Mendocino County Today: Monday 10/7/2024

By AVA News Service on October 7, 2024

HIGH TEMPERATURES begin to trend downward today as high pressure weakens. Coastal stratus likely to return this evening. Rain possible late week. (NWS)

YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Boonville 103°, Ukiah 103°, Laytonville 98°, Yorkville 97°, Covelo 97°, Point Arena 81°

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): An in house record of 83F yesterday 1 mile from the ocean, even warmer the further from the shore you were. Hazy skies & a warm 55F this morning on the coast. Patchy fog returns tonight with a good chance of rain Friday night & Saturday. Hectic. High temps forecast for the upper 60's today, we'll see.

NICK WILSON (Little River Prairie): 106 F currently [Sunday at 1pm] is a record high for this location 3 mi inland on LR Airport Rd.

HARVEST IS STILL VERY MUCH A FAMILY AFFAIR IN ANDERSON VALLEY!

The Kobler Family has been in the Valley since the early 1970s when they founded Lazy Creek Vineyards, one of the first tasting rooms. Norman, who moved to the Valley when he was seven, now operates Philo Vineyard Solutions and owns the Vonarburg Vineyard, planted to Riesling.

Shown here is his wife, Colleen, and his mother, Theresia, and their two dogs, Ramsey (closest) and Kita (back near the vines).

Happy harvest, everyone!

GUNS, KNIVES, MENDOCINO? [Coast Chatline]

Michael Hilburn [addressee unknown]: Your kid pulled a knife on my child, threatening that he has a 9 mm. I'll be calling the school in the morning and expect drastic measures to ensure no other children are exposed to such violence again. I think we need to have a school meeting about this. I do NOT take this lightly. I won't release your child’s name, however, if either of your children confront my child again, I won't hesitate to contact law enforcement directly, to hold YOU accountable.

Daney Dawson: Mr. Hilburn did not name names, so did not directly accuse a person, in this case a child, of malfeasance.

Ann Kyle Brown: I think this topic is perfect for discussion on the discussion list. I think it is appropriate to have announced this incident. Having been announced, I believe a statement should be sought from the police? Principal? To clarify and calm the community. My two cents.

Frank Hartzell: As a listserve member and sometimes moderator, I find this a terrible post. It could create fear and confusion in the schools and should have been addressed to the involved parties. However, I would agree with Daney that it did not violate our rules by accusing a person by name. This is something that should have been dealt with directly or in the schools with them and it should not be out there like this. It serves no purpose except to fearmonger and intimidate. But it is free speech in my book as written. Please address this directly in the future and don't post anything like this. A simple request for common decency, not a moderation.

Michael Hilburn: Have you read the posts here? This is actually impacting our community directly, unlike the political nonsense that flows hourly through this platform.

“bbm”: I agree with Mister Hilburn. In addition to all kinds of other nonsense, this "announce list" has come to act as a sort of online garage sale. Is that what it was originally intended for? I think not. If you have children currently enrolled in, or who have gone through our schools, reading his post is pretty disturbing, and I would think important to our community. In view of all the other misuses of this forum, is this the time to bring up rules?

Liz Helenchild: Horrors! Not letting this incident slide is wise, IMO. I forwarded Michael's post to one of the school district board members below. I urge you to express yourselves however you're moved to. Per their calendar, they will meet Thur, Oct 17. Regular Board meetings are typically on the 3rd Thurs of the month at 5:00 pm at the Mendocino High School Campus in the Student Union (except as noted)

Emily Griffen, Board President, Mendocino, egriffen@mendocinousd.org

Windspirit Aum, Board Clerk, Albion

JASON COX

On September 17, 2024, Jason Cox passed away after a courageous battle in the hospital. Jason was born on July 14, 1975, and grew up in Riverside and Gasquet, California. During a challenging childhood, Jason relied on his beloved grandparents George and Kay Otto, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Dan Alexander, as well as Al and Sheila Leverett, to help guide and raise him through the years.

Jason’s greatest joy in life was his family. His children, Jason, Jasmine, Alyssa, and Matthew were his world. He was married to Shannon, the love of his life, and together they were raising their two children, Alyssa and Matthew. Jason also shared a close bond with his sister, Jennifer Pacheco, was honored to walk her down the aisle when she married his brother-in-law, John, and loved being “Uncle J” to their daughter, Kennedy.

Jason also strongly believed in protecting and helping others, which led him to careers first in caring for the developmentally disabled and later moving into law enforcement. Jason spent 16 years as a deputy for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and, in 2016, he transferred to Lake County where he worked as an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office.

Jason’s adventurous spirit led to a wide range of interests, including becoming a PADI-certified advanced rescue scuba diver and earning his private pilot’s license with both multi-engine and instrument ratings. He also loved playing early morning basketball with a close group of friends for over twenty years.

His greatest passion was traveling with his family.

Jason is survived by his loving wife, Shannon, and their children, Alyssa and Matthew; his adult children, Jason and Jasmine; and his daughter-in-law Alondra. He is also survived by his younger sister, Jennifer Pacheco, her husband John, and their daughter Kennedy; his Aunt Sharon and Uncle Dan Alexander, cousins Chris, Celeste, and Collin; his father Jeff Cox; and his adoptive mother Sheila Leverett.

A family-friendly celebration of Jason’s life will be held on October 12, 2024 at the Saturday Afternoon Club located at 107 S. Oak Street in Ukiah, CA, at 2:30 p.m. The memorial service will begin at 3:00 p.m. followed by a reception. Arrangements are under the direction of the Eversole Mortuary.

UKIAH CITY COUNCIL: ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

by Adam Gaska

On Wednesday evening, October 2nd, I attended the Ukiah City Council’s regular meeting to speak in support of the council passing a resolution to support State Proposition 36. I made a comment, urging the council to pass a resolution supporting Prop 36.

City Manager, Sage Sangiacomo did an excellent job putting together information to back up the staff recommendation to support the resolution. He presented the case well, making strong arguments why our community, and many in California, need Prop 36 to pass. Council members Crane and Orozco acknowledged that Prop 36 wouldn’t entirely or immediately fix the issues our community is facing in regards to rampant theft, substance misuse, and homelessness, but felt it would be a step in the right direction.

Council members Rodin and Duenas didn’t do enough research prior to the meeting to productively contribute to the discussion. Coming unprepared to a council meeting is unacceptable and a disservice to the community you are elected to represent. Because they did not come prepared with enough information, they voted to abstain.

Council member Sher, who solidly voted no, claimed that Prop 36 would lead us back to mass incarcerations and The War on Drugs. I strongly disagree with this claim.

Prop 36 does not mandate that prosecutors seek a felony charge for theft or drug offenses. Prop 36 gives them the discretion to charge certain crimes as felonies if there are two prior charges for the same offense. Repeat offenders that now qualify for a felony charge, could be held without bail until their arraignment instead of being released within hours which is currently the policy for misdemeanor offenses.

The punishment for theft and drug offenses has become so inconsequential that they have been effectively decriminalized, leading to rampant retail theft and open drug abuse. While drug and mental health diversion options still exist, the threat of state prison is gone because effectively, we have no stick to push people suffering from substance abuse disorder to accept the carrot of treatment. This situation very likely is contributing to the epidemic of drug abuse, overdoses and suicide we are seeing today. Mendocino County is in the top ten of California counties in per capita opioid deaths and suicides. This isn’t something to be proud of.

Passage of Prop 36 won’t bring us back to the War on Drugs. Cannabis, which historically accounted for a substantial portion of drug arrests, is now legal. Drug offenses will still be charged as misdemeanors until the third offense and up charging to a felony will be at the discretion of the DA. With the scourge of drugs such as fentanyl, having that stick of a prison sentence should push more people into treatment programs and if not, they can sit in prison which is better than watching them die on the streets of an overdose.

While the vote of the Ukiah City Council was disappointing, not all is lost. Ultimately, this issue will be decided by the voters and polling shows very strong statewide support. Hopefully the three council members who did not support Proposition 36 will be on the wrong side of history. One of those council members is now up for re-election. Hopefully the voters of Ukiah are savvy enough to remember how they voted against the best interest of public safety when they get their ballots and vote accordingly.

SHE FLED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FEARS IN MEXICO. NOW SHE’S CALIFORNIA’S FIRST DEAF LATINA MAYOR

Josefina Dueñas faced doubts from her own colleagues on the city council. Now ‘I represent the women, the immigrants, the disabled, the homeless’

by Justo Robles

It wasn’t until she turned five years old that Josefina Dueñas was diagnosed with a disorder her family had long suspected: hipoacusia bilateral, or severe hearing loss that affected both of her ears.

Almost 60 years later, as Dueñas walked into Ukiah’s city hall, located in northern California’s Mendocino county, she recounted her childhood memories and the years that trained her to overcome the many challenges that still arise due to her hearing disability.

“Here, I represent the women, the immigrants, the disabled, the homeless,” said Dueñas, who at the age of 64 became the first deaf Latina mayor in California.

Alongside the six council members in Ukiah, the mayor represents the interests of more than 16,000 people, most of whom identify as Latino or white, according to US census data.

Council members are elected for a four-year term by the voters while the mayor is appointed every year on a rotational basis by the council.

Long before Dueñas could serve as the mayor of Ukiah, she studied psychology at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico and worked for the state secretary of finance reviewing tax documents. She had started wearing earbuds and communicating in sign language.

While Dueñas seemed to grow professionally, the situation at home was increasingly alarming.

Fearing the threat of domestic violence against her and her children, Dueñas migrated to California. She arrived in Ukiah in 1989 and soon worked in the fields along the busy Highway 101 corridor, picking grapes and contributing to the success of local vineyards, one of Ukiah’s main attractions today.

“I remained undocumented until 1999, when I suffered domestic violence at the hands of my second husband,” Dueñas said on a recent afternoon, inside Ukiah’s city hall.

With the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, also known as Vawa, in Congress in 1994, immigrants who have been abused by a US citizen can seek legal protection in the country.

Federal law also prohibits discrimination based on disability in immigration proceedings.

Dueñas said she was granted permanent status thanks to the Vawa program in 2000 and granted US citizenship 17 years later.

By then, she had obtained a bachelor’s degree at Sonoma State University and other associate diplomas, worked as a teacher’s assistant at the Ukiah Unified school district and wrote occasionally for bilingual newspapers. But she struggled to make ends meet.

“The monthly cost for my electricity bill was $750, the same amount I paid for rent,” said Dueñas, who moved around and even lived in her car for some time, unable to afford rent.

“I decided to go to an open city council meeting and protest. I thanked them for what they were doing for us, but I told them it wasn’t enough. Then I said to myself that I could be there and do something different.”

Dueñas ran for a seat in the city council in 2020 and won. When it was her turn to be appointed as mayor, following the stipulated rotation, some of the council members voiced concerns about challenges Dueñas might face in the new role.

Just as civil rights laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality and religion, the Americans with Disabilities Act, known as ADA, guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else nationwide.

In the US, about 17.7 million adults have a hearing disability. Nearly 2 million of them live in California. The deaf access program was created in 1980 to ensure that state programs are adapted for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. As of today, the program serves approximately 64,647 adults. Dueñas is one of them.

Amid opposition to her appointment, Dueñas remained as vice-mayor for a second year through December of 2023, when she was confirmed as the mayor. Two members voted against her appointment.

On the eve of Dueñas’s appointment, a local report quoted Mari Rodin, the outgoing mayor, saying: “I wouldn’t vote for Dueñas to be the mayor simply to add diversity, equity or inclusion; that goes against my principles. I need to adhere to my role as city council member, which is to support a mayoral candidate who meets the qualifications necessary to perform as the mayor.”

Rodin declined to be interviewed for this story, saying her previous comment was the most diplomatic thing she felt comfortable saying.

Douglas Crane, who is serving his 20th year on the city council, including four terms as the mayor, said he supported Dueñas’ appointment because “it made sense that she had the turn and that she could do this”.

Crane was adamant that while he had assisted Dueñas, she already had methods to help her conduct meetings and address public concerns. “I want to be clear that I didn’t teach her the process, I was reviewing it with her. I don’t want to take anything away from her ability or knowledge. It was an effort to be helpful for her to be more confident with things that she largely already knew.”

To facilitate conducting the meetings, Dueñas said, she was given an iPad by the city. The iPad has software that transcribes what she says, as well as what others say, in real time.

Though her current term is near its end, Dueñas has balanced her responsibilities as a mayor with once again running for one of two seats available on the city council.

On a recent afternoon, Dueñas tested the software on her iPad, which didn’t transcribe as quickly as she spoke. The hindrance, she said, could have been a problem in meetings when she was mayor, wounding her confidence and testing the patience of other council members.

Minutes before 7.30pm, the deadline for her and the other candidates to answer questions from residents at a forum, Dueñas stepped aside to a quiet area and closed her eyes.

There were no lips to read; only words and scenes that she found solace in.

“I thought about the people that let me stay in their homes when my kids and I had nowhere to go in Ukiah. They told me ‘Josefina, you could do it.’ And look at me, I am here. What were my chances?”

(theguardian.com)

ED NOTES

WE ALL, at one time or another, get the verbal finger when we call the County Courthouse where the lines are always busy and the person you want to talk to is out when he’s in and in when he’s out. To ask to talk to a judge, well, you might as well call up the Vatican and ask for the Pope. When I still had a voice I called the Courthouse eight times one morning, not to talk to one of the eight majesties of the Mendocino County Superior Court, those holiest of holies, no my fellow vassals, I placed those calls because the verbal finger I got made me laugh. Yes, I’m easily amused, but try dialing a Courthouse number yourself and you’ll hear a chirpy recording of a female voice say, “Your call cannot be answered at this time. Please try again later. Good bye.” It was the way she said, “Good bye” that cracked me up. There was laughter in her voice, as in “Good bye forever, you fool. You’ll never get through to us because we only have one line and it will always be busy, forever and ever and ever.”

THE DA doesn't talk to Mendo media these days. We used to be on pretty good terms, good enough that the DA would stop in when he was in Boonville to chat. But when we started slugging away at him when he engineered the purge of the Auditor for no tangible reason other than his pique at her temerity for challenging his expense account, DA Dave, always a petulant personality type, went to the mattresses. Now, thanks to his judge buddies, DA Dave has managed to parlay his non-case into an expensively endless series of court appearances, replete with delays (of course) while his unilaterally-appointed substitute prosecutor at $400 an hour thank you very much suckers, “gets up to speed.” Last we heard she was still in pursuit of fully informed. Only in Mendo.

THE NIGHT BARRY BONDS jacked his big one in San Francisco, so many fans got on their cellphones the instant the ball disappeared into the center field stands that none of their calls got through. The networks were so jammed they failed for an average, T-Mobile announced the next day, “of 217 seconds.” When the Big One hits us expect telephone communications to disappear along with the freeway overpasses. Outside the park after the game, entrepreneurs held up signs offering $20 for ticket stubs.

BONDS’ record breaking home run ball that memorable night was caught by a Mets fan, a young man named Murphy, 21, who single-handedly caused a major revision in Murphy’s Law. Murphy, who lives in New York, who happened to stop in at the ballpark because he had a night to kill before he got on a plane for a vacation in Australia. Young Murph snagged the ball and was then serially assaulted in a huge pile of scrimmaging ball hawks. The kid wrapped his pummeled body around the little treasure and hung on until he could be rescued. He said later that “The San Francisco Police Department saved my life.” Murphy then put the ball in a bank vault and flew down under the next day. The lucky traveler then arranged with Sotheby’s and SCP Auctions to sell it to the highest bidder. Sotheby's also sold Bonds’ home run ball number 700 for $102,000 soon after Bonds launched it back in 2005. Bonds’ 715th home run ball, the one that put him ahead of Babe Ruth, sold for $220,100. Previous record-setting balls sold at auction include Bonds’ 73rd home run ball (surpassing Mark McGwire for the single season record), which sold in 2001 for $517,500. And Hank Aaron’s 755th ball which garnered $650,000 back in 1999.

THE HAZARD to satire in Mendo, or even obvious humor, arises from a stultifying combination of mass reading handicaps and political correctness or, as expressed lately, “wokeness.” Tommy Wayne Kramer, not so long ago, managed to outrage the county’s NPR brigades two weeks in a row. Kramer did an amusing riff on Ukiah’s outdoor concerts as dominated by the dozen or so skeletal exhibitionists who unfailingly insert their writhing, arrhythmic, cadaverous selves between the audience and the bandstand at outdoor pop music concerts. The entire Ukiah cemetery came out swinging on that one. One of Kramer’s critics managed to link his humor to Nazi propaganda, another dared us to substitute “hippie” for a u-pik variety of victim groups. Others merely applied the blanket opprobrium “inappropriate,” a fave of Kramer's Westside neighbors.

I’LL TAKE the hippie-as-victim dare. Ready? Mendocino County’s extinct hippies were not Holocaust Jews or Klan lynchees, and now that the children and the remedial readers are out of the room, we’ll continue.

THEN Kramer took a shot at Ukiah’s Methodist Church’s irritatingly pious announcement board which seem to accompany the treacly pop tunes the church plays on its loud speakers in lieu of traditional church bells, the net message being that Jesus Christ was not only a very hip guy, should He re-appear any time soon He is certain to make His way directly to the guest of honor pew among the Ukiah Methodists.

AS WITH KRAMER’S merry account of the ghosts of the Summer of Love at Ukiah’s concerts in the park, the inland descendants of John Wesley rallied in defense of a pop theology the old boy would not recognize, demanding that Kramer either be, well, crucified, or they’ll cancel their subscriptions to the Ukiah Daily Journal.

FROM THE MENDOCINO BEACON of August, 17th 1907: “Wendling (today's Navarro) is a bustling place, twenty miles out from Albion, situated among wooded hills in a picturesque canyon. The place is barely three years old and has a population of between three and four hundred, and has been made by the employment of about 200 men at good wages. A.G. Stearns, the president and general manager of the Stearns Lumber Company, is a practical lumberman and looks carefully after the details of the business. He conducts his business in such a manner that his men consider it fortunate to be employed by such a company. He is an up-to-date man and spares no pains or expense in keeping his plant strictly modern. One of the most affable and thoroughly competent mill superintendents in Mendocino County is William Lukes. He is a man of wide experience in the sawmill business and together with his natural abilities in this line and his keen sense as to what constitutes a strictly modern mill, he is running one of the most perfect one-site mills in the state. We are indebted to Mr. Lukes for showing us through the mill Tuesday. A drink from the famous soda water well was downed. The effervescence is very pronounced. When the pump is started, the water shoots out of the well a distance of ten or fifteen feet.”

THE OLD WELL, I believe, now lies beneath the Navarro Store. Water for the mill was drawn from a cistern hand dug by Chinese labor into the hillside west of 128 nearby. I think it still supplies several of Navarro’s homes with water as pure and untouched as the first sip taken by Adam and Eve.

TAKING IT IN FULLY…going back for more tomorrow, seeing Sugar Loaf Island on the way to Petrolia makes my heart sing!!

MIKE GENIELLA

Susan Faludi is a fine writer and insightful commentator on the American scene.

Some of us on the North Coast had the opportunity to get to know Faludi well when she roamed the backwoods and interviewed people about the Judi Bari/radical environmentalism phenomenon surrounding a long, hot summer of redwood logging protests three decades ago.

Later, when a federal civil rights case went to trial in Oakland after Bari's death, Faludi and I sat next to each other in the courtroom every day. Our professional relationship took off, and a personal friendship deepened. I have immense respect for Faludi, her judgments, and the penetrating analysis she brings to the 'poisonous huckster' who presents a challenge unlike any other.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/opinion/kamala-harris-donald-trump-security.html

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

For months now I have been trying to get Facebook to do something about a fake me that has been posting non existent merchandise for sale on Facebook and ultimately scamming some of you. I have requested from those of you that have accepted friend requests from this scammer that you report him and block him to no avail. This has become a very frustrating situation as it appears that no one is listening or maybe it's just too much trouble to do anything. This morning I got yet another request from someone I know to purchase one of the scam items that this person has listed. If it's too much trouble for you to block the faker or to figure out how to report him, contact me and I will guide you through the process. He is using this older photo of me on his page.

His page address is https://www.facebook.com/bruce.broderick.ii

Please take the time to help eradicate the scammer who is trying to steal from you.

SOMEWHERE, A BIRD IS HOMELESS

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Hurricane Helene came a-knocking last week, then spent most of her time knocking down trees and power poles. I got off easy with lashing winds and walls of water that hardly lasted an hour.

Cleaning up my backyard took most of a day, carrying armloads of sticks, twigs, branches and other tree debris out to the curb. Plus a bird nest.

Let’s leave that bird nest and the storm damage aside for a few paragraphs so we can catch up on neighborhood weather commentary. Unlike Ukiah and most other places, people in my tiny speck of North Carolina generally don’t much talk about the weather. I think it’s because weather here is just so amiable and cuddly.

Complain? What’s there to complain about?

There are four distinct seasons here, but they’re all muted and blended and fuzzy around the edges. Hot, but not very, a lot of rain but plenty of it comes during days when it’s 75 or 80 degrees, like a morning shower wearing wet jeans. Snow doesn’t happen but it’ll get cold so maybe snow will come next year. Humidity makes its presence known but everyone is so used to it that it doesn’t generate much more conversation than the clouds and the grass.

But when people can’t talk about the weather they still have a yearning to find some other subject. I must have been gone when the decision was made (and maybe voted on) that neighbors would instead talk about traffic.

And boy do they.

IN ESSENCE: “Those doggone cars are just too loud and they drive ‘em too darn fast!”

That’s everything you need to know, which means you are now invited to exit your home and join my neighbors on the sidewalk. Welcome to the chorus of grumblers hoping to place a curse upon Mustangs, Camaros and Dodge Chargers.

I agree the cars are loud, get driven too fast, and that the majority are late-model Mustangs, Camaros and Chargers. But if a dozen people are in agreement on just about anything, I’ve got a little voice inside that begs to differ.

And boy do I.

Just can’t help it. Someone has to offer a contrary opinion just to make things interesting. So when we hear the unbridled roar of a V-12 muffler-free rocket fueled Noisemobile from three blocks away, I cock my head to the side and say:

“Whoo! Cool! That’s gotta be a rare Hemi GT with double cam overbearings! Probably got triple dipsticks and an over-diffed slipperential! Those things are so amazing!” And I wave at the moron driving whatever the hell it is, give him a thumbs-up, and check to see how many of my neighbors think the way I do.

It doesn’t take long to add them up. (Mimic my social skills and you won’t need to send out many Christmas cards over the holidays.)

THAT BIRD NEST

The hurricane that swung through the Carolinas last week destroyed much, but south of Charlotte caught only the tail end. Compared to what Asheville endured my problems were zero.

As mentioned above, winds and rains toppled trees, broke branches and left a bird’s nest upside down in the middle of the yard. I kept the nest, although I’d happily return it to its rightful owner if I knew how.

Ever spent time looking at a bird nest? It might be among the simplest, crudest, most primitive housing structures the world has ever known, but I’ll bet you couldn’t build one. Seriously.

If you and I sat down at a table with all the necessary ingredients, plus a Youtube video and a garage full of tools, we would be unable to build a nest half as nice, solid and well-built as whichever li’l birdie built this one. Given twice the time we still couldn’t do it.

Every bird gets evicted from a nest, and without training has to know how to build its own. So s/he goes off and fetches back teeny sticks, bit of mud, grass and some more little twigs and brings ‘em back. In what order? Where does she store other components while the sticks are being installed?

Your nest would look like a a muddy ball of grass byproducts you jammed a fist into to make a concave place to rest your weary wings.

Your nest would not look much better than a third grader’s nest, yet vastly inferior to a nest built by a robin.

DONALD ANDERSON: LAKE COUNTY ARSONIST

Man Arrested On Suspicion Of Setting Two Lake County Fires

The fires, which took place Sept. 22 and Oct. 2, collectively burned about 1 acre.

by Madison Smalstig

CalFire officials arrested a man late last week on suspicion of setting two fires in Lake County, authorities said.

Donald Anderson, 41, of Clearlake, was arrested Friday on suspicion of two felony counts of arson of a structure or of forest land and two felony counts of arson during a state of emergency.

Authorities believe Anderson started a fire on Sept. 22 off Seigler Canyon Road west of Lower Lake that grew to just under 1 acre, the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit said in a Sunday news release.

Then on Wednesday, Oct. 2, just over two weeks after the first blaze, Anderson is believed to have set a fire off New Long Valley Road in Clearlake Oaks that burned about 0.01 acres.

He was booked into the Lake County jail and is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

In January 2004, Anderson was convicted of arson charges and was ordered to serve more than 17 years in prison, the release said.

Nineteen arson-related charges were initially filed against Anderson in October 2003 in that case, according to Lake County Superior Court records.

Jason Clay, a Cal Fire spokesman, did not have details on what fires were connected to the 2003 case.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, October 6, 2024

JOHN ACUFF, 57, Redwood Valley. Registered sex offender cultivating marijuana, vandalism.

PATRICK BAUER, 44, Ukiah. DUI.

JOSE CARAPIA-MALDONADO, 43, Ukiah. Trespassing, vandalism.

ROYCE FULTON, 40, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, failure to appear.

NINA GIACOMINI, 33, Hopland. Domestic battery, probation violation.

CHRISTOPHER GONZALEZ, 22, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, vandalism.

IESHA MALAGON, 25, Fort Bragg. Exhibition of firearm in threatening manner, criminal threats, conspiracy.

GERARDO MAYO-QUINTANA, 28, Ukiah. DUI.

CODY MENDEZ, 21, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

JAMES MILLER, 37, Ukiah. Vandalism, county parole violation.

MARK PIERCE, 28, New Castle/Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance.

ALEJANDRO SANDOVAL, 40, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DANIEL VANHORN, 25, Fort Bragg. Assault with firearm on person, criminal threats, conspiracy, probation revocation.

ANTOINE WILLIAMS, 47, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JUSTIN WILLIAMSON, 42, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, paraphernalia, probation violation.

MARIN CONFIDENTIAL

1. David Glick Now Rests In Power; 2. Bodycam/Docs Suggests JCRC Used Sausalito Police To Unlawfully Remove and Threaten Reporter; 3. CPRA Shows MJPAU, Sen. Becker Organizing Pro-Israel Candidates

As the US is drawn further into Israel’s illegal wars, local pro-Israel elected reps and the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area (aka SF JCRC) further retaliate against critics of Israel.

https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/1david-glick-now-rests-in-power-2

GERALD LOVE:

I’m not sure if it’s still there but it’s often taken down by the park service and replaced by swing-loving locals. Circa 2016

49ERS WILT IN THE HEAT, BLOW 13-POINT LEAD TO CARDINALS AND LOSE 24-23

by Eric Branch

The San Francisco 49ers melted down Sunday in the hottest game in Levi’s Stadium history.

In a second-half collapse that echoed their Week 3 loss to the Rams two weeks earlier, the 49ers squandered a 13-point, second-half lead and lost 24-23 to the Cardinals.

Yes, that should sound very familiar. The Cardinals arrived with a 1-3 record, were coming off a 28-point loss and trailed 23-10 in the third quarter. On Sept. 22, the Rams had an 0-2 record and were coming off a 31-point loss before erasing a 14-point, third-quarter hole in a 27-24 win.

The Cardinals capped their comeback on Chad Ryland’s 35-yard field goal with 1:40 left. And the stunner was sealed when 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was drilled in mid-throw and his flutterball was intercepted by linebacker Kyzir White at midfield with 1:10 left.

On Sunday, the 49ers defense wilted in the latter stages in a game in which the temperature at kickoff was 95 degrees, breaking the Levi’s record of 88 in the 49ers’ 28-21 loss the Seahawks on Oct. 3, 2021.

Trailing 23-13 late in the third quarter, the Cardinals’ final two possessions included a 12-play, 73-yard touchdown drive and a 14-play, 74-yard drive that ended with Ryland’s field goal. On the drives, 233-pound running back James Conner (19 carries, 84 yards) broke endless tackles while gaining 72 yards on 12 carries.

Arizona’s drives sandwiched a 61-yard march by the 49ers that ended in disaster: Running back Jordan Mason lost a fumble on 1st-and-goal from the 8-yard line with 6:11 left.

As a result, the 49ers fell to 2-3 heading into Thursday night’s game in Seattle, a game in which they likely won’t have kicker Jake Moody, who was carted to the locker room late in the second quarter with an injury to his right ankle.

The 49ers led 23-10 at halftime thanks partly to a sensational performance from Brandon Aiyuk, who ended his sluggish start to the season with 8 catches for 147 yards.

After managing just 13 catches for 167 yards in the season’s first four games. Aiyuk had 4 catches for 91 yards in the game’s first 12-plus minutes and went over 100 yards with 10 minutes left in the second quarter.

Aiyuk had a 53-yard catch on the 49ers’ first offensive snap, which led to a field goal. And he had catches of 16, 9 and 13 yards on a 76-yard drive that capped by Purdy’s 4-yard scoring pass to tight end George Kittle that gave the 49ers a 10-7 first-quarter lead.

The 49ers’ special teams had enough breakdowns in the first four games to invite speculation about coordinator Brian Schneider’s job security. On Sunday, however, they delivered what at the time seemed to be a game-shifting play.

With the 49ers leading 13-10 with about five minutes left before halftime, Ryland attempted a 45-yard field goal that ended up in the opposite end zone. The potential game-tying kick was blocked by defensive tackle Jordan Elliott and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir scooped up the loose ball and returned it 61 yards to give the 49ers a 20-10 lead.

However, on the ensuing kickoff Moody was hurt. He immediately grabbed at his ankle after he tackled DeeJay Dallas on a 39-yard return. Moody, who was bent backward when making the tackle, slowly limped off the field before finally hopping his way to the sideline.

Moody was replaced by punter Mitch Wishnowsky, who kicked a 26-yard field goal to end the first half. However, Wishnowsky is not a candidate to assume full-time duties and the 49ers will likely need to sign a kicker before they visit Seattle. In the third quarter, the 49ers, leading 23-13, eschewed a 45-yard field goal attempt on 4-and-23 from the 27-yard line and turned it over on downs when Purdy threw an incompletion.

The 49ers’ deficit was trimmed to 23-21 with 11:25 left when Murray finished a 73-yard drive with a 2-yard toss to tight end Elijah Higgins. After a roughing-the-passer penalty on the score made it a 1-yard two-point conversion attempt, Arizona went for it and converted on Conner’s plunge up the middle.

(SF Chronicle)

49ERS GAME GRADES: Second-half collapse, Jake Moody injury seal stunning loss to Cardinals

by Michael Lerseth

A mediocre start to the season took a turn for the worse Sunday as the San Francisco 49ers blew a 13-point second-half lead and fell to 2-3 with a 24-23 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

Offense: F

The Niners didn’t have a field-goal option with the injury to Jake Moody, but with or without a kicker S.F. sealed its fate by going 1-for-6 in the red zone. The rumored-to-be high-powered attack was scoreless in the second half against the NFL’s 25th-ranked defense. Brock Purdy was decidedly mediocre: 19-for-35 for 244 yards, a season-low 62.1 rating and a pair of interceptions — both off deflected passes. Brandon Aiyuk returned to form (eight catches, 147 yards — third highest in his career) and Jordan Mason rushed for 89, but his fumble with 6:11 to play gave Arizona the last-gasp chance it needed.

Defense: D

San Francisco couldn’t keep Kyler Murray under wraps in the first half and got run over by James Conner in the second. Murray (19-for-30) threw for just 195 yards, but was sacked only once and he and Conner (19 carries, 86 yards) combined for 169 rushing yards and averaged 6.5 per carry. Arizona finished with 358 yards of offense, slightly above its season average of 333, but 148 of that came on fourth-quarter drives that covered 12 and 14 plays, respectively.

Special Teams: B

This unit experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in a two-play span. Jordan Elliott’s second-quarter blocked field goal was scooped up by Deommodore Lenoir and returned 61 yards to turn what might have been a tied score into a 20-10 Niners lead. But on the ensuing kickoff, kicker Jake Moody was injured trying to make a tackle and knocked from the game. Punter Mitch Wishnowsky delivered a 26-yard field goal as an emergency fill-in, but wasn’t called on again.

Coaching: D

As much as the defense melted in the second half, so too did Kyle Shanahan’s offense. After finishing the first half by going field goal-TD-field goal-field goal, the 49ers’ four second-half drives went interception-turnover on downs-fumble-interception. Shanahan’s most important decision of the week might come Monday or Tuesday when he and GM John Lynch decide which kicker to sign in the wake of Moody’s injury.

Overall: D

Trouble is afoot in NinersLand, and it goes far beyond the issue with Moody. The defending NFC champions are 2-3 — 0-3 in conference play — and the past two losses have come against division foes and featured blown double-digit leads. The offense and defense are prone to too many stretches of ineffectiveness. A short week heading into a game in Seattle might offer a chance to quickly put this one behind them, but the season appears to be hanging in the balance with games against the Chiefs and Cowboys following the contest with the Seahawks.

(SF Chronicle)

CALIFORNIA TRIBES SEEK TO STOP PLANS FOR STATE’S LARGEST RESERVOIR IN DECADES

by Kurtis Alexander

In the sun-drenched hills of Colusa County, where California leaders are pushing for construction of the state’s largest reservoir in decades, Charlie Wright sees more than a dusty valley destined to hold water.

Wright, who is tribal chairman of the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, sees pieces of his people’s past on this sparsely populated land on what is today cattle country 70 miles northwest of Sacramento.

“You look deep enough and there is a village there. There is a food processing site there,” Wright said. “There are trails and landmarks. This history isn’t known to a lot of nontribal folks who don’t study it, but it is well known by the tribes, and we haven’t forgotten.”

The Native American ties to this rural stretch of Northern California have emerged as the latest point of contention in the bid to build the $4.5 billion Sites Reservoir. In recent weeks, a handful of tribes concerned about disturbing a special spot have stepped up efforts to stop the project, even as supporters laud it as one of the state’s best answers to drought.

The area where the 13-mile-long reservoir is proposed, around the small, unincorporated community of Sites, holds not only collective memories for the tribes but physical remnants of their past. These include relics of settlements, burial sites and sacred stones such as “Medicine Rock” and “Poison Rock,” some of which are still used in cultural practices today. All are markers of a place where indigenous people lived, worked and worshiped.

Officials at the Sites Project Authority, the agency set up to pursue the giant water facility, say they’re committed to doing all they can to protect what’s important to the tribes. But they don’t intend to halt their plans, and they say they’re doing what’s legally required to address the area’s past.

“We’re open to talking to any tribes about their concerns and how we might be able to move forward with the project while preserving and maintaining their place and needs,” Jerry Brown, the reservoir authority’s executive director, told the Chronicle. Brown is not related to the former governor with the same name.

Sites Reservoir, if built, would be California’s eighth largest reservoir. Proponents of the project, which include Gov. Gavin Newsom, see it as a cornerstone of the state’s effort to address climate change by offering a new, large supply of water for hotter, drier times.

The planned 1.5 million acre-feet of stored water, enough for more than 3 million households annually, would be delivered to cities and irrigation districts across the state, including the Bay Area and Southern California.

Unlike traditional reservoirs, Sites is an off-stream project, which means it has the advantage of not sitting on a major waterway and directly disrupting river flows or fish. Instead, water would be piped in from the nearby Sacramento River during wet years and held until it was needed during dry years.

Officials at the reservoir authority, in a months-long hearing that is under way, are seeking a water right from the California State Water Resources Control Board to take the river water needed to fill the reservoir. The water right may be the biggest hurdle to moving forward with the project. The decision on the water right is scheduled to be made next year, and officials hope to begin construction of the reservoir the year after, with the facility operational by 2033.

At least five tribes are asking the water resources board to deny the requested water right, including those whose ancestors lived at the proposed reservoir site. The footprint of the project extends from Colusa County to Glenn County.

For thousands of years before European settlement, the Patwin people, which include the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, resided in villages in the flats and highlands west of the Sacramento River. They hunted, fished and gathered in what was a temperate, bountiful region. After the Spanish arrived in the 1800s, the indigenous people were ousted from the land. Many were killed.

“That was home up on the hills,” said Wayne Mitchum Jr., chairman of the Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians, another Patwin tribe that’s helping lead the opposition to the reservoir.

The Cachil Dehe today, counting just 45 members, operates out of the Colusa Rancheria along the Sacramento River just north of the city of Colusa. The proposed reservoir site is still important to the tribe for collecting plants for teas, medicines, baskets and other cultural necessities, Mitchum said.

“Everything that we needed was in that area. The acorns that we harvest to this day were in that area. The grasses, the willows, the oaks” that we use, Mitchum said. “If this thing goes through, it would change access to the area.”

The Cachil Dehe have documented three burial grounds and several places of ancestral settlement that would be submerged with the reservoir project. The tribe has also indicated that sacred sites, including the “Medicine Rock” and “Poison Rock,” would be affected.

The written testimony of the tribe to the State Water Board says that if the reservoir is built, their history “essentially disappears.”

The environmental impact report for the reservoir, completed by the Sites Reservoir Project Authority, has pledged to return artifacts and human remains found during construction. It also calls for tribal monitors to be present to ensure safekeeping of historical items that may be unearthed as the work is done.

The Cachil Dehe and other tribes are also raising concerns about the water that would be piped from the Sacramento River to the proposed reservoir. They worry such diversions would leave river flows too scant and warm for California’s struggling salmon and degrade water quality in the river.

“If this (project) happens, they’ll be pulling water from above us and pushing water out below us,” said Amanda Mitchum, vice chairwoman of the Cachil Dehe.

The tribe’s objections to the water diversions are shared by the larger Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians as well as several environmental and fishing groups. The common criticism is that the Sacramento River is already overallocated and more water should not be taken out.

“It’s (about) the ecosystem,” Amanda Mitchum said. “It’s the birds that come and the fish. It’s the other animals that live along the river. Also, for us, for our ceremony times, we go to the rivers. It’s where I personally go to heal myself and reconnect.”

The Sites Project Authority is proposing to take water only during wet years, after other water rights and regulatory requirements are met. As a result, flows and water quality would not be compromised, officials say. Still, the tribes and other critics fear exceptions would be made to skim more water out of the river to ensure that the reservoir is full.

A lawsuit already filed against the project, arguing that it would be ecologically destructive, was not successful. Newsom exercised his power, under a new package of legislation designed to cut red tape, to fast track the court ruling.

“These are projects that will address our state’s biggest challenges, and the Sites Reservoir is fully representative of that goal — making sure Californians have access to clean drinking water and making sure we’re more resilient against future droughts,” Newsom said at the time.

In addition to acquiring a water right, the reservoir’s future hinges on getting financial commitments from the nearly two dozen water agencies that want water from the project. California voter-approved bonds are set to cover $875 million of the reservoir’s cost, but the balance would have to be paid by the beneficiaries.

Both the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources are expected to receive water, as will regional agencies. The biggest regional agency is the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Among the Bay Area recipients are the Tri-Valley’s Zone 7 Water Agency and Santa Clara Valley Water District.

(SF Chronicle)

THE COUPLE WHO HIKED FROM WASHINGTON THROUGH CALIFORNIA WITH A BABY

Life on the Pacific Crest Trail involved diaper changes, breastfeeding and nap time

by Fiona Lee

Thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is no easy task. The 2,653-mile trail snakes through three states (California, Oregon and Washington), with challenging terrain from the remote desert to the High Sierra. Along the way, hikers face everything from wildfires to snowstorms — and sheer exhaustion.

Jack McClure and his wife Alana added a whole new level of difficulty, though. They hiked the PCT with their 9-month-old daughter, Enedina (nicknamed Din, pronounced “Deen”). With Din strapped into a baby hiking backpack, the family spent three months on the trail last year, beginning in early July 2023, hiking south from Hart’s Pass in Washington to the edge of the Mojave Desert in California. Although they skipped some sections for safety reasons and other sections because of wildfires, they hiked 1,500 miles of the trail before calling it quits in October.

Hiking southbound already set the McClures apart from many other thru-hikers; over 90% of PCT thru-hikers begin in Southern California, near the border with Mexico, and head north. But hiking with a baby was truly the departure from the norm — this highly unusual journey involved diapers, breastfeeding and nap time.

‘How Hard Could It Be?’

As residents of Fairbanks, Alaska, Jack and Alana both had extensive outdoors experience, including long backpacking trips, off-trail hikes and forestry work. Alana had even worked on a trail crew for months on the PCT, which in turn inspired the couple to consider a thru-hike. The family had also taken what would turn out to be a trial journey in the deserts of Utah and Arizona, where they camped and hiked for six weeks beginning when Din was just 6 weeks old.

“We felt comfortable with our skill set and experience,” Jack says. “… When our daughter was born, we saw [the PCT] as an opportunity to fully live our values and offer an experience for her in line with that.”

Their experiences in the outdoors gave them the confidence to undertake the PCT with Din. It also helped that their pediatrician gave them the go-ahead to attempt the trip with a 9-month-old.

“How hard could it be?” Jack remembers wondering.

On Day 1, they realized what backpacking with an infant would entail, as Jack recounts in his book capturing their experience, “You Carry the Tent, I’ll Carry the Baby.” They had forgotten the soap that they needed to wash the diapers. Some of their homemade food supplies were contaminated by citronella leaching from insect-repellant wipes. Mice and mosquitos infiltrated their tent at night, and they had forgotten one of the bug nets. Din woke up intermittently, screaming, throughout the night, only soothed by breastfeeding with Alana, which in turn kept her up as well.

That first night was a precursor for some of the difficulties the family faced with Din throughout the trip. “She was never a good sleeper, that was a challenge throughout,” Jack says. For most of their trip, the family would not be able to sleep for more than three hours in a row.

“She slept once basically throughout the night, a couple weeks into the trip in Washington, and then maybe once or twice later on,” he says. “But generally, a good night was if she could sleep like two-and-a-half, three hours at a stretch without waking. And so that part, you know, really, really strained everything.”

The sleep deprivation took a mounting toll on them as they pushed through Washington, Oregon and California, exacerbating some of the biggest challenges on the trail — the mental ones.

It would even take a toll on the relationship between Jack and Alana, he says candidly. The couple often “had a lot of friction” on the trail, “with a layer of fatigue” as they hiked 18 to 20 miles a day, spending all of their time together in an extreme environment. And the sleep deprivation meant that sometimes Alana needed naps too, which sometimes frustrated Jack, who wanted to keep going.

“We just didn’t have our sense of home and a space where we could get comfortable again. So that friction kind of lived with us. And we tried to work through that a lot,” he says. “We have been working through that, and I think because of that trip, and then even the book as well, we’ve gotten to a far better place.”

There were also the practical issues to deal with, like the hiking backpack itself. The couple would take turns carrying Din in the hiking backpack. Not built for monthslong hikes, over time it would rub uncomfortably on their backs.

One of their biggest concerns was diapers. “Disposables get heavy really fast,” Jack pointed out. He says that they ended up doing a hybrid system, using reusable cloth diapers with disposable bamboo liners, paired with 24 hours’ worth of disposables before heading into a town, where they could restock.

For poopy diapers, they removed the solids and packed them out. They cleaned the cloth diapers using a simple washing system involving large Ziploc bags, and then hung them out to dry from their packs as they hiked.

But for all the many challenges of thru-hiking the PCT with a 21-pound baby, there were also moments of joy.

‘A Mix Of Enjoyment And Suffering’

Although Din could be fussy, she enjoyed taking in the sights and sounds of the great outdoors. She could be entertained with rocks and pine cones, and she loved climbing on logs and rocks when the family stopped for breaks or camping. She loved babbling and saying “Hi!” to new people that she met on the trail and in town. She would earn her own trail name: “Cheeks.”

Din would even celebrate her first birthday on the trail, in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite.

Another aspect that brought joy and inspiration to the McClures was the reaction from other hikers and thru-hikers once they realized that the couple with the baby wasn’t simply out for a day hike. Although Jack says that their own family and friends had discouraged them from attempting the thru hike with Din, the reaction on the trail itself was often very different.

The family sometimes met young female hikers, in their late 20s or early 30s, who were solo hiking.

“One of the women we met, her mom had been hounding her to have kids, because she wanted grandkids,” Jack says, “but this woman, she didn’t want to stop hiking and traveling on all these long trails. Seeing us made her realize, it wasn’t the end of her life … you can continue to do things, albeit perhaps at a different pace and a different style.”

There was only one negative interaction that they had on their 1,500-mile journey, Jack says, and the largely positive reaction from others in turn inspired the couple.

“We didn’t go into the trip thinking that we would be as much of an inspiration for others,” Jack says, “… We were doing it largely to have just a good experience for ourselves. But, it was kind of heartening to see that as we went on.”

They also experienced the much-vaunted hospitality of the PCT’s trail angels, the people who help thru-hikers with supplies, stays and drives, often at no charge.

“It was all a mix of enjoyment and suffering,” Jack says. “… We had some good experiences with trail angels and other people in the town of Pinecrest. We spent two nights in a trail angel’s home during a storm.”

The End Of The Journey

When they decided to call it quits, the end came quickly. As they hiked from Walker Pass, about 600 miles (and a month away) from the Mexican border, it suddenly felt like too much.

“We had agreed early on that if one of us felt like it was a death march, we would stop, and it was beyond evident that we had pushed past that point,” Jack wrote in his book.

“It was a tough decision to leave the trail, I think largely because of ego-driven desires and wanting to complete the trail,” Jack says. “…It’s not as cool if you’re not finishing up at the Mexican border, if you just finish at some random spot in the Mojave Desert. But like, at the end of the day, the goal of our trip was to have a fun experience as a family.”

Ultimately, Jack says that hiking the trail with their daughter was an extension of the values they already live in Alaska, of self-sufficiency and embracing adventure.

“For us, the PCT was a way to be alive and to live our values,” he says. “For someone else, that might be a weekend on the PCT. We just encourage people to embrace their challenges. Having children doesn’t mean your life is over.”

(SFgate)

YEARS AFTER KILLING IT, TRUMP WANTS TO RESTORE TAX BREAK POPULAR IN CALIFORNIA

In an odd agreement with Democrats Pelosi and Schumer, Trump vows to end limit on deducting state and local taxes

by Dan Walters

More often than not, the two major political parties directly oppose each other on major issues, which explains why those issues tend to linger, unresolved, for years or even decades.

Occasionally, however, there are issues that deviate from the partisan pattern, creating odd-bedfellows alliances. One of them is a 2017 overhaul of federal income taxes that, among other things, limited deductions of state and local taxes — known as SALT in political and media circles — to $10,000.

The tax legislation included many other provisions, including a big expansion of the standard deduction to offset the SALT limit, and it’s regarded as former President Donald Trump’s major achievement.

From the onset, the deduction cap was more a geographic issue than a partisan one, because it had its greatest effect on states with lots of high-income taxpayers and high-income tax rates, especially New York and California.

Leaders of those two states were vocal in their opposition, claiming that the cap on deductions was devised by Trump and other Republicans as punishment for left-leaning politics. It would, the critics said, encourage wealthy taxpayers to move to low- or no-income tax states such as Nevada, Texas and Florida to escape the indirect increase of their tax payments.

A 2018 study by the California Franchise Tax Board — the state’s primary tax collection agency — concluded that the SALT deduction limit would cost Californians an estimated $12 billion a year in higher payments, with three-fourths of that falling on Californians with incomes of $1 million or more and the remainder on taxpayers with taxable incomes of $100,000 to $999,999.

The high-income communities clustered around San Francisco Bay saw the greatest impact. In Santa Clara County, for instance, the average tax return with itemized deductions reported outlays of $46,817.53 in state and local taxes, but could deduct just $8,931.28 due to the SALT limit.

Democrats weren’t the only critics, however. Republican leaders in California and New York also opposed the SALT cap.

Meanwhile, the 2017 legislation’s increase in the standard deduction — now nearly $30,000 on joint federal tax returns — benefitted many middle-income taxpayers who didn’t have more than $10,000 in deductible state and local taxes.

New York and California political leaders in Congress, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the long-time speaker of the House, vowed to undo the deduction limit, but it has survived.

All of the provisions of the 2017 tax legislation will expire at the end of 2025, but Trump is now vowing that if he returns to the White House, he will press for immediate repeal of the deduction limit.

“I will turn it around, get SALT back, lower your taxes and so much more,” he pledged on his Truth Social website last week.

That promise puts Trump on the same side of the issue as Schumer and Pelosi, strange bedfellows indeed. “As long as I’m leader, when the state and local deductibility (cap) expires, it will be gone,” Schumer responded to Trump’s new position.

However, what Trump, Schumer, Pelosi and other political figures in high-tax states want is now drawing fire from the left, contending that repeal or expiration would be a financial windfall for the wealthy.

A study by the Tax Policy Center, a center-left think tank, found that repeal “would cut 2025 taxes by an average of more than $140,000 for the highest-income 0.1 percent of families but provide little or no help to low- and middle-income households.”

The SALT debate once again proves that what is taxed and how much is levied is a purely arbitrary — and therefore very political — process.

(CalMatters.org)

A Ford model A pickup waits for a train to pass, 1930.

A PROBLEM IN PRISONS

by Rev. Lester Kinsolving

[The Signal, Santa Clarita, CA, Sep. 19, 1969; via Deb Silva]

A legislative bill which would allow Wisconsin prison inmates to have sexual relations with female visitors has been strongly denounced by the conservative Protestant magazine Christianity Today. “Outrageous,” editorialized the fortnightly magazine, “the criminal has forfeited rights and privileges that would normally be his.”

“To what extent even a married inmate should be provided all the comforts of home is open to question,” contends the magazine. But, it notes, “sexual relations with the opposite sex” under the proposed Wisconsin law “would not be restricted to married couples!”

Such a stance by this periodical (which has been heavily subsidized by far right Presbyterian layman J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil Co.) is one example why Christianity Today is widely known as “Christianity Yesterday.” And it is just this sort of vindictive and puritanical attitude that has kept the American penal system a collection of sodomy factories.

Clinton T. Duffy, whose enlightened administration of San Quentin Prison has been world renowned, has noted that “One of the worst tragedies of prison life is the not infrequent transformation from heterosexual to homosexual preferences. Many of these men become so used to a male sex partner that they can't resume a normal relationship when the time comes.” The noted warden also points out that the present system of denying any normal sexual outlet for the years of prison sentences frequently wrecks inmates’ marriages, results in numerous children born out of wedlock to lonely wives and incites not only frequent escape attempts but generates “nine tenths of the nation's prison unrest.”

He notes that by comparison these things are virtually unknown and the cost of custody (fewer guards) much less in those prison systems such as Mississippi and Mexico where conjugal visits are allowed. Moreover, there is no “penalizing a man for being single,” as Mr. Duffy puts it, since bachelor inmates “have the same drives as married men.” Single inmates are allowed to court and marry while in Mexican prisons, they can even advertise for a wife, often successfully, in the Mexico City magazine ‘Confidencias.’

The Mexican penal system also allows inmates to have mistresses as visitors, but not more than one such registered visitor during any period of time, unless the inmate certifies his desire to end the relationship.

And if such a system is “outrageous” to Christianity Today, neither this magazine nor any of its like-minded adherents have taken much of a lead in demanding that courts and police enforce the existing state laws against fornication and adultery.

Even were US prison inmates allowed conjugal visits, all convicts are still denied the basic freedom which a great many Americans have died on battlefields to protect. To deprive men of freedom as well as any normal sexual outlet results in what Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Raymond Pace Alexander calls “sending monsters out into the community.”

Judge Alexander also urges conjugal visits for prisoners regardless of whether they are married or single, provided “there are legitimate long-term common law relationships.” And he points out that there are just such systems maintained in Peru, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, the Middle and Far East and Scandinavia.

Under the present US prison policy, the National Catholic Reporter recently carried a front page report that conscientious objectors at Pennsylvania's Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary are being subjected to “discipline-by- threat-of-rape.”

The weekly newspaper named several inmates and a protesting prison psychiatrist as having said that certain prisoners were punished by being sent to “the jungle” section of the prison where, according to the Reporter, one young conscientious objector was sexually assaulted three times in one night.

“Homosexual rape is nothing new,” observes the National Catholic Reporter. “What is new is the prison authorities’ use of the threat of homosexual attack — veiled, to be sure, but nonetheless real — as a weapon in maintaining discipline."

Despite such concern about prison homosexuality it may take a long time before the passage of conjugal visit laws which could substantially reduce the problem. And the irony of conservative church members and magazines opposing such a program is that these people are generally even more horrified by the homosexuality that inevitably results, due to what Duffy cites as the folly of “burying our heads in the sand and (failing to) acknowledge the facts of prison life.”

HUMBOLDT NATIVE DESCRIBES HOW HURRICANE HELENE HAS DEVASTATED HER NEW HOMETOWN OF ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

by Mellisa Frei

I’d like to mention first that I write this coming from a place of privilege, as my husband, dog and myself are safe, and our home was spared from the destruction of Hurricane Helene. My business is also not damaged, but because Western North Carolina is mostly out of power, and there is no running water for potentially months, I am out of work indefinitely. Officials have said even when the water is turned back on, the water is so contaminated we may not be able to shower or drink it. There were many factories that were washed away by the rushing waters, including a plastics manufacturer, so the mud that is leftover in towns and buildings is full of chemicals.

It’s hard to explain this catastrophic situation to my fellow Humboldt folks, or anyone who doesn’t live in the South East. My whole family lives in Eureka, and most of my best friends as well, so I’ll try to use examples I gave them. Imagine you live up on Humboldt Hill, up Fickle Hill, or Kneeland. You come down the hill into town and all you see is brown rushing water and the roofs of buildings. Eureka is gone. Arcata is gone. Then you learn Blue Lake, Willow Creek, Fortuna, and Ferndale have also been wiped out. I’ve lived in Asheville, NC for 8 years now, and one of the many reasons I fell in love with it is because it reminds me of Humboldt. We are full of locally owned businesses, art galleries, breweries, really special restaurants and shops. Surrounded by forests and hiking trails. A lot of Asheville and the surrounding towns have areas just like Old Town or the Arcata Plaza, and they are now rubble. I heard one business owner say in 2004 when we had a bad flood, the water came up to the steps of her business, this time it was up to the ceiling.

But Asheville is not coastal, we are at 2,100 feet elevation in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hundreds of miles away from the ocean. We are not known to be affected by hurricanes, nor do we get other natural disasters like forest fires, earthquakes, or tornados. This was all extremely unexpected and we were not properly told how to prepare like how Florida would be during a hurricane. Parts of North Carolina got up to 30 inches of rain dumped on us in a matter of days, even before the hurricane actually hit us. Since we are a hilly and mountainous terrain, the water funneled into our valleys and rivers and streams. Many of our rivers run right through town, including The French Broad and Swannanoa River. Once these started to overflow, the water began to rush into neighborhoods within minutes.

When we woke up Friday, Sept. 27, we were without power and our phones were not working. Our neighborhood had downed trees and power lines but again, we are up on a hill away from the water so we just thought we had had a bad wind storm. Historic Biltmore Village is at the bottom of our neighborhood, once we walked down there we realized what was really going on. I could only see the roofs of my favorite vintage stores, a food truck we frequent was floating away alongside a semi truck and propane tanks, our friend’s apartment building was surrounded by rushing water up to the second floor with people stuck on their balconies. A group of us stood by the water’s edge and heard someone yelling “help” over and over and we couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

The scene I’m describing happened all over Asheville, but also our surrounding towns in Appalachia like Marshall, Black Mountain, Hot Springs, and Burnsville to name a few. Wonderful, vibrant, community-driven places that literally look like they got bombed. One of our major highways heading out of town collapsed. Many roads have washed away that lead to rural areas so emergency vehicles cannot get there. We have pack mules bringing in supplies and incredible humans hiking to check on missing people. Thats the amazing thing we are all witnessing is the community coming together to save each other, it’s so hopeful during this deeply devastating time. And I can say I’m actually thankful for social media right now, everyone is sharing information via Instagram, including our city officials. Now that there is limited internet in some places, there are Instagram posts and stories daily updating town supply needs, drinking water and medic tent locations, what fire department has wifi, how to apply for disaster relief unemployment, missing persons, etc. It’s how my friends have been able to tell each other “I’M SAFE!” when our phones didn’t work for days. Through all the suffering Asheville is very lucky to have some of these resources, but many more people in surrounding areas are stuck out in nooks and crannies, with zero contact, waiting to be rescued.

I really appreciate you for reading this. We are all desperate for more outreach. I don’t think the rest of the country is really understanding the severity, this is the second worst hurricane in the nation’s history after Katrina. If you are able to donate, here are some local grassroots organizations that have been on the ground absolutely killing it since day one:

BeLoved Asheville
Venmo: @BeLoved-Asheville
Paypal: BeLovedAsheville
Cashapp: $BeLovedAsheville

Mountain Mule Packers
Venmo: @mountainmulepackers

Asheville Survival
Venmo: @AppMedSolid

(Asheville is spelled with two e’s, avoid scammers!)

AARON BUFF, A CHAIR MAKER FROM BURKE COUNTY, NC.

Aaron Buff found his calling as a chair maker when he was about ten years old. One of ten children of Hud and Cordie Buff, who farmed and operated a corn mill in the southern part of Burke County, he attended the nearby Absher school in the early 1920s. “They had a workshop down there, and they made stools and the man made splits,” he recalled. “Had two turning lathes down there. I never will forget, I turned one round and put it in a chair I took from the house. Oh law, I thought I had done something!”

Two young women at the school showed him how to weave the chair bottom. “They showed me how to start the chair, how to run the twill. And I’d make a mistake, they’d say, ‘Wait a minute, buster,’ and get me started right.” As soon as he was reasonably adept in using the lathe and weaving chair bottoms, he set out to redo the family furniture. “My daddy and mother had one chair in the house that they could use. The rest of them, the bottoms was out of them. I took one at a time to the schoolhouse.”

His ability caught the attention of a veteran chairmaker, Simie Wortman (1866-1938), who gave him a place to live and taught him the full competence of a chair maker-from choosing timber to producing a finished chair. “He showed me how to make them backing chisels to mortise this by hand, to put that hole in there,” said Buff. “And when he got through, he made a very neat chair.”

Aaron Buff practiced the chair maker’s art for 70 years. In addition to regular slatback chairs with woven oak-split seats, he made children’s chairs and highchairs, tool handles, rolling pins, baseball bats, three kinds of stools, and even “column posts” for the front porches of houses. In his later years, he liked to compare himself to his old turning lathe in the backyard shed where he worked: “It’s old, and I’m old, and we get along.”

The North Carolina Heritage Award in 1994 recognized Aaron Buff’s legacy of high standards of craftsmanship, of integrity, and of pride in his work. A good chair, he believed, was sturdy, comfortable, and made to last. “Simie Wortman taught me to make chairs,” he said, and he recalled his mentor’s advice: “Don’t count time. Make it as neat as you can. People’ll beat a path to your door and buy what you make. I try to make it like Simie said: ‘Make something that’ll last.

TWIN EVILS

Editor:

Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a reckless action designed to provoke Iran and bring about the expanded war that Benjamin Netanyahu has wanted for years. Who benefits from this? Only two people: Netanyahu and Donald Trump.

Netanyahu wants an expanded war so undecided voters in the U.S. will vote for Trump in the mistaken belief that he will be able to resolve the conflict. In fact, a Trump presidency would make things even worse. Both Netanyahu and Trump are evil and desperate men willing to take us past the brink of world war to serve their own ambitions. And we Americans are the only people who can stop them.

Larry Hendel

Bodega Bay

MONDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

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Another Hurdle in Recovery From Helene: Misinformation Is Getting in the Way

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THE ALBATROSS is the largest bird that can go years without landing. They spend their first 6 years of life flying over the ocean before coming to the land to mate. It is capable of traveling more than 10,000 miles in a single journey and circumnavigating the globe in 46 days.

ELON MUSK AT TRUMP’S RALLY [Full Transcript]

“Hi everyone.

As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA.

First of all, I want to say what an honor it is to be here.

You know, the true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire.

And we had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot.

Fight, fight, fight! Blood coming down the face.

America is the home of the brave, and there’s no truer test than courage under fire.

Who do you want representing America?

And I think this election is the most important election of our lifetime.

This is no ordinary election.

The other side wants to take away your freedom of speech.

They want to take away your right to bear arms.

They want to take away your right to vote effectively.

You’ve got 14 states now that don’t require voter ID.

California, where I used to live, just passed a law banning voter ID for voting.

I still can’t believe that’s real.

So how are you supposed to have a good, proper election if there’s no ID?

It’s just meaningless.

And free speech is the bedrock of democracy.

And if people don’t know what’s going on, if they don’t know the truth, how can you make an informed vote?

You must have free speech in order to have democracy.

That’s why it’s the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment is there to ensure that we have the First Amendment.

President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution.

He must win to preserve democracy in America.

This is a must-win situation.

So I have one ask for everyone in the audience, everyone who watches this video, everyone in the live stream, there’s one request.

It’s very important.

Okay?

And get everyone you know and everyone you don’t know.

Drag them to register to vote.

There’s only two days left to register to vote in Georgia and Arizona, 48 hours.

Text people now.

And then, make sure they actually do vote.

If they don’t, this will be the last election.

That’s my prediction.

Nothing’s more important.

So, I’m speaking to people out there.

Everyone in the crowd, I think, is already convinced.

But for people out there that are watching the video, watching the live stream, you need to get everyone you know at work, your friends, family, text groups, your social media, everything.

Get them to register to vote. Right now.

Only two days left for Georgia and Arizona.

Only a couple of weeks left in Pennsylvania.

And if they’re not registered to vote, it doesn’t matter at that point.

I’m being repetitive for a reason.

A lot of people think maybe the vote doesn’t count.

Well, it does.

It matters.

And this election could be decided by 1000 votes, 500 votes, a tiny margin.

So, get everyone you know to register to vote.

And double-check that your registration is good.

Don’t take it for granted. I’m just being repetitive about this point because it is one takeaway.

More than anything, what will matter is getting those registrations and then getting everyone you know to actually vote.

That is what will decide this election, especially in Pennsylvania.

And honestly, you want to just be a pest.

Just be a pest to everyone you know, people on the street, everywhere.

Vote, vote, vote, fight, fight, fight!

GAZA’S SCHOOLS ARE FOR LEARNING, NOT FOR DYING

by Mosab Abu Toha

Before war broke out in Gaza, I spent five years teaching English to middle schoolers there. Now I cannot imagine myself returning to teach at schools where students have spent the past year sitting and sleeping on classroom floors with their families, seeking refuge from a relentless assault.

These children were not learning math or language. They were learning the names of Gazan neighborhoods as each was bombed. They were not practicing sports. They were practicing survival, carrying buckets of water for hundreds of feet and running from one classroom to another, from one school to another, from one tent to another, from one city to another, hoping not to be run over by a tank or crushed under bombed-out walls and ceilings.

Across Gaza, hundreds of schools have been turned into shelters, and many of them have been attacked by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters use them as command centers. These attacks have killed hundreds of people, according to local health authorities. One Israeli airstrike hit a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, home to about 12,000 displaced people, for the fifth time in September, killing 18 people.

On Saturday morning, I learned from my school’s WhatsApp group that my most talented student, Hatem al-Zaaneen, had been killed in Beit Hanoun, where Israel that day carried out strikes.

How can a teacher — me or anyone else — return to teach children and pretend these same places have not been zones of death and suffering? During previous military conflicts in Gaza, it was mainly students who received psychological support. The question of offering support for teachers was rarely raised. But after nearly a year of war, how can traumatized teachers, teachers who may have lost close family members and friends or who even were injured, deal with traumatized students?

How can trauma be treated when it is never-ending? In Gaza there is no post-traumatic stress, because there is never a time without trauma. It was already an environment filled with chronic traumatic stress disorder before this war. After this year, the trauma will grip generations to come. Thousands of children have lost their lives since the Israeli war on Gaza began on Oct. 8, 2023. Others lost body parts. Others lost their parents. Others lost everyone. Over the last year, doctors working in Gaza began using the abbreviation W.C.N.S.F., for “wounded child, no surviving family.”

The last time I was in a school classroom was in November, to take refuge in one in the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza. I was there with my wife, Maram, and our children, Yazzan, 8; Yaffa, 7; and Mostafa, 4.

Two of Maram’s uncles, as well as her parents and siblings, shared a classroom with four other families. The room was divided into five parts, with Maram’s uncles and parents sharing a somewhat bigger section. We used to eat in their section. It was not more than 27 square feet. The space also contained a 66-gallon water tank, mattresses and kitchenware.

School desks served as partitions to make the tiny rooms and blackboards served the same function in other classrooms. If there were no blackboards, it was probably because parts of them were used for cooking fires. The last time cooking gas trucks entered the north was in October 2023.

In Jabaliya, I remember searching the rubbled streets and lanes of the market for cardboard boxes, usually dirty, or sticks for cooking fires. I would return to the school with something, feeling very accomplished — not as a student or a teacher but rather as a collector of useful stuff for family survival.

On Nov. 19, before my family and I made our way to the United States, we took a journey toward the southern part of the Gaza Strip, hoping to reach the Rafah border crossing to leave for Egypt. As we reached a checkpoint on Salah al-Din Road, I was detained by the Israeli Army and put in a detention center with dozens of other Palestinians for three days. I was blindfolded, handcuffed and forced to stay on my knees. I was not allowed to speak or to ask about my family. Upon release, I took up another journey, this time to find my wife and kids. I was not sure whether they were still alive.

On the road heading south — anyone moving north would have been shot then — I found them. They were sheltering in another school close to Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah. I joined them and we stayed with two of my wife’s uncles in a tent pitched on the school campus. Rainwater sometimes flooded our tent.

Moving from one school to another as refugees is not like moving up from an elementary school to a middle school. To still live in your own house in Gaza feels like living in a mansion, though it can be dangerous. To live in a classroom feels like living in a hotel room. To live in tents on a school campus feels like living in a hotel lobby.

We eventually made it to Cairo, where in early December I watched a video of the school where we sheltered in Jabaliya being besieged by Israeli tanks and soldiers. It was around that time that a sniper killed one of Maram’s uncles, who was deaf and mute, at the gate of another school in Beit Lahia, where he was sheltering with his wife and their two babies. That school later burned down. It was the same school where Yazzan and Yaffa attended third and first grade before Oct. 7, 2023.

About 625,000 children in Gaza have missed a whole school year because of the war, not to mention the trauma they have suffered. Although in recent weeks the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been trying to start the new school year inside shelters, the effort is almost pointless given the fact that schools continue to be bombed and Israeli evacuation orders continue to keep people on the move.

While it will take many long years to remove the rubble in Gaza, much less rebuild it, I fear it will take a whole lifetime, if ever, to rebuild a sense of hope in children in a world that has failed them. Governments have been unable to save the children of Gaza and their families, despite a never-ending stream of videos and photos and news reports clearly showing their suffering, day after day.

My eldest sister, Aya, has been complaining to me on the phone lately. It’s never easy to connect with my family in Gaza from my temporary home in Syracuse, N.Y., where I received an appointment as a visiting scholar at Syracuse University. During the short calls, the sound of whirring drones and distant bombing gets mixed with coughing.

“But this is bad for your baby,” I tell her. She is nine months pregnant. Aya barely has had access to fresh food for her entire pregnancy. She, like most Gazans, relies on canned food and some rare and pricey groceries.

Meanwhile, my wife and I prepared our children for their first days at their new American school. We all sat on the couch with my iPad, scrolling down and up through backpacks and water bottles and in a few minutes we placed an order.

If there is to be any hope for the future, the children of Gaza need a better reality, one closer to what I see American children enjoy. They need healthy food and clean water, a safe place to sleep at night. And they need classrooms where they can learn.

(Mosab Abu Toha is a poet, a short story writer, an essayist and the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza. His forthcoming book of poetry is “Forest of Noise.”)

THE STOLEN CHILD

W. B. Yeats (1865 – 1939)

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

ROSA LUXEMBURG

…shamed, dishonored, wading in blood and dripping in filth, thus capitalist society stands. Not as we usually see it, playing the roles of peace and righteousness, of order, of philosophy, of ethics — but as a roaring beast, an orgy of anarchy, as a pestilential breath, devastating culture and humanity — so it appears in all its nakedness.

— Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet

13 Comments

Craig Stehr October 7, 2024

The Washington D.C. Peace Vigil has been moved way back in Lafayette Park due to the construction of the presidential inauguration reviewing stands. Will probably be thus into February. News update at ten.

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Norm Thurston October 7, 2024

Jason Cox was a good man. RIP

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Semper Paratus October 7, 2024

RIP Jason Cox. Great guy. Gone too soon.

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Call It As I See It October 7, 2024

Duenas is missing one huge fact, she failed to represent the citizens of Ukiah.

Duenas and Rodin just admitted in a City Council meeting that they abstained on a vote to back Prop 36 because they didn’t do their homework on the issue. Inexcusable!

Duenas voted “No” on a business owner’s plea for a demolition permit on the Dragon’s Lair because the children who walk to the library like looking at the dragon painted on the side of the building. Who cares that the building is in poor condition, old and an eyesore in the downtown. In other words, the owner is trying not to create another Palace Hotel and had the Redwood Credit Union ready to purchase the property and put a brand new building that meets today’s code requirements. RCU did buy the property after the owner was able to obtain the permit conceding to ridiculous demands of City Council. You ask, are we getting a new bank on the corner? No, the City Council now have turned their craziness onto RCU to where they are looking at other locations.

The whole City Council needs to be voted out. Just like our BOS, they are all failures who do not represent the voters.

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- Matt Kendall October 7, 2024
  
  I watched this portion of the city council meeting and was a little bit shocked myself. Call me old fashioned however I still don’t think it’s OK to steal from anyone.
  Some of the comments made seemed a little out of touch and although I’m certain they were intended to sound like they were caring and thoughtful to the plight of our fellow humans, ultimately they seemed uninformed.
  Our coroners cases show we loose almost 50 people a year to overdoses. We have lost none to starvation.
  Listening to the city council members say they understand why people steal and framing it as a necessity due to poverty was simply ridiculous. People who steal power tools aren’t eating them, they are being sold at a discount for drugs and that’s simply a fact.
  When times get hard we have to raise the bar and people will meet the challenge. Obviously our state has been lowering it and people are reaching down to meet that expectation. Sad times to at the least.
  
  Reply
  - George Hollister October 8, 2024
    
    Hear, Hear. And Call It As I See it should run for Ukiah City Council.
    
    Reply
Marianne McGee October 7, 2024

Given all the discussions regarding Mendocino Railroad, I wondered how the term “I got RAILROADED” came in to the English vernacular.

The term “railroaded” originated in the 1800s when landowners used it to describe the practice of rail companies stealing land to lay new tracks. The term has since evolved to mean being cheated or bullied in general.

It appears like getting railroaded is still going on today right here in our little town of Fort Bragg. Stand your ground Lindy Peters!

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- Chuck Wilcher October 7, 2024
  
  John Meyer of Willits most likely knows what “getting railroaded” means. He’s lived it.
  
  Reply
Jurgen Stoll October 7, 2024

How about a little history of “the big lie”. Get ready for four more years of it if Trump wins, or have you already forgotten what his first term was like? The big lie and the MAGA’s willingness to accept it has a good chance of costing us (those of us that still give a fuck) our democracy. https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/october-6-2024?r=3hqnh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

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Bob Abeles October 7, 2024

Unfortunately, the intertubes are rife with stories of social media account hijacking similar to Bruce Broderick’s. Once someone’s hit, the social media companies prove difficult or impossible to contact. If a victim does manage to contact them, they’ll typically do nothing. My best advice is to set up two-factor authentication. Yeah, it’s a pain to set up and use, but it’s the only effective preventative available.

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Whyte Owen October 7, 2024

Compelling essay;

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/they-still-wont-say-that-theyre-sorry

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Harvey Reading October 7, 2024

CALIFORNIA TRIBES SEEK TO STOP PLANS FOR STATE’S LARGEST RESERVOIR IN DECADES

Hope the tribes prevail. California nuttiness has gone too far already.

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John Sakowicz October 7, 2024

To the Editor:

Jason Cox was one of the good guys.

Jason Cox’s whistleblower lawsuit blew open a sex scandal at the MCSO that some have likened to “sheep dipping”. It was back when Shannon Barney was the Round Valley resident sergeant and Tom Allman was the north sector commander.

Jason whistleblower lawsuit was investigated, substantiated, settled out of court, and sealed.

Following the lawsuit, two deputies who served with Cox and Barney in the Covelo resident post, Eric Gore and Brett White, both died under suspicious circumstances. The deaths were ruled “suicides”, but some people, like former MCSO Sgt. Trent James and many others, have their doubts.

White died in February 2007 and Gore nearly a year later in January 2008.

At the time, Cox’s attorney, Brian Flahaven, stated: “It was a difficult for Jason to sue, but he thinks it is important for issues within the sheriff’s department come to light.”

As typically occurs when official misconduct is litigated within a county, those involved in the suit signed non-disclosure agreements and records of the case were sealed. In other words, nothing leaves the county. In Jason Cox whistleblower complaint, clearly, an outside agency, like the state or the feds, should have been involved, but in Mendocino County, here “behind the green curtain”, we have many secrets.

The county denied Jason Cox’s complaints — but what else is new.

Denials are pro forma.

Quoting from the Cox lawsuit, Jason Cox alleges he was demoted from his resident deputy post in 2007, was subsequently denied promotion to sergeant and has suffered humiliation and mental anguish by refusing to “partake in sexual activities, refusal to engage in inappropriate and illicit behavior and for reporting of inappropriate and illegal acts of other deputies and Sgt. Shannon Barney to his colleagues and to those in MCSO command positions.”

In the suit, Cox alleged reporting to commanders’ instances where Barney, Gore and White were intoxicated on duty as well, as other illegal activities, including off-duty wife sharing and sex parties, which were hosted, and sometimes videotaped or photographed, by Barney. and others.

In June 2006, Barney gave Cox a bad performance rating for being insubordinate and failing to follow directions. According to the suit, Cox was nominated for 2006 Deputy of the Year and was the top ranked deputy for promotion during the same period.

After he was allowed to transfer to the DA’s office where he was an investigator. Jason Cox privately told me that the “inappropriate and illegal sex acts” referenced in his lawsuit, particularly wife sharing, which Jason Cox said was coerced” was a form of “sheep dipping” used to blackmail and control deputies in the MSCO’s north sector.

Why sheep dipping, I asked Jason. Why the need to blackmail and control deputies?

Simple, Jason answered.

The cannabis black market is just too lucrative, Jason said, and the opportunities for police corruption are just too numerous. In an all-cash underground economy, like the north sector, it’s an everyday thing. The top cops who control the rackets have to control the cops on the lower rungs of the ladder.

Note, I knew Jason pretty well. We worked together as corrections deputies in the Mendocino County Jail. Thereafter, we worked out together at the Redwood Health Club. We remained friends after he moved to Lake County.

A long slow hand salute to Jason Cox.

John Sakowicz
Ukiah CA

Reply

Mendocino County Today: Monday 10/7/2024

13 Comments

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