more than a paragraph amid lots of articles about social phenomena and trendo-groove-o people I'd go out of my way not to know if I miraculously found myself in their orbit. But then there's a short story by Richard Ford or Thomas McGuane, and I'm glad I renewed my subscription just in time for a truly memorable story in the current issue by McGuane called, ‘Thataway,’ which captures perfectly the current zeitgeist as only a writer of McGuane's years can capture because he was formed in the America that went Thataway around '67.

FROM THATAWAY:

“The moment that Bonny turned onto the frontage road, he opened his mouth and gripped the seat with clammy hands. The water tower emblazoned with the name of the town emerged from the skyline. Cooper looked away.

“Bonny said, ‘Seems like a nice little place to me. Tree-shaded streets, well-kept homes, angry fat people.

‘What makes you think I'd enjoy this? I was a friendless loser here, o.k.? From a loser family, you follow?’ She wanted to say that she would put her losers up against his any day, including her druggy waif of a mother.”

THANKS to the fine reporting of Mike Geniella we have a complete history of the Palace Hotel debacle. Considered whole, it's as if Ukiah city manager, Sage Sangiacomo, had deliberately set out to so thoroughly complicate resolution of the once gracious, long abandoned old hotel that sits a'moulderin' in the center of Ukiah, a relic of a once graceful and proportionate little town, that it can never be un-complicated.

WHAT other municipality could fumble an offer from a person with the means and the desire, and a brilliant plan, to restore the Palace beyond its original glories? The latest, as Geniella reports, is a decision, tentative it seems, by a nebulous bunch of opaque individuals and dubious entities, to tear down the Palace, leaving in its place, eventually, a parking lot for vanished visitors. It's all an amazing story of pure, civic incompetence presided over by a guy who makes close to $350,000 a year with benefits.

$350,000 a year? Who makes that kind of money in Mendocino County? I doubt Charlie Mannon pulls $400 grand out of his Savings Bank in an average year of prudent usury. But looking around Mendo we see the best paid people are invariably employed by the taxpayers, not free enterprise.

IF YOUR BRAKES FAIL, good advice from on-line: "One trick: if the left pedal goes to the floor, stop pressing the right pedal. Sometimes if I see a red or yellow light ahead, I actually let up on the go fuel pedal! The car slows on it’s own! Amazing. Truckers cross the USA without ever hitting their brakes. Any time you use your brakes you are wasting motive energy from fuel you bought, and turning it into heat from brake friction. ‘Nother trick: shut the car off with the key. You probably can’t find a left hand floor parking brake quick enough. A center mounted pull lever maybe."

JUST AS I WAS ABOUT to enter a Ukiah shop on School Street last week, I noticed a sign in the window that said, “Hate Free Zone.” Well, I never! I absolutely refuse to patronize any business that discriminates against so many of my fellow citizens, and what the heck is a hate free zone anyway? And down the street at the abandoned Mendocino Environment Center, a veritable blast furnace of white hot hostility in its salad days (or maybe it was just me), a sign in the window says, “Hate Free Community.”

GIVEN the givens of our crowded, collapsing society, it's my experience that people generally remain remarkably hate-free, that I seldom encounter a seether, a frother, the kind of person who immediately launches into unhappy complaints about this or that group of people. On-line is a different matter. All the hobgoblins come rushing out in the safety of anonymity.

UKIAH!

[1] Saying the unspoken part out loud, Ukiah has become such a $hithole that no rational business reason exists to make the very substantial investment required to bring this back. If the property was in healdsburg it would have been done 15 years ago. The failure of the community to repair and keep this landmark is a failure of the whole community more than a failure of the owners, supes, and other interested parties. Ukiah needs to step up and clean up as a community if they want to have “nice things”.

[2] Ukiah is not now nor ever been a S hole. I lived here for over 80 years and I have seen its ups and downs over the years. One problem is our city managers, the last decent one was Lyle Cash. Wonderful man. He was so skilled at attracting business and services to the city. I hope Ukiah can rise up again. At least we have people Doug Crane. I’m hoping the city will fire the present upper management and get a fresh start. The Palace is a separate issue. The lack of business downtown coupled with the lack of parking destroyed its ability to succeed. Now the county wants to build the new courthouse in the worst place possible, Leslie St., on Bosco’s property. Then add in the vacant post office, railroad depot, and empty strore fronts. We need real management.

PS. Regarding the Palace. I forgot to add the following. It failed because. People are not drinking as much as they used to,. The Seven Eleven,, E and B Club, and several other bars are gone. The state hospital closed, Masonite closed, the mills shut down ( we had ten close to town), several small businesses left, like Car electronics, industrial pipe on Orr Springs rd, machine shops closed, we have no decent middle income homes for doctors, nurses, and other professionals, only one hospital, no city wide, reasonable priced, fiber optic internet for work at home folks, but then there are no homes for them anywhere near town. And the list goes on and on. But I’ll stop here. I still love my little Ukiah.

[3] All true. But you did not mention the collapse of the marijuana business. Like it or not, it fueled this county’s economy when all the above went or were going south…

And if I were to place blame, it would be squarely on the past and present Board of Supervisors. And the State also should share some major blame. In hindsight, legalization was a huge mistake for Mendocino County.

[4] A permit issued through Ukiah Planning and Building is either ministerial or discretionary (conditional) it cannot be both.

REMEMBER PROP 40 The California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks and Coastal Protection Act of 2002? How about throwing in the moon and eternal life for everyone who registers Democrat while we’re doing so much good all at once? Two years before that we approved $4 billion in state bonds for clean water and parks.

BUT PARKS are grungier than ever, and in urban areas are little more than combination dog runs and outdoor dope marts, while more and more of us don’t dare drink water straight from our taps.

BURGEONING Sonoma County owns most of the water stored in Lake Mendocino, and seeing as how Sonoma County keeps on burgeoning as if there’s plenty of water for everyone forever no matter how much they burgeon, and the burgeoning along 101 between Petaluma and Cloverdale keeps on begging the question: Where's the water going to come from to support all this burgeoning?

THE MENDOCINO TRANSIT AUTHORITY is one of the more irritating local public agencies. First off, when a public agency only has about five employees, why does that public agency answer incoming calls with a voice mail menu? People call a bus office because they want to know what time the bus arrives or departs, and they want a human-type person to answer the phone and tell them when and where the bus departs, not press more buttons for more voice mail.

SOME HISTORY. Tom Lucier was informally known around Willits as the “Jolly Reaper” when he presided over the Anker-Lucier Mortuary. Lucier also once functioned as 3rd District supervisor where he successfully argued to ensure that the county received franchise fees from cable tv monopolies in Ukiah and Willits, and that the cable companies guarantee one channel to local public access television.

PUBLIC ACCESS television still exists in Ukiah as part of a franchise deal with Comcast. Ukiah City Council meetings are telecast live on Channel 3. It's a good thing if put to good purpose as it is in Ukiah, and as it was put to good public purpose for many years in the Fort Bragg area, thanks to Charlene Aumack. (Good purpose is defined here as the huge public benefits derived from live telecasts of public meetings, most of which are held during work hours when most of us can’t attend.) Ms. Aumack kept the Coast station genuinely public, diplomatically preventing the nut pies and the chronophages from capturing control of it.

PUBLIC ACCESS TELEVISION inland was originally overseen by the County Office of Education, at the time an ongoing criminal organization. MCOE quickly cut the public out of public access by placing the studio in a bar on North State Street owned by a former MCOE administrator named Hal Titen where Titen used public access television equipment to make pornographic films with underage local girls which he then sold on the internet. He was eventually (and reluctantly) shuttled off to state prison by DA Susan Massini who, even more reluctantly, had previously sent Titen’s boss, County Superintendent of Schools Jack Ward, to the County Jail for a series of felony thefts of edu-property that, if not for a sweetheart plea deal, should have won Ward some state time too.

INEVITABLY IN MENDOCINO COUNTY whenever it comes down to a choice between something “for the kids” and the interests of the persons well paid to “serve the kids,” the kids are summarily tossed over the side.

MCOE ALSO tossed “the kids” over the side about the same time when the agency squashed a skateboard park on a couple of acres the agency owned west of town out by the high school. The drones at the County Administration Center on Low Gap Road had complained that “the kids,” in lieu of a skate park, regularly showed up for their skateboard workouts outside the County Administrator’s office window, thus disrupting the functioning of local government. And the language the kids used! It was enough to make a goldfish blush!

UKIAH wanted a skateboard park at 1041 Low Gap Road well west of the County Admin Center and out of the sight and hearing of the gray ghosts doing the people's business. The prob was that the prospective 1.75-acre site was leased by the Mendocino County Office of Education and located right next door to a major playground for adults — the Ukiah Players Theater.

MCOE CLAIMED it intended to erect an “educational facility” on the property, meaning another building filled with shiny white teeth and prozac smiles shuffling around in air-conditioned comfort looking for coffee urns and the free lunch table. If there was a way to get public funding for skateboarders you can be sure that MCOE would have built one on top of the Ukiah Senior Center.

ONE finally got built out on Low Gap, which, I guess, sees an occasional skateboarder.

ANYTHING that gets the sedentary little sugar muffins up on their feet and moving around instead of zoned out on techno-gadgets, is a good thing, but imo these million dollar skateboard parks with their solid acre of concrete and, at any one time, a mere handful of “the kids” zooming around the expensively manufactured cement bowl, hardly justifies the expense.

WHEN I WAS A KID — yes, I was a kid, and I’ve got proof —Mommsy shoved us out the door at daylight and told us not to be back until it was time for stone soup, a beating and bed time.

EXCHANGE OF THE DAY

Former Ukiah Mayor Jim Mastin:

Let me begin with the fact that I have a lot of respect for David both professionally and personally, although our paths don’t often cross. However (who knew this was coming!), I think posting photos of his upper-middle class home, and all of its ongoing improvements, is something of a poke in the eye to our general population. Not that we’re not there with him, but…

DA David Eyster:

Wow. You apparently didn't have anything better to do today, Jim? Your comment is your perspective that I will temporarily allow to exist on my personal FB page. As a result of a divorce, I lost most of what I had acquired (which was a lot and many times more than what I have now) to somebody who already had more than I will ever have. I had to start mid-life all over with very little (less than $1,600 in the bank) and have worked VERY hard to rebuild my personal life and how I live. L and I have long distance family and friends who like to see through FB posts what is going on and the progress the new “we” are making. We are very proud of the improvements we have done and are doing around here. We've had to weigh choices and make financial sacrifices every step of the way to get what we have. Unfortunately, your “poke in the eye” comment is a lot like those who don't like adult magazines at the quick stop market. If one doesn't want to see something that offends them (but doesn't offend others), don't look. Better yet, anybody who has a sore eye from what I post can unfriend me or block my otherwise harmless feed. I personally don't appreciate negativity directed at my weekend hobbies and pride of home ownership. I have no idea how or where you live and, frankly, it is none of my business. That said, I would never find it appropriate for me to crash your FB page to criticize you, your home and the work you have put into it. 'Nuff said.

ED NOTE: Mastin does seem outta line here. Dollar for dollar, homestead for homestead, Mastin probably lives a little higher on the hog. than our DA, although neither of them is in any danger of becoming homeless. Eyster's obviously a main stem middleclass lawn guy on the lower end of West Side prosperity. Poor envy material if you ask me.

HERE YOU HAVE IT, AMERICA…

Exhibit A from Outback Mendocino County where half of all families with children depend on CalFresh and food banks, but these insensate yobbos are throwing a fifty dollar event unaffordable by working people.

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Celebrate our 2024 Democrat of the Year Jim Mastin! Democracy! How Sweet It Is!

Please join us on Sunday June 23 from 3:00 - 6:00 PM overlooking Lake Mendocino in Ukiah to celebrate our local Democrat of the Year Jim Mastin! Musical entertainment will be provided by Barney McClure and Roseanne Wetzel. Tickets are $50 for a delicious wine and dessert pairing to honor a true champion for all the values we share.

For tickets, please go to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/democracy.how.sweet.it.is

Or send checks to

Mendocino County Demoratic Party

P.O. Box 28

Ukiah, CA 95482.

Include your name, address, occupation and employer for reporting purposes. Space is limited, so reserve your tickets now!

For more information, contact Helen Sizemore at helensize@gmail.com

For inclusion in the Tribute to Jim memory book, please consider including your own personal well wishes by sending photo ready copy to Susan Savage at sksavage2@comcast.net by June 15.

The cost for inclusion in this 8 1/2 X 11 booklet is:

Full page $500

Half page $250

Quarter page $100

Eighth page/ business card $75

Or contribute $50 as an event sponsor to be included in the thank you list of monetary supporters.

Any questions, email Susan at sksavage2@comcast.net

Make your memory book payment via the Act Blue link, or by check to the Mendocino County Democratic Party, mark the note on the check “Memory” and mail it to the MCDP P.O. Box 28, Ukiah, CA 95482.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

— Mendocino County Democratic Party

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MENDOCINO COUNTY has a whole lot of “advisory boards” that allegedly oversee the county's public bureaucracies, especially those bureaucracies that require “public participation” in their funding process. This being the Age of the Big Fear, and Mendocino County being as fearful a place as there is because the public jobs are just about the only good jobs there are, our public bureaucracies are very careful about who gets appointed to “advise” them, meaning independent persons whose critical faculties are fully operational need not apply.

NOT TO BE too harsh about it, but if you're invited to sit on an advisory board most likely the inviting agency regards you as a patsy, A sap. As pliable as its dominant paid persons, hence most school boards, the Mendocino County Planning Commission, KZYX's board of directors, the Juvenile Justice Commission, the Behavioral Health Advisory Board, the Civil Service Commission and any group “advising” the Department of Social Services, the Department of Mental Health, or the MTA and its ghost riders.

I ATTENDED an advisory board meeting one futile day long, long ago that I knew going in would be a waste of my time and whatever energy I had left for fending off enemies of the people. It was the last advisory meeting I'd ever attend.

THIS ADVISORY BOARD, as I knew, was wholly dominated by agency people paid to be there. They took up the first ten minutes of the meeting getting their mileage reimbursement forms filled out. Every time I said something, Dr. Gregory Sims of Boonville, a member of the board, followed with, “What Bruce is saying…” as he proceeded to translate my remarks into the exact opposite of what I'd just in fact plainly said. I like Sims but try to avoid him because he seems to speak in riddles. It works both ways. I remember saying a cheery good morning to the late Debra ‘Doobra’ Keipp, formerly of Point Arena and Boonville. “Sorry, Bruce, I don't have time for your bullshit today.” Jeez, Doobs, I hadn't intended to offload any.

ON EACH WALL of the meeting room, which was at Juvenile Hall, there was a faded nature photo inscribed with an implausible piece of advice like, “First ask yourself what you want to do, then do it.” I imagined a kid reading that and saying to himself, “As soon as I get out of here I'll ask myself, ‘Do I want to rob WalMart or a liquor store?’” I asked myself what I wanted to do and answered myself that I would like to punch all the men in the room.

NOT TO BE TOO PC about it, but I thought the only three reality-based people present were three Indian women from Covelo, all from families whose names I recognized. When I arrived, only Mrs. Hoaglin was in the room. “Do you want me to sit at the other end of the table or next to you?” I asked her. “Indian people always like their enemies close to them,” Mrs. Hoaglin replied with a chuckle. Mrs. Duncan and Mrs. Azbill were also present and on task. I liked all three of them. I didn't like anybody else.

THE PALE FACES were predictably defensive. Nothing was wrong or Nothing could be done. One person didn't know where or what Ten Mile Court was. Another said he'd just had lunch with “Jon Lehan” and darned if Jon had the foggiest idea of why he'd had been transferred from his Fort Bragg judge sinecure to Ukiah, an hour and a half from his home. Because, I explained, the judge persistently flashed his female staffers and a state complaint was pending against him. My advice to that advisory board on the care and handling of juvenile delinquents was to disband.

I ONCE APPLIED for a vacant slot on the Mental Health Board. I went over boffo with the interview committee composed of “clients,” but the presumably sane members of the board said no way, and that was that.

CALL BACKS from county bureaucracies? Depends on two things: The head of the department and you. If the department head doesn't it make it clear to his subordinates that it's department policy to return constituent calls, that department's personnel won't call you back. If the department head doesn't like you, nobody in that department will call you back. Ever. (cf DA Eyster) The judges are the worst for call-backs. They don't do call-backs, never respond to their mail, never make themselves available to the public except on those rare occasions when they have opposition at election time, then it’s “So great to see you again.” Mail is intercepted by one of their gofers and returned unopened as “ex parte communication,” meaning a forbidden attempt to say something to one of them.

A READER WRITES: “I have not been a pot smoker since the Department of Transportation instituted drug testing back in ’86. I know that dope does not improve people. Plenty of nasty folks smoke weed. I know that you put the anti-pot articles in the paper just to annoy some of the local navel gazers. What I suspect about pot smokers is that they would not have amounted to much anyway. It is not like without weed they would be leading the social revolution. But I do feel that dope de-criminalization is a big step up from, say, struggling to establish doggy parks. De-criminalization might result in a few more blissed out stoners, but it could also reduce the population of the rape cages, aka the penal system.”

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] I was trying to set up a venmo because its like paypal…First thing that pops up on their website, two smiling black females, and one gay as hell looking blond haired Asian man laying in between them smiling….I told my brother “So this is what they mean by diversity….Boy this shit looks so totally forced it’s not even funny anymore.”

[2] Sometimes people abandon themselves, like an old, depleted mine. It is my hope that your precious mettle is still abundant and intact and that it is not lost to claim jumpers and swindlers of thought.

Tonight, there is a full moon and soon it will wane and become new, seem to disappear, but it will never abandon me, it will always return kissed by starlight, howled at by jackals and wolves.

[3] Doesn’t really matter who gets the puppet strings as everyday will be groundhog day once again. The system is large and vast and only needs a pulse and a teleprompter to rule. The election will be close once again but team Dems will squeak out another victory after the real counting starts … while most folks are sleeping.

[4] “These people.” I assume you're talking about Jews. I could never really figure that one out. What does being a Jew mean? I always thought it was a religion. Sammy Davis was a Jew. He converted I guess. So is it a religion? I mean I could convert and become a Jew. I never heard of anyone converting to Italian. For a confusing and contorted read go to Wiki and read “Who is a Jew?” Talk about a bunch of twisted BS. Nobody can agree on what it means.

[5] You don’t understand why people care about the outcome of a game that they have bet upon? I don’t believe you.

I can’t believe that I need to explain this to anyone old enough to type: cheering for the local pro team is the best community-builder that mankind has ever had. It generates healthy rivalries for a healthy outlet of our tribal warlike nature. And it is kick-ass for economic activity.

[6] Donald Trump, like him or not, the guy can make an entrance. Who else would buzz a race crowd of 100,000 with his 757? Not only that but broadcast live for millions of NASCAR “clowns” and “deplorables.”

[7] Congress is completely useless, and NOT on the side of the people. That should be obvious from the middle class people that enter congress and within a year or two are multi multi millionaires. They are irrelevant and, from this point forward, they should be ignored, along with everything else from the so called “federal” gubmint.