Among the candidates for local elections this November are some recognizable names from the past. Most of the special and school district races are uncontested with the same number of candidates (often including incumbents) as seats. In some races there are fewer candidates than seats which will mean an appointment by the Supervisors. But some races have more candidates than seats.
For example, Former Sheriff Tom Allman is running for one of the three Willits City Council seats that are up for election along with incumbent (and former Willits Police Chief) Jerry Gonzalez, Robin Leler and Matthew Alaniz.
Former Sheriff Jim Tuso is an incumbent board member of the Redwood Valley/Calpella Fire District and is running unopposed for one of three seats up for election. Incumbent John Strangio is instead running for the Ukiah City Council and is not running for re-election to the Redwood Valley/Calpella Fire District Board. Anne Woida is the only other candidate for the remaining two seats there.
Former Ukiah Attorney Brian Carter, son of the legendary Republican fixer-attorney Jared Carter and former Attorney for infamous Pacific Lumber CEO/criminal Charles Hurwitz, who now lists his residence as “Manchester,” is running for an appointed seat on Redwood Coast Fire District board.
Scott Cratty who manages the Mendocino Fire Safe Council is running for a vacant seat on the Ukiah Valley Fire District board.
Incumbents Adam Gaska and Tom Schoeneman are the only candidates for the two Redwood Valley Water District board seats.
Former Coastal County road manager, former Grand Jury member, and former candidate for Fourth District Supervisor Steve Cardullo is running to fill a vacant seat on the Westport Water District board.
Four candidates are running for two “full-term” Mendocino Coast Healthcare District board seats including incumbent Paul Katzeff (of Thanksgiving Coffee) and Mikael Blaisdell, Lynn Finley and Gabriel Maroney. Incumbent Sara Spring is not running for re-election. In addition, Jan McGourty (“appointed”) and Paul Garza (also “appointed”) are running for the Healthcare District’s two “short term” seats.
Three political newcomers are running for two open seats on the County School Board since incumbents Charlene Ford and Drew Duncan are not running for re-election: David Strock, Nancy Bennett and former AV Superintendent and former County School Superintendent Michelle Hutchins. This could be the most interesting local race since Ms. Hutchins lost by a narrow margin to current County School Superintendent Nicole Glentzer in a hotly contested and mean-spirited race in 2022.
Occasional AVA on-line commenter Lew Chichester is not running for re-election to the Round Valley Unified School district board. Instead, incumbent Zoe George will run against Steve McCormack and Cindy Nelson for the two Round Valley Unified seats that are up for election.
In two of the more closely watched local races we see five candidates running for two seats on the Fort Bragg City Council: Incumbent Lindy Peters, along with Ryan Bushnell, Bethany Brewer, Scott Hockett and Mel Salazar.
And inland, there are two incumbents, Josephina Duenas and Doug Crane running against four new candidates Kris Mize (formerly of Anderson Valley), Heath Criss, the aforementioned John Strangio and former Second District Supervisor candidate Jacob Brown. The latter two of which are also members of the newly reassembled “Mendo Matters” group which is lobbying the Supervisors to do something about the increase in homeless encampments in the Ukiah Valley area.
In Anderson Valley the three incumbents for the AV Unified Board, Richard Browning, Saoirse Byrne and Justin Rhoades are the only candidates for the three seats. The AV Community Services District Board sees three candidates running for three seats, two of which are incumbents Valerie Hanelt and (appointed) incumbent Steve Snyder along with architect “Sash” Williams who will replace Francois Christen.
Some local ballot measures are also of interest:
Measure V (Ukiah Valley Fire District): “to adequately fund firefighter/paramedic emergency responses to house fires, wildfires, medical emergencies, car accidents; to hire/train firefighters/paramedics; upgrade aging firefighter equipment and life-saving tools, shall the Fire District enact a $33.50/unit annual parcel tax using the schedule of units in voter-approved Ordinance 97-1 (annual adjustments not to exceed 2%), raising approximately $987,000/year until ended by voters; annual public reporting; all money used exclusively for local fire and emergency medical services.”
Measure W (City of Ukiah): “Shall Ukiah City Code Section 1752 be amended to increase from the current 10% to 13% the transient occupancy tax imposed on the room rate charged to customers of hotels and motels and vacation rentals in the City of Ukiah?”
And Measure X (City of Point Arena): “Point Arena Essential Services Measure. Shall the measure providing Point Arena funding for city services, such as public safety, pier operations, and general government services by establishing a 7/8-cent or 0.875% sales tax providing approximately $90,000 annually until ended by voters, and requiring independent audits and public disclosure of all spending, be adopted?”
For the full list of candidates and positions go to: mendocinocounty.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/66389/638609673769630000
Residents of Fort Bragg should vote for change and select two fresh faces for the Fort Bragg City Council rather than incumbent Lindy Peters. He certainly has experience but few would call it good experience. As I sat watching and listening to the League of Women voters candidates forum, Lindy came across as informed but angry. He was also backwards-looking rather than providing direction for the future, just more of the same. He rattled off so-called accomplishments but some of his claims were flat out falsehoods (e.g., the County never cut off funding for the Coast Humane Society, they never provided any!) and others involved him taking credit for actual accomplishments he had little if nothing to do with other than technically being on the city council when they happened, all of which would have occurred and been approved no matter who sat on the city council, including if any of his four fellow candidates would have been serving.
What has his 22 years of “service” gotten the community and are you happy with how things are now? I’m not. I want a city council who doesn’t rubber stamp failed paving projects with no accountability or repairs for the defects. I want a city council that doesn’t spend $700K on a new playground only to open one five months late and which violates the ADA because it isn’t accessible. I want a city council that doesn’t throw up its hands and do nothing when half the town smells like a sewer because we are too cheap or short-sighted to buy the readily-available and environmentally safe chemicals that neutralize odors that would allow residents and visitors to use the coastal trail without gagging. I want a city council who doesn’t remove its only indigenous member and woman of color whose ancestors lived on the Mill Site and still has family there from the Skunk Train litigation mediation committee because she wants to resolve the litigation and replace her with an old white guy blowhard who says unintentionally racists things all the time because he wants to keep fighting at all costs and spend millions of community dollars to do so. The list goes on and on.
By all means, vote for more failure if you are happy with where things are but if you want a better Fort Bragg for all of us, vote for ANYBODY BUT LINDY. My personal choice is to support Ryan Bushnell and Scott Hockett but Mel Salazar and Betthany Brewer would also provide welcome change.
Voting for change, for candidates with little or no government/leadership experience, will potentially set Fort Bragg back from the great progress it has made in recent years.
Jacob Patterson has been angry since Lindy Peters, Mayor at the time, refused to hire him as City Attorney. His misogynist behavior has chased many competent women, including two City Managers, to resign. Additionally, his thousands of pages on every City Council and Planning Commission agendas and numerous emails and calls, have wasted staff, Council and citizens time.
Jacob’s comments are full of inaccuracies and misconceptions. Lindy did not claim he made all positive changes alone and emphasized the outstanding teamwork of all the Council, is what has helped moved the City forward. By the way, Jacob was totally inaccurate about the Coast Humane Society, as the County did provide funding and withdrew it.
Fort Bragg has made so many improvements including, water storage, better street paving, coastal trail development, assuming CV Starr Center and the list goes on. Lindy was the person who has consistently advocated for desalination, exploring it as an opportunity. After 28 years as a homeowner here, I am very impressed at the progress it’s made.
Lindy Peters has consistently stood up against Jacob and his tactics and abuse, resulting in Jacob continually encouraging people to oppose him. Jacob is not evaluating the complex research and experience any elected officials must have; it’s a long learning curve.
People need to do their own research, beginning with the League of Women Voters forum available on the City website. It was clear the while the candidates had positive lofty goals; Lindy was the only candidate with experience and a plan!
Everyone can advocate for whomever they feel is the best candidate. I think it is ironic that I am being accused of being a mysoginst and Lindy is somehow a grand supporter of women. Does Marianne know any of Lindy’s ex-wives and why they got divorced? Although, I certainly wasn’t there to witness any of the alleged incidents, Lindy’s evident anger management issues and temperament apparently led to his widely-known reputation as an alleged domestic violence perpetrator. I obviously know that reputations and rumors are not always true, and there is certainly a chance that is the case for Lindy, but I have heard this from too many different long-time community members to dismiss it out of hand. There is even old coverage in the AVA–I recall from 2011–about Lindy’s alleged inappropriate and unwanted contact with at least one woman while out on the town. (https://theava.com/archives/100336) I, on the other hand, have no credible allegations of mistreating anyone because of their gender but I ‘m not surprised by Lindy and his, IMO misguided, supporters resorting to unfounded attacks to try to discredit opinions they disagree with. Further, I checked with the Humane Society itself about the County funding issue and they confirmed the had not had any prior funding from the County revoked because they received no such funding. The director as well as board members confirmed this. The County closed their own adjacent Coast facility, which has since been transfered to the Humane Society and the City of Fort Bragg has increased their funding but that isn’t related to an imaginary County funding cut. Despite his so-called institutional knowledge, Lindy frequently gets his facts wrong either because he isn’t paying attention or because he decides to misrepresent things for his political benefit. Lindy provided no real plan for the future at the forum and merely rattled of a list of past actions. I often agree with his policy decisions and give him credit for advocating for desal but that doesn’t mean he brings anything meaningful to the table for the future compared to his less experienced challengers (at least experienceon a city council). I like Ryan and Scott because their different experience are actually useful and applicable to making decisions on the Council. Ryan has extensive public works experience and is a former SEIU union member with labor negotiation expertise. Scott has been able to navigate our extremely challenging local economy to create numerous successful local businesses creating many jobs in the process. What has Lindy done except hang out in Little River, play golf, and live off his current wife’s salary from a job he helped her get at the City through an unusual hiring process. (No offense to Sarah who is an asset to the city and our best planner since I’ve been back in town.)
You didn’t answer my question: Who are the city council members opposed to Lindy’s re-election?
I didn’t see an earlier question but I am not going to speak for other people and name names, they can respond if they want but I have spoken with three of them as have others, and more than one is supporting two of the new candidates rather than Lindy. (I am not sure if they are supporting the same two but that isn’t really relevant to this issue.) Understandably, they might not be comfortable making public endorsements or statements about Lindy’s candidacy; however, at least one has already endorsed two of his challengers so that clearly indicates a preference for new faces over the old.
Lindy touted the fact that all sitting councilmembers signed his nomination papers, which is true, but it is false to imply that indicates their endorsement of his reelection. I am certainly not voting for him and I would have signed his nomination papers had he asked me to (unless I had already signed two others). Lindy brought his nomination papers to a Council meeting and asked (some might say cornered) the rest of the Council to sign his papers, which they politely did even if it was an arguably inappropriate context in which to do that. At least he didn’t do what he did last time, which was go around to City employees and have them sign his papers–who is going to say no to the boss of your boss? Which was arguably an illegal use of public time for campaign purposes. Although that pales in comparison to his likely illegal and certainly unethical alteration of his nomination papers in the last election two years ago in an attempt to what I consider would have amounted to electoral fraud had it not been discovered and disallowed. He and Tess colluded with some staff to alter their nomination papers after people had nominated them to a different office so they could each run for different seats rather than against each other when Tess missed the filing deadline. (That election has a short-term seat and two full four-year terms.) Although I can’t call them “criminals” since they were not tried and convicted of the alleged illegal alteration and defacement of their nomination papers, in my opinion their conduct met the necessary elements to have been charged with a crime related to that electoral scheme. Some people seem to care more about personality and familiarity rather than substance and character but I think following the rules (particularly actual laws) is important even if doing so has unfortunate results for some.
If you want to understand some of the many reasons why some of his colleagues might not be comfortable supporting him serving another term, just watch the Council meetings where they discussed the Sunshine Holistic cannabis dispensary appeals and the subsequent cannabis ordinance updates meant to help facilitate getting that business into the Central Business District–a business I understand Lindy was a long time customer of and had promised them they would get their downtown dispensary and manufacturing/distribution facility, although that could just be an unfounded rumor. Tess and Marcia stood with the neighbors who were opposed to it going in next to their houses and Lindy and Bernie wanted to approve it. While Bernie remained respectful during the disagreement, Lindy resorted to bullying and demeaning his female colleagues insisting they were wrong and he was right about this issue. He cut them off and was rude numerous times, including particularly to Tess. His conduct was reprehensible; just ask Tess how she felt.
As makes sense for this election, some sitting councilmembers might not want to make formal public endorsements of his competitors, particularly since Lindy has a good chance of being reelected with his incumbent’s advantage and they’d need to work with him. IMO, Lindy is not a stable adult when he disagrees with people. In fact, many people who used to attend and participate in FB City Council meetings have told me part of why they stopped coming or submitting comments is because of how rude and dismissive Lindy is toward public comments he doesn’t agree with, and particularly how childish he is when I make comments. I am actually amused by his silliness even if others are not. For example, he goes out of his way to dramatically look away when I am speaking at the podium when all the rest, even those I also disagree with, pay attention and listen like they do for most, if not all, public comments regardless of the speaker. Lindy throws childish temper tantrums. Would you want to continue to serve with someone like that? I wouldn’t if I sat on the FB City Council and I think it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine why some of his colleagues might not either. Feel free to contact the individual councilmembers for their personal opinions about Lindy and his potential reelection rather than relying on anything I write, which is only second-hand.
You invoke them then say they can speak for themselves. Got it. You’ve got a good start on a novel here, Jacob. “Lindy Imagined.”
I don’t mind telling you privately if you won’t publish it without the councilmembers permission but I am not posting something I don’t have explicit permission to disclose online. It isn’t very hard to contact any of the councilmembers. There are a bunch of staff supporting his opponents as well but again, not my news. I can only speak for myself or people who ask me to speak on their behalf.