Mendocino County Today: Saturday 10/26/2024

By AVA News Service on October 26, 2024

PERIODS OF GUSTY southerly winds and precipitation are expected later today. Cooler temperatures accompany the approaching low with frost or freeze likely Tuesday morning for interior areas. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 51F under clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. Today & Tuesday are looking dry but the rest on the week has various chances of rain. Tomorrow is especially looking quite wet.

FORT BRAGG PLUGGED WITH ALBACORE

At most of the coastal ports still holding out hope for late season tuna, the fat lady has already sung. But not in Fort Bragg where the albacore bite has been wide-open when the boats are able to get out. The bite really kicked in last Tuesday, and on fishable days, boats have been catching all they can handle. And the fish are close too. Fifteen to 25 miles offshore has been the general area where the water temps are running 55 to 57 degrees. The fish have been big too, with lots of fish over 20 pounds coming over the rails. One of the local charter boats put in 88 tuna on a trip mid last week, and the sport fleet are reporting scores up to 35 fish. And they’re leaving em’ biting! Even Shelter Cove got in on the bite last Tuesday. A sport boat was heading south to Fort Bragg after hearing the reports, but instead found fish right out front of the Cove 15 miles offshore. They boated 40 fish and were surrounded by jumpers all day.

Garberville resident Tim Bently holds a large albacore caught over the weekend while fishing out of Fort Bragg. Photo courtesy of Dennis Cordova

Earlier in the week, conditions were looking prime for Friday and Saturday, but the forecast has taken a turn for the worse. The updated forecast is now calling for south winds, which isn’t good and can make for a very bad trip.

No one know how much longer these fish will be around, and there’s a large number out there. So, if a weather window opens up, you’ll want to be there.

— Kenny Priest, FishingTheNorthCoast.com

PLEASE DON'T TELL ON ME, MOMMY

On Thursday, October 24, 2024 at approximately 12:25 P.M., Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to a residence in the 12000 block of Alderwood Road in Mendocino for a reported domestic violence incident that just occurred. The victim (a 37-year-old female) reported that she had been attacked, choked, and threatened with a firearm by her ex-boyfriend Riordan Wilhelmi, 41, of Mendocino, while attempting to drop off personal property after a recent break-up.

Sheriff's Deputies were responding from the area of Manchester (approximately 30 miles away), so additional resources from allied law enforcement agencies responded to secure the scene awaiting the arrival of Deputies. California Highway Patrol Officers, California State Parks Rangers, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife Wardens arrived at the location within minutes to assist in securing the scene.

The victim advised Sheriff's Office Dispatch she had managed to flee the location to a safe area in the town of Mendocino. The victim further advised Sheriff's Office Dispatch that the suspect’s mother was still at the scene of the occurrence, and she had been assaulted and injured as well. Neither the victim nor the suspect’s mother requested medical attention for their injuries.

Once at scene, Sheriff's Deputies discovered that Wilhelmi had barricaded himself inside his one-room studio attached to the garage at the address. With the assistance of CHP, State Parks, and CDF&W providing a safe perimeter, Sheriff's Deputies attempted to make contact with Wilhelmi at the front door to the studio. After several attempts to make contact with Wilhelmi, Deputies attempted to enter the studio and discovered the door had been barricaded and secured shut. Due to the report of a firearm being involved and the violent nature of the altercation, Deputies decided to cease further attempts to enter the studio and maintained a safe perimeter around the location to prevent escape and await the arrival of Mendocino County Sheriff's Office SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) resources.

While awaiting the arrival of SWAT personnel, Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Detectives authored a search warrant for the residence to search for evidence related to this investigation and to arrest Wilhelmi. Wilhelmi's mother was interviewed as a part of this investigation and denied being a victim or witness of any crimes.

Upon the arrival of SWAT personnel, Sheriff's Deputies developed a plan to force entry into the studio in order to safely arrest Wilhelmi. After several minutes of attempted negotiation and requests for Wilhelmi to exit the studio peacefully, a window to the studio was breached in order to allow a tactical drone to enter the structure and observe the interior of the room for potential threats or officer safety hazards.

The drone pilot was able to observe Wilhelmi inside the room, and SWAT Operators immediately began giving verbal commands for Wilhelmi to exit the studio. Wilhelmi exited the structure through the barricaded front door and was safely taken into custody without injury or further incident.

Wilhelmi was later transported to the Mendocino County Jail in Ukiah where he was booked for Domestic Battery, Criminal Threats, Assault with Deadly Weapon, Vandalism with damages over $400, Delaying / Obstructing an Officer, and Violation of Probation. Wilhelmi is being held on a no-bail status due to his having violated the terms of his probation.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the California Highway Patrol, California State Parks, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife for their assistance with this investigation.

JOINT COMMUNICATION from Adventist Health and the Mendocino Coast Health Care District, Re: Restructure

Adventist Health and the Mendocino Coast Health Care District (MCHCD) would like to reassure this community that there is NO consideration to close the Mendocino Coast Hospital. Both organizations remain committed to continue their collaborative efforts to provide high-quality healthcare on the Coast.

More information may be found at the District’s website: https://www.mendocinochcd.gov

Kathy Wylie, MS Ed

Agency Administrator, Mendocino Coast Health Care District

kwylie@mendocinochcd.gov

ANOTHER HOBO FIRE ON GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL

On 10/21/2024, at approximately 11 am, Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officers responded to a report of a fire near Talmage Road and Waugh Lane in Ukiah. An officer located the fire on The Great Redwood Trail near Doolin Creek. A witness stated he observed a male subject fleeing the area toward Cherry Street before the officer arrived on scene.

UPD Officers were able to view video footage of the incident from surveillance cameras in the area. Officers observed Jesus Delgado (formerly of Fort Bragg where he was arrested multiple times including for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon) cause the brush to catch fire. Delgado fled the area when officers approached with their lights and sirens activated. Delgado’s actions were intentional, reckless, and placed the safety of numerous individuals at risk if the fire had not been extinguished by the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority (UVFA). This incident was also investigated by a UVFA Engineer Fire Investigator.

Delgado was later located near the 200 block of North Orchard Avenue. Delgado was placed under arrest without incident. Delgado had three (3) lighters on his person. One of the lighters was a torch-style lighter. Delgado was also found to be on Summary Probation out of Mendocino County for a previous vandalism charge. Delgado was booked and lodged at the MCSO Jail for arson and probation violation.

The Ukiah Police Department would like to thank the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority for their assistance with this investigation.

As always, our mission at UPD is to make Ukiah as safe a place as possible. If you would like to know more about crime in your neighborhood, you can sign up for telephone, cell phone, and email notifications by clicking the Nixle button on our website: www.ukiahpolice.com

MENDO GETS ROAD MONEY, but not directly for Roads.

Approximately $2 million in state transportation funding allocations have been awarded for the construction and repair of buildings and the installation of electric vehicle chargers at the County’s Ukiah Maintenance Station along U.S. 101 as well as the Boonville Maintenance Station along Route 128 in Mendocino County.

Mendocino County will see a series of road repairs and upgrades as part of a $3.8 billion statewide infrastructure investment announced by the California Transportation Commission. The funding, supported by the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and California’s Senate Bill 1, aims to enhance safety, reduce travel times, and improve transportation systems across the state.

The Mendocino projects include repairs to the Long Valley Creek Bridge near Laytonville, upgrades to the Ukiah and Boonville maintenance stations, and mitigation work along Route 1 near Gualala. These initiatives are part of broader efforts to address critical infrastructure needs, with investments also supporting electric vehicle charging stations and erosion control on key highways.

Officials say these improvements will create safer, climate-resilient transportation options, with more than 75% of the federal funding allocated to local governments and regional agencies for bridge replacements, rail safety upgrades, and highway maintenance.

SHIVELIGHT: NEW MENDOCINO COUNTY COURTHOUSE DESIGN – A SECOND LOOK

by Mike Geniella

State officials overseeing construction of the planned $145 million Mendocino County Courthouse are pushing back against harsh local criticism of its design.

In August, when preliminary renderings of the new courthouse were retrieved and published from the Judicial Council of California website, county residents were derisive of depictions of a stark white three-story courthouse ringed by dark vertical sections enveloping windows around the building’s exterior.

Critics lambasted the design as resembling a “bar code,” looking more like a prison than a civic center.

They also questioned plans calling for the new courthouse to face East on a 4.1-acre site on the south side of Perkins Street at the historic railroad depot. That means the building will turn its back on Ukiah’s core downtown to the West where a courthouse has been located since 1860.

State and local court officials were stung by the local criticism and offered a follow up conference call to explain the decision making, and what factors influenced the final design. Architect Kahyun Lee, a 15-year-veteran of public building design, agreed to a second interview this week.

While input from city and county officials, and the public, is solicited, it is the Judicial Council of California that oversees financing, designing and awarding contracts for courthouse construction statewide. After years of delay, the Mendocino County Courthouse project is at the top of a state priority list.

The new courthouse will be constructed on a narrow north-south parcel which limits how it can be positioned, said John Kudrycki, principal project manager for Fentress Architects, the Colorado-based firm that is a project partner with builder Hensel Phelps Contruction Co., a global firm founded in Colorado in the 1930s.

Kudrycki said as a result the rear of the new courthouse will be butt up against existing railroad tracks. The site was purchased by the state in 2012 from the North Coast Railroad Authority.

“To be able to provide access, public parking in front, and staff parking to the south of the building, we were limited in its placement,” said Kudrycki.

Robert Shue, project manager for the Judicial Council of California, toured Mendocino County with architect Lee before plans were put on paper. “We believe the design incorporates the best of the county,” he said.

Lee said their onsite research included Mendocino County’s courthouse history, the influence of the county’s agricultural base including inland vineyards, and rugged coastal landscapes that attract visitors worldwide.

Lee said, however, it was a walk among towering ancient redwoods in Montgomery Redwoods State Natural Reserve west of Ukiah that provided major design inspiration.

Lee recalled a lingering sense of awe the first time she witnessed shafts of sunlight piercing through the redwood forest canopy.

“It was a sensation I had not experienced before. I wanted to learn more,” said Lee.

Lee’s further research led her to the term “shivelight,” a 19th century descriptive first used by English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It described a clear shaft of sunlight piercing the canopy of a forest.

“It was the light in the forest that really moved me,” recalled Lee. “I wanted to bring that sensation into the interior public spaces of the new courthouse.”

The shafts of sunlight she witnessed at Montgomery Woods became the inspiration for her decision to place narrow widths of windows across the front and around the walls of the three-story courthouse.

“I wanted to evoke the experiences Mendocino County residents enjoy walking in the redwood forests,” said Lee.

Lee said the overall effect will be enhanced by landscaping at the new courthouse site where trees will grow tall, and native plant species will carpet the grounds.

“I believe that when the project is completed, the new courthouse will reflect Mendocino County, and what its citizens want in public buildings,” said Lee.

Kim Turner, executive officer for the Mendocino County Superior Court, has worked closely with the Judicial Council on the new design. Turner said she and the judges are satisfied.

“We understand how the architects were struck by the way sunlight comes through the redwoods. We know these filtered shafts of light create interesting shadows and provide a sense of movement in the forest,” said Turner.

Turner said the exterior design of the building is “intended to replicate the verticality of the redwoods, with shivelight coming through the interior public corridors.”

“We believe the architects have done a masterful job of incorporating a sense of Mendocino County’s appreciation for its beautiful redwood forests into the design of the building,” said Turner.

With the planned landscaping, Turner said the trees, grasses, pollinators and groundcovers outside will “complete a design that honors the heritage and environmental diversity of Mendocino County.”

Construction of the 81,169 square foot building is slated to begin early next year, with completion expected in late 2027.

The Fentress/Hensel Phelps team is the state's designated design-builder for the single largest civic construction project in Mendocino County history.

B IS FOR BUNGLING THE BUREAUCRATIC BOUNCING BALL

by Mark Scaramella

At last Tuesday’s Board meeting, referring to requests the County may make to lame-duck Assembly District Representative Jim Wood, supervisor Dan Gjerde said, “Now is not the time to request that they [the state] pay for the jail project. Now is the time to request reimbursement for Measure B funds. Which may be politically more appealing, you know, because members of the public don't want to see Measure B funds spent on the jail. Honestly, with the County's budget situation, I mean -- I know it's a loan. But really is there a guarantee that it's going to be paid back? If the County doesn't have the money, it can't pay back Measure B bonds. Having heard that Assemblymember Wood thought there was a pathway there, I hope that there will be one or two people in the executive office who are going to follow up on that.”

A lot to unpack there.

First, there’s no basis for expecting the State to consider paying back any Measure B funds since there’s no financial basis for it; in fact no one has ever even asked staff for an accounting or status report on Measure B which has accumulated well over $30 million since being approved back in 2017, a quarter of which is mandated to be spent on “services,” not facilities. (Of course, very little has been spent on services so far; mainly the crisis van or mobile outreach or whatever they call it now.)

Last year, the Board authorized “borrowing” about $8 million from the millions of Measure B funds to help pay for the $20 million-plus overrun on the jail expansion project now underway next door to the old jail on Low Gap Road at a total cost of around $45 million. The state granted an initial $25 million but refused to cover the large increases in cost since the project was conceived years ago despite multiple hail mary requests to Wood and McGuire from the County including the Sheriff, leaving the County to cover the unbudgeted multi-million dollar overrun.

Since the jail expansion will in part house mental patients who have committed crimes, the idea was that “borrowing” money from Measure B was okay (they said out of necessity since the County didn’t have $8 mil sitting around at the time) because Measure B was meant for mental health facilities and services and much of it remains unspent.

Since then, Acting Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Sara Pierce has twice proposed a multi-year payback schedule, but the Supervisors have yet to commit to any payback schedule or interest rate, despite multiple verbal (i.e., empty) assurances that they would pay it back with interest.

Meanwhile, the construction of the Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane where the now-demolished nursing home/covid quarantine center used to be is now underway. There’s been talk of a possible state grant of about $9 million if the construction is complete by the end of next year. If that grant comes through, it might offset the amount of money “borrowed” from Measure B. Fortunately for Mendo, construction bid came in substantially lower than expected so that might leave millions of as yet unallocated Measure B funds for services — if they ever spend anything on actual mental health services over and above the tens of millions being funneled through the Schraeder monopoly for the reimbursable mentally ill.

But the entire mental health funding picture remains muddy.

Among the many financial failures of the Board, neither Gjerde nor his unquestioning colleagues, much less the moribund Measure B committee, have ever asked for a Measure B fund financial report nor have the expressed any interest in the ongoing operating costs of the PHF when it opens in a year or so, even though there are lots of moving parts and the amounts involved are in the millions and deadlines apply and the County is in a very precarious budget situation.

CEO Darcie Antle replied to Gjerde’s question with the least reassuring answer she could possibly make:

“Yes. Those conversations are ongoing. On my behalf most recently with Senator McGuire yesterday roughly about this time I had him personally on the phone discussing options. So it is something we are all actively working on. I know the Sheriff is working through his association to get to the state as well. Nobody has dropped the ball on this. Your fiscal team with your Auditor-Controller are working their very best to figure out how to get those Measure B dollars back to Measure B because we certainly do not want to incur interest on those ongoing expenses. More to come on that. Hopefully by November 6.”

“Hopefully…”

Nobody asked what exactly CEO Antle planned to provide on November 6 nor why that date. Nobody asked for a Measure B funding or status report. Nobody asked how much the PHF will cost to operate and how it will be financed. And nobody expressed any concern about CEO Antle’s dismal record of not delivering on things she’s “actively working on.”

POINT ARENA PIER

FOOTBALL: ST. VINCENT MAKES STATEMENT IN 35-24 VICTORY OVER UKIAH IN GAME OF THE WEEK

St. Vincent passed its biggest local test of the season with flying colors.

by Kienan O'Doherty

Statement made.

St. Vincent passed its biggest local test of the season with flying colors, beating Ukiah 35-24 up in Mendocino County on Friday night.

It was all Mustangs (3-0, 7-1) from start to finish, as they now hold a huge advantage in the Redwood Empire Conference Bay division’s title race.

Top takeaways

When in doubt, trust the juniors.

St. Vincent again rode the legs of its junior backfield duo in Mason Caturegli and Gabe Casanovas. In fact, except for a four-yard pass to Tyler Chelew, Caturegli and Casanovas were the only Mustangs to touch the ball offensively in the first half.

It clearly worked, as Casanovas rushed 17 times for 112 yards and a score, while Caturegli had another monster game with 20 carries for 212 yards and four touchdowns. The Mustangs running back scored two touchdowns on either side of halftime, including a nine-yard score to increase the lead to 28-17 early in the fourth quarter.

But they weren’t the only juniors who stood out. Brody Breen, who had the toughest task of the night in covering one of Northern California’s best wide receivers in Omaurie Phillips-Porter, put in an excellent shift. And while no one can completely shut down a player of Phillips-Porter’s caliber (four catches for 81 yards and a score, including a 65-yard touchdown to put him over 1,000 yards on the season), Breen certainly helped his defense out.

Not to mention the play of CJ Perez, who led a defensive line that was giving Ukiah quarterback Beau David fits all night long. Perez notched three total tackles, two assists, one tackle for a loss and one sack. Linebacker Hudson Kensic, another junior, led the team in tackles with five assisted and seven total.

Along with Phillips-Porter, Ukiah (2-1, 5-3) saw another solid performance from running back Chris Thompson. The sophomore, started finding holes toward the end of the first half and rushed 16 times for 181 yards and score, which came on a 68-yard scamper in the third quarter.

Quotable

“I’m so proud of our team, and it was a full team effort. People were unselfish, people did what we asked, and no one complained. They just wanted to play and support each other, and we played with extreme effort … our coaching staff did a great job preparing the boys. Our offensive coaches came up with a game plan, did some things they weren’t expecting, and took advantage. My hat’s off to Randy Parmeter, Jason Rivas and Taylor Galloway, because those guys put the work in, watched a lot of film, and got our kids ready to play tonight.” — St. Vincent head coach Trent Herzog

Up next

St. Vincent will return home to play Montgomery (0-3, 3-5), who lost 56-49 to Analy (1-2, 2-6), next Saturday. Ukiah has another big league test at home Friday against Maria Carrillo (3-0, 7-1), who won 59-12 over Santa Rosa (0-3, 2-6).

(The Press Democrat)

HOW ARE FIRE TAXES BEING USED?

As the CEO of Medstar/Ukiah Ambulance, and a resident of the City of Ukiah, there is no denying that adequate fire protection is a vital part of public safety, and it is a service that we have happily worked alongside for over 85 years. Medstar Ambulance is a local 501(c)(3) Nonprofit public charity, that operates without subsidies or special tax measures while responding to 7,000 emergency and non-emergency calls for service in 2023.

My concern with Measure V is the proper appropriation of collected funds. In the full text detail of Measure V, it assures voters that all funds raised by this measure will be used within the local community to improve fire protection and emergency medical response, which begs the question, why will Ukiah Valley Fire Authority (UVFA) be providing services in Willits and Clearlake in the near future?

During a City of Ukiah regular council meeting on October 2, 2024, the board approved and authorized the City Manager to sign a lease agreement with Umpqua Bank to finance the purchase of three new ambulances, gurneys, and monitors/defibrillators to support a 3-year inter-facility transport agreement between the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority and Adventist Health. Equipment purchased cost over $700,000, and totaled to over $800,000 after interest. In the agreement, which was approved in the City of Ukiah’s regular board meeting on August 7, 2024, UVFA agreed to provide nonemergent transportation to three Adventist Hospitals: Ukiah Valley, Howard Memorial, and Clear Lake.

Why is UVFA providing non-emergency transportation services? And why is money being spent to provide a service to a hospital in Clearlake? Measure V states that emergency calls for medical and fire emergencies in the Ukiah Valley have increased dramatically since 2004, so what is the reason for entering into an agreement in which resources will be sent to Willits and Clearlake? Perhaps the current 911 ambulance provided by the City of Ukiah is in debt, and this is its long-shot solution to a serious financial problem. Most people likely remember the City of Ukiah terminating its ambulance operations in 2013 due to financial problems.

In 2021, the district annexed the City of Ukiah for fire service, which cost homeowners in the City $120 per year for parcel taxes, and per the City’s attorney, David Rapport, such tax funds were supposed to cover an annual revenue shortfall of $500,000. The next year, a 2022 sales tax measure passed, which was to fund fire agencies county-wide, but concern was raised that the lion’s share of the funds would be received by UVFA. Are all of these recent tax measures being pushed to fund its faraway non-emergency ambulance service?

I do not necessarily assume that Measure V funds will be used to finance ambulance services out-of-county, but I do question the source of this non-emergency ambulance funding, and I also question whether the citizens of Ukiah and the District are subsidizing a fallible ambulance endeavor?

I also want to encourage voters to go onto Transparent California’s website to view the salaries, overtime and benefits of four fire department employees that totaled over 1 million for 2023.

The City of Ukiah and UVFA should consider revising their current service description of “providing the very best fire, rescue, and medical care to the citizens of the City of Ukiah and the unincorporated areas of Ukiah Valley.” The City should provide its citizens with a clear understanding of how their taxes are being used, and how they will be used in the future to benefit the citizens of Ukiah.

— Leonard Winter, President and Chief Executive Officer

LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

FEMALES FIRST

Editor,

The Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition has offered the public five Candidate Forums this year to inform citizens about their candidates.

The forums provided opportunities for the public to see the candidates for public office and to ask questions.

MWPC endorses women and men who actively embrace and promote MWPC’s individual rights of family planning, promote sustainable environmental practices and promote cultural diversity and economic opportunity for everyone.

MWPC supports and trains women and men for elected and appointed public office. MWPC endorsed candidates for this election cycle are:

Chris Rogers, Assembly District 2;

Heather Criss, Ukiah City Council;

Michelle Hutchins, MCOE Board;

Gabriel Baca Meza, Mendocino College Board;

Robin Leler, Willits City Council;

April Lamprich, Willits School Board;

and Lindy Peters, Fort Bragg City Council.

Please vote!

— Val Muchowski, MWPC Chair, Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition

CALLING ALL (LEGAL) POT GROWERS

Dear Community Members,

Mendocino County is hosting our annual demographic information survey on behalf of the Cannabis Equity Grants Program for Local Jurisdictions. If you would like to participate, please find the demographic survey link here: https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/departments/cannabis-department/cannabis-grant-opportunities/cannabis-local-equity-program-information/leep-demographic-survey-4140

As a reminder, participation in this State survey is entirely voluntary, and you may choose to skip any questions that you do not wish to answer.

This survey will close Friday, December 6, 2024.

OPEN MIC POETRY

Dear Poets And Lovers Of Poetry,

Please come to the Mendocino Open Mic Poetry Series, October, at the Mendocino Art Center.

The open mic poetry series is held the last Saturday of every month at the Stevenson Studio at the Mendocino Art Center.

When: October 26. 4-6 pm

Where; Mendocino Art Center, Stevenson Studio

The reading begins with one or two featured readers, followed by a brief intermission and then an open mic.

Please come and share your work or the work of other poets.

The two featured poets for October are Dan Barth from Ukiah, and Karin Uphoff from Mendocino.

Dan Barth’s poetry, fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in a wide range of publications from Ant Farm to Zam Bomba. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries his work appeared frequently in The Redwood Coast Review. He is the author of At the Corner of Vigor and Wisdom; The Day After Hank Williams’ Birthday; Fast Women Beautiful; Coyote Haiku and Ukiah Haiku. Dan was poet laureate of Ukiah from 2012 to 2014. His work is included in the anthology Deep Valley: Poets Laureate of Ukiah, 2001-2018. He lives near the Russian River in Talmage with his wife Mary and their cat Woo.

Karin Uphoff is the author of Botanical Body Care; Herbs and Natural Healing for your Whole Body (2007) and numerous articles on health, including Words on Wellness in The Lighthouse Peddler Newspaper. However, poetry is the language of her heart and she has published poems in Noyo River Review (2015, 2024) plus Writers of the Mendocino Coast anthologies Hooked (2018), Erosion (2021), California Writers Club Literary Review 2022, and in the Lake County Bloom (2023). Recently she began posting her poetry on her website: www.karinuphoff.com

Looking forward to seeing you there,

Devreaux Baker

www.devreauxbaker.org

GEEZER HALLOWEEN COSTUME PARTY

October 31st starting at 11:30 pm there will be a costume party at the Redwood Coast Seniors in the Redwood Bistro. Enjoy lunch and laugh with your friends! 490 N Harold Street, Fort Bragg.

WHEN HALLOWEEN WAS SIMPLE

THE RETURN OF NAVARRO’S KING TIDE EVENT

MendoParks is thrilled to announce the return of the King Tide Event at Navarro’s Captain Fletcher’s Inn on Saturday, November 16, 2024, 9 am — 12 pm.

This is a free, open house event where guests can experience a King Tide event from a safe distance, warm up by the fireplace inside the historic Captain Fletcher’s Inn, and enjoy tea and light refreshments while learning about King Tides and Sea Level Rise. The event is co-sponsored by MendoParks and State Parks and is a great way for locals and tourists alike to experience Navarro Beach at Navarro River Redwoods State Park. Donations to MendoParks are always welcome!

“I learned about this event from Jim Martin, past president of the former non-profit Navarro-by-the-Sea-Center or NSCR. NSCR was instrumental in saving the historic Captain Fletcher’s Inn, which is an icon of our coast at the mouth of the Navarro River,” says MendoParks Executive Director Sid Garza-Hillman, “I asked Jim if he’d be willing to help us get this event going again, and luckily he agreed!”

Saving and restoring Captain Fletcher’s Inn was a primary focus of NSCR for over 20 years. The non-profit oversaw the planning, permitting, fundraising, and major rehabilitation of the historic Inn. This included a new foundation, reconstruction of the original front porch, earthquake retrofitting, a new roof and fireplace, and restoration of the windows, doors, and other features of the building. The Inn was on the verge of collapse by the time critical stabilization work began back in 2013, after years of fundraising and generous grants from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment. NSCR continued its fundraising, public events, and restoration efforts until it dissolved after MendoParks took on the responsibility of providing interpretive services at Navarro River Redwoods in 2020.

The Inn was built by Fletcher in 1865 to house sailors, coastal travelers, and mill workers in the original town of Navarro. The mill closed during a big recession in the 1890s and the original town succumbed to floods, fires, and even the 1906 earthquake, leaving only the Inn and the historic Mill Superintendent’s House (ca 1864) as the surviving structures. The Inn continued to serve as an important destination for fishermen and tourists alike and became known as Navarro-by-the-Sea until it closed in the 1980s. Both buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 and continue to symbolize the rich history of our coast.

“We’re so happy to get the historic Inn reopened again to the public for the King Tide open house in November — this event was always such a relaxed, fun, and informative time for those who stopped by. We hope for a good turnout and maybe some more volunteers for future events!” said Jim Martin.

For more Info, call 707-937-4700 or email director@mendoparks.org

THE HIGHEST POINT OF CALIFORNIA'S HIGHWAY 101 IS SLOWLY CRUMBLING AWAY

Ridgewood Summit's altitude and isolation bring harsh weather, but beneath the road lies rich history — white deer, old mines, racehorses and legendary bandits

by Matt LaFever

U.S. Route 101, California’s longest highway, stretches 808 miles from sunny Los Angeles to foggy Crescent City at the Oregon border. This iconic road is one of the original national routes established in 1926, much of which traces the path that connected California’s mission system.

Just north of the Ukiah Valley in Mendocino County, travelers on U.S. 101 ascend nearly 1,500 feet to Ridgewood Summit, the highest mountain pass along this historic highway at 1,956 feet. The summit marks the gateway to the Mendocino mountain range, with the Russian River flowing to the south and the Eel River to the north — two crucial arteries for the North Coast’s ecosystem. The altitude and remoteness of the pass often bring severe weather and hazardous driving conditions, but below the asphalt of this dangerous pass lies a rich history, filled with tales of albino deer, a century-old mining operation, thoroughbred racehorses and notorious bandits.

Hazards Abound

In the summer and fall, the approach to Ridgewood Summit is a winding, pleasant drive on a modern, four-lane highway. But as winter approaches, it becomes a point of concern for local law enforcement and first responders. Olegario Marin, CHP’s spokesperson in Ukiah, told SFgate that for most of the year, the frequency of crashes at Ridgewood Summit is comparable to other areas in Mendocino County, but that number tends to rise during winter months.

“We see a noticeable increase of traffic incidents due to inclement weather,” Marin explained, which tends to come in the winter, when rain, ice and snow arrive at the high-elevation pass. He added that Ridgewood Summit may also experience weather-related slowdowns or road closures one or two times per year just in general, because of its altitude.

Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall told SFgate that cold, wet weather at Ridgewood Summit often means his team assists highway patrol and escorts ambulances all winter.

“It’s historically one of those places with a lot of car accidents,” Kendall said.

He recalled a 1990s snowstorm when he saw an 18-wheeler losing control as it descended Ridgewood Summit, its trailer sliding past the cab before the driver regained control.

Even when the skies are clear, there’s still one hazard to constantly be aware of on Ridgewood Summit: landslides. It’s not a theoretical danger but an ever-present one. Manny Machado, a spokesman for Caltrans District 1, which serves the northernmost portion of California, told SFgate that “due to the geology of the area, there is an active landslide on the south side of the summit.” This means the mountainside is literally sliding downhill at all times, complicating road maintenance, causing drainage issues and altering the roadway’s superelevations. The area’s instability “generates an above-average number of emergency projects to stabilize the roadway,” Machado added, with many of these requiring work during the wet season. As a result, erosion control and stormwater management have become essential components of maintenance efforts.

Caltrans has installed an electronic message board at Ridgewood Summit to alert southbound drivers to hazards as they descend. These signs are commonplace throughout California, but Machado said they’re particularly important to first responders in this area because it gives them a tool to “alert motorists to incidents” at the summit and hopefully head off crashes before they happen.

‘Robber’s Pass’

Fortunately for modern drivers, there is one risk of Ridgewood Summit that the state did manage to get a handle on. The steep climb from Ukiah Valley to Ridgewood Summit, combined with the route’s narrow passage through the mountain pass, made the area a prime target for stagecoach robberies in the late 19th century, so much so it was sometimes referred to as “Robber’s Pass.”

The ascent toward Ridgewood Summit was once the stomping ground for one of the Old West’s most infamous outlaws, Charles E. Boles, better known as “Black Bart.” Known for his gentlemanly demeanor, Black Bart famously left poetic notes at the scene of some of his stagecoach heists. According to the Ukiah Daily Journal, his first Mendocino County robbery took place on Oct. 2, 1878, along the Cahto to Ukiah route, just north of Ukiah at Forsythe Creek — a spot now covered by U.S. 101. Black Bart struck again at the same location on June 14, 1882, making off with $300 from a box of mail. Black Bart Rock, also known as Bandit Rock, once served as a hideout for the notorious outlaw during his stagecoach robberies on the way to Ridgewood Summit and stood as a reminder of his crimes until it was blasted away in the early 1950s to clear the path for U.S. 101.

Even after Black Bart was brought to justice, the pass remained a hot spot for heists. In December 1895 and January 1896, two stagecoaches heading toward Ridgewood Summit were ambushed by what authorities believed to be a single unknown assailant, according to a retelling in R. Michael Wilson’s ”Stagecoach Robberies in California: A Complete Record, 1856-1913.” On Jan. 17, 1896, two days after the January robbery, former Mendocino County Sheriff J.M. Standley and his partner Joel Starkey confronted the suspected robber, who shot Standley twice. Two days later, law enforcement spotted a man near the crime scene and casually asked if he knew anything about the robberies. His only response: “No.” Doubting his story, they doubled back and soon realized the stranger was their suspect: German immigrant John Schneider. He was arrested, tried in San Francisco and sentenced to 25 years in San Quentin (though he was released after serving just 13).

As the days of the stagecoach waned and the outlaw faded into legend, the threat of highway bandits disappeared with them. Fortunately for modern drivers, Ridgewood Summit’s most notorious risk is now just part of history, buried beneath the asphalt of U.S. 101.

Where Heroes Fight Fires And Legends Roam

Today, Ridgewood Summit hosts Cal Fire’s Howard Forest helitack base, established in 1981 to safeguard Northern California’s vital timberlands and watersheds. Its central location enables rapid response to wildfires threatening thousands of acres of forest and the nearby Russian and Eel rivers. Howard Forest served as a crucial base of operations for resources fighting the August Complex Fire and the Mendocino Complex Fire, California’s first and third largest wildfires of all time respectively.

Below Ridgewood Summit lies Ridgewood Ranch, where legendary racehorse Seabiscuit was bred, raised and eventually laid to rest. Situated just south of Willits, this 5,000-acre ranch was transformed by automobile magnate Charles S. Howard into a working thoroughbred facility in 1919. After Seabiscuit’s celebrated racing career, he spent his final years on the ranch before his death in 1947. The ranch is now owned by the Golden Rule Church Association, which has preserved its historic and environmental value; visitors can still see Seabiscuit’s barn, the Howard family home and remnants of a Pomo village, alongside redwood groves and wildlife habitat.

Perhaps the most famous mammal in the area today, however, is the white deer, of which there have been rare sightings near Ridgewood Summit. According to the Ukiah Daily Journal, these aren’t albinos but rather leucistic fallow deer, a European species brought to Mendocino County by Howard, Seabiscuit’s famous trainer. The deer are white, but not fully pigment free, with fawns starting cream colored and turning pure white over time. Howard originally sourced the animals from William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon ranch, and they became so intertwined with the lore of the area that the former White Deer Lodge was named in their honor.

Where the mountainside looks carved away on the west side of U.S. 101 lies Harris Quarry, which has been providing roadway materials for Mendocino, Sonoma, Humboldt and Lake counties. Operating since the 1920s, the quarry produces aggregate — sand, gravel and crushed stone — key to construction. California, the second-largest aggregate producer in the U.S., harnesses aggregates to build the very roads that weave through its landscapes, reinforcing concrete, paving highways and ensuring proper drainage — all essential for maintaining passes like Ridgewood Summit.

(SFgate.com)

ED NOTES: GETTING TO KNOW YOU, GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU

by Bruce Anderson

The old-timers called all us new arrivals of the early 1970s “hippies” regardless of our relative commitments to drugs, promiscuous sex, bad housekeeping, and George McGovern; the whole package being Boonville code for communism. The first time the hippies, as an organized force, fought the old-timers occurred when the hippies combined to oppose an upscale, over-sized, time-share housing project proposed for Navarro by a San Diego investment group. Us hippies having just arrived, we wanted to keep the Valley as we’d found it — condo-free.

It was a clear split. The old-timers were mostly for the development, the hippies against. Of course many of the old-timers were for the development simply because the hippies were opposed to it, and lots of hippies were opposed to it simply because the old-timers, or rednecks, were for it.

The old-timers also had the attitude that community seniority gave them exclusive rights over what did or did not happen in the Anderson Valley. They were full citizens, we were maybe probationary. To the old-timers, these long-haired libertines, or whatever they were, represented walking insults to all right-thinking persons, and who the hell did these freaks think they were, coming in here and complaining about everything? The old-timers had been in the Valley all their lives, and by god they weren’t going to be pushed around by a bunch of unwashed anarchists who just got into town yesterday.

The high school gym was packed for a community meeting called by the would-be developers who seemed to have counted on the event as a show of relative strength. The developers had been assured that the only opponents to their faux-Aztec piles of sterile boxes at the northwest end of the Valley were a few stoned malcontents who would realize how isolated they were when the true community assembled in one place.

But the hippies turned out in such numbers that they took up one whole side of the gym, while the old-timers, glowering on the other, seemed surprised that there were now enough hippies in the Anderson Valley to oppose bad ideas, and this thing proposed for Navarro by the San Diego condo gang was a very bad idea for many reasons beginning with its overwhelming size and the impact the monstrosity would have on the battered, overdrawn Navarro river. (The Navarro hadn’t yet been sterilized by chemical runoff from vineyards.)

The old-timers cheered the developer’s rep, a glib young man who emphasized what an economic boon the condo plan would be to an area perennially short of jobs. The arguments went back and forth, as did groans from the opposing sides at the more provocative statements by each.

But then there was a dramatic and major defection from what the old-timers saw as their side, the correct side, the American side, in the form of an old, old-timer named Cecil Gowan who tottered up to the mike and, looking directly at the old-timers’ side of the gym said, “As a lot of you people know, the Navarro dries up most summers. There’s not near enough water for a development as big as this one. I’m against it.”

Doubling his apostasy, the old man slowly made his way to the hippie side of the gym and sat down among The Enemy. The hippies cheered and beat their feet on the wooden bleachers.

The old-timers were silent, many of them undoubtedly thinking, “Doesn’t the old fool know this isn’t about water? It’s about Us against Them!”

No sooner had Gowan been embraced by the hippies than Myrtis Schoenahl, a formidably large woman, walked briskly to the microphone. Mrs. Schoenahl glared at the hippie side of the gym before she blared into the mike, “Can you hear me?”

A few people on the hippie side of the gym cringed in mock terror at the aural assault. A long hair shouted, “No! Louder!”

Mrs. Schoenahl got right to the point.

“This is really very simple,” she said. “What do we want in Anderson Valley? Nice houses for nice people or teepees for more hippies?”

The gym exploded into competing cries.

“Teepees! More hippies!” the hippies shouted.

“Nice people! Nice houses!” the old-timers yelled back.

The issue wasn’t decided that night, but the hippies went on to a resounding victory. They collected money for a lawyer, accumulated negative environmental testimony, got ready to haul the condo brains into court.

The old-timers didn’t do anything but complain about “hippies taking over,” as if the capture of the then dusty, semi-abandoned hamlets of Yorkville, Boonville, Philo, and Navarro was a great coup.

The San Diego-based developers gave up. The hippies won that one. They’d achieved political parity with the old-timers, and would soon elect their very own supervisor whose supporters lied their candidate into office by spreading the utterly false claim that the incumbent supervisor, Ted Galletti of Point Arena, was behind another huge condo project allegedly proposed for Cameron Road near Elk.

But the old-timers went down hard, and continued to fight the hippies whenever they saw the hippies moving to consolidate power. The old-timers kept control of the Boonville school board for another few years, they held on to the Community Services board for a while, and to this day they have the Boonville-based Mendocino County Fair Board in a seemingly unbreakable headlock.

One big victory over the hippies, as the old-timers saw it, was the prevention of a community swimming pool.

The State Fire Marshal’s office had decreed that a sprinkler system be installed in the Fairgrounds’ several exhibition halls. Technically a state, i.e., public facility, the Fairgrounds sit on twenty or so under-used, fenced-off acres in the center of Boonville. From the outside, the place looks like a medium security prison. Inside, it is one. Or at least its heavy institutional vibes are not what you would call liberating.

Trespassers, known in the outside world as taxpayers, can expect an immediate heave-ho if they happen to walk on in and spread out a picnic on a Fairgounds lawn.

Onerous insurance and rent rates, arbitrarily imposed by the local board of directors, discourage use of the facilities between annual fairs, although over the recent past commercially driven music, wine and beer events have drawn thousands of people to Boonville for weekend debauches on the facility’s grudging premises. These events, of course, can pay the extortionate rent fees.

But through the 1970s and well into the 1980s, the Fairgrounds’ several acres of grass and trees were open to the public only for the four annual days of the September fair while the high school football team was gang tackled in sheep shit left on the rodeo infield by a fair board insider whose animals grazed free “to keep the grass down.”

To be effective, sprinkler systems need a lot of water in a big hurry. To get a lot of water in a big hurry you need a standing pool of the stuff. Hey! I’ve got it! A swimming pool! The kids will have a healthy place to spend those long summer afternoons and the Fairgrounds will have plenty of water for its sprinklers.

Cloverdale, which also has a fairgrounds in the middle of town, installed the required sprinkler system with a community swimming pool as the system’s water supply.

Sensible people naturally assumed Boonville would follow Cloverdale’s one-stone, two-bird lead and do the same.

Nope.

An unusually hysterical — even by their seething standards — segment of the old-timers besieged their hippie-fightin’ pals sitting as trustees on the fair board, begging their buddies not to build a community pool for water storage because You Know Who would swim in it. Not only would You Know Who swim in it, You Know Who would swim in it nekkid! Buck nekkid! And disease? Why bless me, Janese, it’s a known fact that hippies are walking pustules of fatal pox, plus a few new ones they’ve probably developed right here in the hills of Boonville! If there was a community pool at the Fairgrounds every kid in the Valley would soon be a walking contagion of communicable cooties.

The option to a combined water storage and community swimming pool was an elevated storage tank, and the damn hippies and their feral, lice-bearing children could hardly swim in that, could they? Hell, they’d have to climb up the thing and pry its top off to get in, har de har.

To ensure that Boonville opted for the storage tank, the old-timers, perhaps having learned an activist lesson from the hippies who’d defeated them over the proposed Navarro condo development, began circulating petitions against a community swimming pool.

A handful of perpetually angry women — rednecks seem partial to the “chicks up front” approach to public controversies — stationed themselves at the Valley’s four post offices, petitions in their determined hands. Any person who in the slightest resembled a hippie, any person who looked like he might be susceptible to hip-think, the petitioners spun out taxpayer arguments, that a public swimming pool would cost too much to build and maintain. But to people they recognized, people the hysterics knew held the correct retro opinions, the gargoyles would come right out with their true objection to the pool. “Do you want your kids swimming in the same water as hippies? Do you want your children to get sick?”

The specter of hippie-itis trumped community benefit. The battle axes presented their petitions to their allies on the Fair Board and, to this day, at the south end of the Fairgrounds grandstand sits a huge, metal water tank with a cartoon bronc buster a’bustin’ his bronc painted on it.

That eyesore could have been, should have been, a community swimming pool if it weren’t for the pure terror inspired in primitive minds by the vision of verminous hippie dippers enjoying a swim alongside antiseptic little Republicans.

But only a few years later, the sons and daughters of hippies and rednecks were not only swimming together up at Maple Basin, they were marrying each other, and soon a whole new plague-proof beast, the hipneck, was born, and Anderson Valley was at last one.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, October 25, 2024

VAIBHAV GAIROLA, 33, Vacaville/Ukiah. Getting credit with someone else’s ID, impersonation to get money or property.

EARL MILLER JR., 51, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

JACOB PARMELY, 39, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

MARCEL PATTERSON, 28, Richmond/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

CYNTHIA PHILLIBER, 33, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER SCHNABEL, 39, Willits. Failure to appear.

ROBYN THOMPSON, 59, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

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

SMART TRAIN GETS MONEY NEEDED FOR HEALDSBURG EXTENSION

The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District has secured an $81 million grant for the Windsor to Healdsburg rail extension, set to break ground next year.

by Jeff Quackenbush

SMART is in line to get an $81 million state grant that would provide what’s needed to extend the rail line and its pedestrian path from Windsor to Healdsburg.

Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District’s project is among 27 awarded a total of $1.33 billion from its Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program Grant program intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the California State Transportation Authority announced Wednesday.

“This is such a huge victory for the residents of northern Sonoma County and builds off the State’s $40 million investment that is now being utilized to connect the Sonoma County Airport with the Town of Windsor,” state Senate Pro Tem McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said in a statement Thursday.

The Windsor-to-Healdsburg segment is set to break ground next year, McGuire said. It involves reconstructing 5.5 miles of track from the Windsor Depot at 9001 Windsor Ave. to the historic Healdsburg Depot at 320 Hudson St. Work on the track and path would continue north another 3.3 miles to the northern city limit.

(North Bay Business Journal)

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It's a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed and invisible.

— Doris Lessing, novelist, poet, playwright, Nobel laureate (22 Oct 1919-2013)

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio show all night Friday night on KNYO!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 6pm or so. If you can't make that, it's okay, send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first hour of the show is simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. Also there you'll find an assortment of cultural-educational amusements to occupy you until showtime, or any time, such as:

Dirty Cello. These people are coming to the Anderson Valley Grange 7pm, Friday, Nov. 1. Tickets via DirtyCello.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlpTYsQUl5I

The Onion. Conservative Man Proudly Frightened Of Everything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvtky4o5YI

A polite carpenter who can stay bent over like that for way longer than I can. He'll find out. Since the last time I fell off a roof I duct tape packing foam around my knees and go forward on three points. https://kottke.org/24/10/carpenters-symphony

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I don't expect big changes if Trump wins, but maybe just stop the bleeding a bit. Slow down the downhill tumble. I am too old to care about me, it's my grands I ache for that they might have a shot at a normal life. Nevertheless given this is a most unique era, I am on high alert for anything.

FEVER DREAM

by James Kunstler

Do you hear that lonesome whistle blow? Wooooo-wooooo! It’s the last train to Palookaville pulling into the station. At this late hour, two passengers get on: Kamala Harris, mom jeans and blazer, rheumy red eyes, half-gone on chardonnay… Â and an elderly gentleman with a goatee in a colorful but shabby red-white-and-blue suit, famous long ago as “Uncle Sam.”

There’s an election on, in case you haven’t noticed, imminent even. Kamala, everyone seems to agree, has blown it. Can’t answer simple questions pitched by friendly ringers in the “news” business. Hiding somebody else’s agenda is a tough assignment, you see. All she can really do is cackle or simper and, let’s face it, that gets humiliating fast. Joy has turned to despair. Her punched ticket says “one way.”

Whose idea was it, anyway, over at party HQ, to put her up to this contest? She wishes she knew, as she gazes out the window at the sad lights of the little towns streaking by — East Chugwater, Erewhon, Tanktown, Loserville, onward into the night to the end of the line. How’d they manage to yank her out of the comfort of the Naval Observatory, where she was comfy and cozy watching Netflix rom-coms with Doug, chardonnay refills on-demand, all the Doritos a gal could munch. She was a lover, not a fighter, she repeats to herself, but the self-consolation doesn’t quite avail.

Uncle Sam sits stoically five seats behind her. He is resigned, knowing very well why he is on that train, too. His own country is sending him into exile after swindling him out of his history and his posterity. He doesn’t even recognize the place anymore. What happened to Sandberg’s city of big shoulders? Who turned the fruited plain into a hellscape of muffler shops? How did the heroes of Iwo Jima transition into a legion of TikTok influencers with pierced faces and scrambled brains? When the train gets in, he has no place to go. Perhaps he’ll sleep in a ditch.

You entertain these drear hallucinatory conceits despite the giddiness about Donald Trump’s seeming triumph over adversity — botched assassinations, court cases hatched by malice-crazed ninnies, blob-generated calumnies, conspiracies, ops, and hoaxes galore. And for Halloween, they painted a Hitler mustache on him, just for fun. It remains to be seen what marvels of ballot legerdemain have been concocted by Marc Elias, Esq, lawfare artist supreme, destroyer of the nation’s faith in itself.

But say Mr. Trump overcomes even the planned epic voter fraud to capture the prize. What then? You’re entitled to feel nervous. The army, under Department of Defense directive 5240.01 has just been licensed to gun you down. This is a new thing. Now isn’t is it a queer moment in history for a move like that? What are they expecting, anyway? And, by the way, who exactly is the varlet in the chain-of-command who issued that directive? (Or did it just bubble-up out of the ruling blob like some sulfurous gas from a Yellowstone fumarole?)

People of good faith have reason to believe that the country is about to be blown apart. By another odd coincidence, an outfit called the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International (AFCEA) has scheduled an “exercise simulating a cyber-attack on critical infrastructure” for November 5 in Atlanta, Georgia. That’s election day. In a big swing state. Whose idea was that? Is there already not enough that might go wrong that some treasonous moron had to kick the risk of fiasco up another notch? Or might it be cover for another Three Card Monte caper with the Georgia votes? This is the sort of thing that will dog poor old Uncle Sam’s mind as he tries to fall asleep in that drainage ditch on the ragged edge of Palookaville.

Or perhaps what we’re witnessing is a fabulous bit of what George W. Bush once called “strategery” by the Party of Chaos. Five minutes after Mr. Trump gets elected, a certain unseen hand flips a little toggle somewhere in the banking system that tanks the economy so hard and fast that 2025 will make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a Hamptons clam bake… for the next four years we become a land with no money and no way to generate money… and MAGA/MAHA is left to suck eggs in the cold and dark until 2028 when the Democratic Party returns in full Maoist mode, riding in on a unicorn cavalry to rescue us… Nah… They just blew it.

So, more likely, we’re seeing the suicide of the Democratic Party. Even CNN is starting to back away from them, as from a convocation of lepers. They can smell the odor of necrosis. Plus, their own instinct for survival has kicked in. They have a business to run. They want to be around to cover the treason trial of Alejandro Mayorkas — a sure thing to jack those sagging ratings back up. Maybe even Kamala Harris will be called out of retirement to testify and we’ll find out just what was going on in the White House in the summer of 2024, when “Joe Biden” — remember him? — was rattling around the joint like a BB in a packing crate, howling for his ice cream, and no one was around anymore to hear him.

TRUMP AS FASCIST

Matt Taibbi: Nothing. If you want to argue that Trump is a fascist because his former aides say so, or because he uses “enemy within” rhetoric, I don’t see an issue. But I can’t sign up for things that make no sense, and it makes no sense to make a connection between a planned Trump event in New York and a 1939 neo-Nazi rally, just because both events are at Madison Square Garden. Unless I’m missing something, that’s insane. Why is that not insane?

Ellen Jones: Really, what has gone so wrong in your thinking. Why do you continually defend the felon/fascist?

M. D. Bryant: The “felon/fascist” slur is a sign of an increasingly desperate fascist opposition. You can dislike and vote against Trump for many reasons, but he obviously is not a “fascist”; claiming he will “round up” people if he wins (as Carville disgracefully did recently) fools almost no one. That’s because we all saw Trump serve as President without such nonsense, and with a pretty good economy and foreign policy. No “roundups”. And only a few knuckleheads actually believe any lawfare prosecutions were legit.

Monty: Trump incited the J6 insurrection to overthrow the government. You conveniently downplay this. Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, and Confederate flags were prevalent at the Capitol. He's a convicted felon and pending other felony charges. SCOTUS has unprecedentedly set him up to be a fascist dictator with no accountability. Your analysis and conclusions are grossly flawed. Not objective.

Russell Erickson: I believe Fascism is more evident in governments relationships with pharmaceuticals, who get exclusive deals that involve shortcuts in testing and indemnity from lawsuits. And, then when people are concerned, the government and big tech companies censor dissent.

FH: Additions: defense industry; healthcare (whoops I mean sickcare) industry; big ag; big food (formerly big tobacco). There must be more. I assert we are already living under a fascist regime.

Mark Palgy: Man. I went to a Billy Joel concert there 7 years ago. Guess I’m a n@zi now?

Clever Pseudonym: only if u enjoyed it

Stephen Obisanya: The Knicks are fascist too, for the record.

Jeff G: I did Nazi THAT coming

I don’t feel guilt at being unsociable, though I may sometimes regret it because my loneliness is painful. But when I move into the world, it feels like a moral fall — like seeking love in a whorehouse.

— Susan Sontag

GORMLESS, FORMLESS KAMALA JUST SAID THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD - AND PROVED WHICH CAMPAIGN IS THE REAL THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

by Maureen Callahan

Days to go and there's only one argument Kamala Harris — and her minions in the media — can make: Trump is Hitler.

Or Mussolini, or Stalin, or Pol Pot — take your pick. If Trump gets elected, he's building concentration camps, ripping up the Constitution, sending the military to arrest his political enemies — hell, anyone who didn't vote for him — hosting Putin and Xi in the Lincoln bedroom, burning the country down and throwing Rachel Maddow in jail.

Well, most of us could get behind that last one.

Here's what Maddow said about Trump voters at a Brooklyn forum in September: 'I believe that humans can change and that redemption is possible… I am always hopeful.'

And the left wonders why so many find them to be supercilious and condescending. If Kamala were smart, she'd do what Obama did and reach out to, rather than demonize, those who disagree.

But she's not smart. This, we know.

During her disastrous town hall on CNN Wednesday night, she gave only one clear and succinct answer.

'Do you think,' host Anderson Cooper asked, 'Donald Trump is a fascist?'

'Yes I do,' Kamala said. 'Yes I do.'

You could see it in her eyes: She thought this was her mic-drop moment. But no one in the audience — composed largely of voters, Cooper said, inclined to vote for her anyway — clapped or responded in kind.

The campaign of 'joy' and 'vibes' has gone quite dark indeed. Trump-as-Hitler is the left's new talking point, uttered with grave seriousness to voters still too stupid, ignorant, racist or xenophobic to get it, apparently.

Despite having a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren, Trump is a Nazi. His upcoming rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday? Nazi rally.

His stalwart, full-throated defense of Israel? Best left undiscussed.

Ex-Trump Chief-of-Staff John Kelly's four-year-old claim that the former president admired Hitler — disinterred by The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg and denied by a Trump spokesperson — is also making the rounds, though it begs the question: If Kelly believed Trump was such a Hitler acolyte, why didn't he resign right then?

Why not sound the alarm when it really mattered? Could Kelly, who was fired by Trump, be seeking revenge? Nick Ayers, former chief of staff to Trump's former VP Mike Pence, wrote on X that Kelly's claims are 'patently false'.

The media is ignoring that. The Nazi drumbeat, it seems, will go through Election Day and, if he wins, well beyond.

Sometimes, though, the mask slips. Take this exchange between MSNBC's Jen Psaki, getting hysterical – in both senses of the word — with top Dem strategist James Carville last week.

Psaki: 'It seems like you're saying we should go back to scaring people, because that's what they need to hear?'

Carville: 'Yep.'

There it is: The quiet part said out loud.

No serious person really believes Trump is a threat to democracy — not least when you hear it from a party that staged an internal palace coup and put forward a nominee who hadn't earned a single vote.

Bret Stephens, columnist for the New York Times, wrote about the left's misguided Trump-fascist ploy two days ago: 'Aside from being gratuitous and self-defeating — what kind of voter is going to be won over by being called a name? — it's also mostly wrong.'

Stephens is one of the Times' token conservatives, but somehow he got this past America's wokest newsroom.

Even Democratic senators up for re-election in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin are running ads touting their ability to work with Donald Trump. Here's the thing: People can't be just a little bit fascist or a little bit racist.

So make no mistake: Leftist elites are laughing at the poor saps who believe this stuff.

It's quite sad, really, for a major party candidate to be so empty, so devoid of any real opinions, policy, or personality, that she can only run in opposition. Harris has been campaigning since July, and she has yet to define herself.

What is she for? Not just what she believes — but what is the point of Kamala Harris?

Other than pure, vaulting ambition, the answer seems to be nothing. Seeking power for the sake of power seems a far greater threat than anything she can level against Trump.

Here was Harris, at that CNN town hall, responding to a young, earnest 'Habitat for Humanity' volunteer asking what she would do 'to make sure not another innocent Palestinian dies by bombs funded by U.S. taxpayers?'

Ooooooh boy. Kamala was not prepared for that one. Her eyes closed slowly. She brought her fingers to the bridge of her nose, as if fighting off a migraine. A pause, a little word salad, and finally, 'a two-state solution' — so easy, that — and a friendly reminder that Trump is a fascist.

Who would you rather have dealing with the Middle East?

Even Obama's top doctors can't cure this patient. Apparently, there is no treatment plan that can imbue Harris with authenticity, wit, or intelligence. She cannot be moved away from her hoariest trope, one that could be used as aural torture against prisoners of war: 'We are a people who have ambition. We have aspirations. We have dreams.'

Among those dreams is never hearing this vacuous nonsense again.

After weeks of preparation, studying, reading and mock interviews (one would hope, anyway), here's the best she could do on why the Biden-Harris administration ignored the border crisis for years:

'Well, there was a lot that was done but there's more to do, Anderson. And, and — I'm pointing out things that need to be done, that haven't been done, but need to be done.'

Aren't we supposed to be unburdened by what has been done?

Anyway: Imagine her handlers backstage, watching and listening to this. No wonder there are leaks from her camp about internal panic. Even David Axelrod, the guy who got Obama elected twice, couldn't defend this abject failure during CNN's post-mortem.

'Word salad city,' he said.

To a question posed by a political science professor named Carol, who asked Harris which policy she most wanted Congress to push through.

Simple, yes? One issue, one fix — even in a dream scenario.

Gird your loins for this one.

'Well,' Harris said, 'there's not just one. I have to be honest with you, Carol. Um, there's a lot of work that needs to happen but let's, let's — I think that maybe part of this, the point that I — how I think about it is, we've got to get past this era' — here Kamala's eyes closed, as if she was praying for a cogent answer — 'of politics and partisan politics slowing down what we need to do in terms of progress in our country.'

Carol looked unimpressed.

And what about Doug Emhoff? Any decent journalist would have used this town hall to ask about Kamala's husband, accused by an ex-girlfriend of violently slapping her in the face — in public, outside an A-list gala, so hard that she spun around — or the nanny, who he allegedly impregnated during his first marriage and paid $80,000 to go away.

Alas, we had Anderson Cooper, who also declined to tell us whether CNN had vetted these voter questions. Cooper embarrassed himself and his failing network here — much as Maria Shriver, the only other top Dem female who knows what it's like to have your husband knock up the nanny, told attendees of another Kamala town hall on Monday that they couldn't ask the candidate any questions.

'Hopefully,' Shriver told the crowd, 'I'll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head.'

How's that for free and open discussion? The point of a town hall is for citizens to ask candidates questions that concern them. Instead, they got Maria Shriver shutting them down.

And she called herself a journalist while doing so!

Little wonder Anderson Cooper seemed to think, by contrast, that he was doing a decent job — even as Kamala walked all over him.

'One of the things I specialized in as a prosecutor,' Harris said, 'was crimes against women and children.'

There's the opening: WHAT ABOUT DOUG? What about the women who say he treated them terribly? Does Kamala, as the left so stridently tells us, believe all women? Or just women who Doug hasn't dated?

When will someone in the national media grow a spine and ask this gormless, formless candidate about her husband's accusers?

It won't be anyone on CNN, that's for sure. Last week, Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George W. Bush, dared to bring up 'some of the questions that are swirling around Harris's own husband' before the network's panel swiftly shut him down and shut him up.

That is thought policing. That is intellectual fascism.

If there's one thing we can be sure Kamala Harris believes in, it's the very thing she's accusing Trump of doing and being — shutting down perceived enemies, refusing to be straight with the American people, and letting the media run cover for her and her husband.

So much for the politics of joy.

(DailyMailUk)

NOTE ON THE WASHINGTON POST’S NON-ENDORSEMENT

by Matt Taibbi

Around this time last night I read the Levitsky/Ziblatt New York Times editorial about the “Fifth Choice” for stopping Trump, which read like a clarion call to ignore coming bad election news. On the heels of weeks of other catastrophizing editorials, it came as a shock.

Now word comes about stunning industry news of another sort. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have declined to endorse either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, which in the case of the Bezos Post especially reads like a decision to surrender to coming bad election news.

The Post has been the tip of the anti-Trump spear for years, and, with the Times, led the movement to openly politicize journalism via its insufferably self-congratulating “Democracy Dies in Darkness” campaign, so bowing out of the open advocacy game with publisher William Lewis promising a return to the paper’s “roots” is beyond surprising.

Editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who penned last year’s million-word “Calling All Hinckleys” editorial comparing Trump to Julius Caesar, resigned in protest, presumably to spend more time snuggling with spouse Victoria Nuland.

The 16,000 or so comments under the Lewis editorial so far reveal two things. Post readers prefer the more traditionally British double-L spelling of “cancelled.” Also, many readers noticed with chagrin the contrast with the Times piece.

I’ve heard so many crazy things in the last weeks about behind-the-scenes maneuvering in Washington that it’s been tough to know what to believe, but it’s clear we’re headed for some kind of historic confrontation. I have trouble believing institutional America will really reverse course after eight years of dystopian lunacy, but Bezos and the Post just changed something, probably over the passionate objections of 98% of staff. Whatever’s going on, it sure isn’t boring.

In Wednesday’s Washington Post, author Matt Bai (definitely not a relation) worried about “Our Deepening Cold War.” While there might be an unspecified “Resistance” reaction from Democrats if Kamala Harris fails, extreme means might be necessary to protect the public if Donald Trump “narrowly loses”: Republicans in Congress seem cowed enough not only to halt the counting of votes, but also to reject electoral college certification altogether.

Restoring order might fall not just to the courts, but to the military as well.

Bai describes the dilemma of the rectitude-filled, democracy-defending Post reader, for whom losing this election would mean opting “out of the shared American project altogether” to “wait for redemption.”

But can one afford to wait? Trump, called a fascist in “truly astounding” quotes by former generals, is of course a threat, but is he survivable? In other words: “Can the country bend without breaking?”

It’s always interesting when the same phrases pop up at the same time in similar editorials. The “bend” question appeared a day later in a New York Times editorial, “There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth.” Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt answered Bai’s question in the negative. Trump, they say, has promised to prosecute political rivals, “deploy the army to suppress protest,” and deport as many as 20 million people. Through such comments, “Mr. Trump is forthrightly telling Americans that if he wins, he plans to bend, if not break, our democracy.”

But we can’t afford to take that risk, suggest Levitsky and Ziblatt, whose screed is furious, pessimistic, and paranoid. It walks readers through four failed options for stopping a “clear threat to American democracy” in Trump, then proposes a more extreme fifth.

What about just letting voters choose? No go, explain the Harvard men.

MYRTIS DIGHTMAN: The Trailblazer Who Changed Rodeo Forever

Born in 1935 in Crockett, Texas, Myrtis Dightman made history in 1967, not just for being one of the best bull riders, but for breaking barriers no one thought possible. This Texas cowboy took the rodeo world by storm, proving his grit and skill with every eight-second ride.

But Myrtis wasn’t just known for his talent—he had a flair for making bold statements. After receiving a score he thought was unfair, he famously rode a bronco backward with a suitcase in one hand to prove his point. It’s moments like these that made Myrtis unforgettable.

Against all odds, he climbed to the top, becoming the first Black cowboy to earn a spot at the National Finals Rodeo, where the best of the best compete. His journey wasn’t easy, but Myrtis kept his eyes on the prize, determined to show that talent and heart are all that truly matter.

Dightman’s legacy still stands tall in the rodeo world—a trailblazer born and raised in Texas, who paved the way for future generations, reminding us all that perseverance and passion can break any barrier.

“DON’T BE TAKEN IN when they pat you paternally on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason for fighting. Because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretense of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons rapidly developed by servile scientists will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you into pieces.”

― Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

“MAN CAN WILL NOTHING unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities; without help; with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.”

— Sartre

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Response Comes Weeks After Iranian Missile Attacks on Israel

In Deciding Whether to Retaliate, Iran Faces a Dilemma

Israel’s Strike Marks New Phase of Conflict, but Stops Short of All-Out War

GENOCIDE UPDATE

Israel attacks across Gaza on Friday left dozens dead and cut off communications between the outside world and one of the last functioning hospitals in the enclave’s north, according to officials from the Gaza health ministry and the World Health Organization.

The Gazan Health Ministry said that at least 38 people had been killed and dozens more injured in the strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the operation, but residents said Israeli forces attacked the town without warning with airstrikes and drones. In the past, Israeli forces have said they are targeting Hamas fighters in Khan Younis.

— NYT

THE HIGH PRICE OF FREEDOM

I hear they’ve sealed all the borders

And we’ve been confined to quarters

We’re just waiting for our orders

And the waiting’s hard to bear.

The garrison flag is flappin

That old sergeant’s eyes are snappin

He knows what’s ‘bout to happen

He’s seen this all before.

And I can see my hand is shakin

Mother’s heart will be breakin

But unless I am mistaken, boys,

We’re shipping out for war.

There’s been some talk of protest

And a growing sense of unrest

But we’re coming to the one test

And I hope we make the score.

Yes we’ll pay the high price of freedom

And it won’t matter how we beat ‘em

We will pay the high price of freedom

And we’ll lay it all at your door.

—lyrics & music by L/Cpl Bruce McEwen in the key of D maj. on his old Yamaha red label six-string. (WESTPAC orders notwithstanding L/Cpl McEwen never made it to Danang, thanks to Nixon’s “pullout.” )

17 Comments

Steve Heilig October 26, 2024

“Hobo fire” is funny, but also a slur on actual hobos.
The Wikipedia page for “hobo” is illuminating and well worth a read overall, but starts:

“A hobo is a migrant worker in the United States. Hoboes, tramps, and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; a bum neither travels nor works. “

(So, “bum fire”?) (which might have a different abut also distressing meaning in England)

Reply
- Steve Heilig October 26, 2024
  
  An ethical code was created by Tourist Union #63 (a hobo union created in the mid-1800s to dodge anti-vagrancy laws, which did not apply to union members)[29] during its 1889 National Hobo Convention:
  Decide your own life; don’t let another person run or rule you.
  When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
  Don’t take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hoboes.
  Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.
  When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
  Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals’ treatment of other hoboes.
  When jungling in town, respect handouts and do not wear them out; another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you.
  Always respect nature; do not leave garbage where you are jungling.
  If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.
  Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.
  When traveling, ride your train respectfully. Take no personal chances. Cause no problems with operating crew or host railroad. Act like an extra crew member.
  Do not cause problems in a train yard; another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.
  Do not allow other hoboes to molest children; expose all molesters to authorities – they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
  Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
  Help your fellow hoboes whenever and wherever needed; you may need their help someday.
  If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!
  
  Reply
Marshall Newman October 26, 2024

That Mendocino County Courthouse design looks like a bar code.

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- Bob Abeles October 26, 2024
  
  Lee said, however, it was a walk among towering ancient redwoods in Montgomery Redwoods State Natural Reserve west of Ukiah that provided major design inspiration.
  
  Not meaning to hurt Lee’s feelings, but I just don’t see it.
  
  To me it looks more like it was inspired by the building on the Stolichnaya bottle.
  
  Reply
Julie Beardsley October 26, 2024

That courthouse design just butt-ugly. How about facing the outside with natural local stone? How about some actual local wood if you find our trees so inspiring? Beautiful oak? How about a green wall? Is it a green building? There is nothing about this design that suggests it’s in Mendocino County! Rather it’s in the Walmart category of dull, uninspired public architecture that could be anywhere. It looks like an Amazon warehouse. If you’re going to spend public money- try harder!!

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- Falcon October 26, 2024
  
  It’s supposed to be butt-ugly — a representation of, a re-presentation of something bad, a place where a person would not want to be, a place a person would want to escape/get away from as quickly as possible at the speed of light…
  
  Reply
- Brian Wood October 26, 2024
  
  I agree the courthouse design is abysmal. Turner said the exterior design of the building is “intended to replicate the verticality of the redwoods, with shivelight coming through the interior public corridors.” Yeah, right. In seriousness, the design doesn’t evoke anything natural that would represent the county. It’s crass.
  
  Reply
Harvey Reading October 26, 2024

The seasoning photo left out the parsley… They did get the sage, rosemary, and thyme.

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Harvey Reading October 26, 2024

“The old-timers were mostly for the development…”

Typical. They’re usually dumb as logs everywhere you go…and usually conservative rethuglicans to boot.

Reply
Harvey Reading October 26, 2024

SHIVELIGHT: NEW MENDOCINO COUNTY COURTHOUSE DESIGN – A SECOND LOOK

No uglier than the White House, the US capitol, or most state capitols. Get over it.

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Craig Stehr October 26, 2024

Am at the MLK Public Library right now…just left the upper floors which hosted the D.C. Zine Fest, with lots of Punk influence.

Check this out >>> https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/10/04/the-dc-punk-archive-celebrates-its-10-year-anniversary/

😉

Reply
Mike Williams October 26, 2024

The SFGate article about Ridgewood contains a couple of errors. The famous racehorse Seabiscuit was not bred at Ridgewood and Charles Howard was not the trainer but was the owner.

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Marco McClean October 26, 2024

Re: “Shivelight” and its influence on courthouse architecture and, farther down the page, Peter White writing about how the rich “pat you on the shoulder, from their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretense of bringing them culture.” It’s weird– just last week I quoted the scene in Kurt Vonnegut’s /Breakfast of Champions/, where Rabo Karabekian says something in the same mental department, addressing surly, resentful denizens of the town’s dim bar, to explain why his painting, a large canvas covered in leftover green house paint with a single vertical stripe of reflective tape down the left edge, which took him five minutes to slap together, is worth $50,000 (in 1973 money) to the town, thanks to a grant from the Elliot Rosewater Foundation and the Midland City Festival for the Arts. He wins the bar-flies over to his point of view, and you’re kind of happy for his triumphant moment, if you’re fourteen.

Reply
- Sarah Kennedy Owen October 26, 2024
  
  Interesting analogy! There have been beautiful works of art done using tape “bars” (Frank Stella comes to mind) but usually color is involved. In this case the blankness of the black and white seems wrong for our county, with its colorful population and varied (if sometimes very regrettable) history.
  To add to the insensitive-to-the-public design, as tempting as it is to accept the architect’s reasoning, trees do not grow is straight lines, in fact there are no straight lines in nature. “Shivelight” in the forest, falling on the soft under story, is one thing, but sunlight falling in rigid lines on on straight hard floors heats up and makes the building less energy-efficient, reminding us of the folly we created that led to global warming. Not a particularly wonderful feeling.
  Also, the old train station could have been more incorporated into the design, and its style a jumping-off point for a more “local” feel. Very big missed opportunity there, another indication of the haughty indifference the “movers and shakers”(including locals) show toward the Mendocino County population.
  As to the (new) courthouse “turning its back” on the downtown, that’s pushing it, but there is definitely a “disconnect” between the flow of public foot traffic and commerce and the cold stature or even autistic isolation, of this sad and lonely, strange building. So unlike the current courthouse, the hub of a busy downtown, where attorneys can be seen walking around with their briefcases and jurors can find lunch at a choice local spot.
  Let’s not blame the architect, however, who was trained in a certain style. Instead, I would like to know who chose this location, this architect and who promoted this design? Who gets to make these momentous ( and sometimes disastrous) decisions for the people who pay for it and are forced to accept it?
  
  Reply
Falcon October 27, 2024

THIS Courthouse building…

Is NOT a Civic Center.

Should the building be a Civic Center?

Reply
Falcon October 27, 2024

What is Civic Building and Civic Center Architecture Design for the Public?

Civic Building and Civic Center Architecture: Design for the Public
https://hmcarchitects.com/ideas/civic-building-and-civic-center-architecture-design-for-the-public/#:~:text=What%20Is%20a%20Civic%20Center,important%20members%20of%20the%20community

Reply
Marco McClean October 28, 2024

But whose grill is it?

Reply

Mendocino County Today: Saturday 10/26/2024

17 Comments

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