Letters 11/3/2024

• Females First
• How Are Fire Taxes Being Used?
• Trump’s Whopper
• Picking Up White Courtesy Phone
• Blood From A Turnip
• Actually Existing LDS
• R.I.P. John Mayfield
• White Doofus
• Here's Hoping

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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!

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HOW ARE FIRE TAXES BEING USED?

Editor,

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

Ukiah

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TRUMP’S WHOPPER

Editor:

Donald Trump’s photo op at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s fry station was as hilarious as seeing him in (any) church. But to say, “I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s” was even more laughable. He’d be better suited at Burger King, home of the Whopper!

Bob Canning

Petaluma

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PICKING UP WHITE COURTESY PHONE

Dear OEE,

Got your signal. Let me begin with a grumble. It used to be that one could go to the USGS website, punch in Navarro River, and receive a data miner's dream of flow and discharge data going back a few decades. But, that's not all. The site also offered basic data visualization tools that could draw utilitarian graphs of the data. Fast forward to today. USGS now offers an entirely new half-assed (term of art) tool that try as I might I can't get to load more than the last 30 days of gauge data. Cory Doctorow is right, enshitification abounds. It can even happen, as it has with the USGS, with the profit motive completely removed. Who'da thunk it?

But, as if the USGS knew how thoroughly unsatisfactory their new webpage is, they offer a link to their OG webpage labelled "legacy real-time page". I've pulled a data table going back to 2014 and I'm ready to reduce it.

So, my question to you is what would you like to know? You may ask multiple questions.

In true health through the purity and essence of our natural fluids…

Bob Abeles, Boonville

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BLOOD FROM A TURNIP

Memo of the Week

Small Claims Case # 24SC00153: Pryor vs. Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Filed by Casey Pryor, Hearst Road, Willits

Hearing Date: 11/18/2024, 1:30pm, Dept. C.

Prepared by Willits Paralegal Christina J. McCluskey, 10/17/2024.

Served by Certifled Mail, 10/24/2024

Number of precisely prepared typed pages for Service/Notice: 4.

Number of precisely prepared typed pages for Claim including instructions: 6

Number of precisely prepared typed pages of exhibits: 7

Basis of Claim: The newspaper offered subscriptions at a cost of $92 for 2 years. The newspaper comes out weekly. In February 2024, plaintiff renewed his subscription for 2 years by payment with a check for $92. Afterwards, in that same month, the paper announced it would not print any more newspapers, only offer an internet-based newspaper. Plaintiff does not have internet and wants a refund for the issues he paid for but will not [truncated…].

Calculation: 52 weeks in a year. 2 years = 104 newspapers. Divide $92 by 104 = $0.88 per issue. Plaintiff received his last issue on 5/01/24. He received 13 issues of the newespaper based on his February payment. 13 x $0.88 = $11.44. Deduct that from $92 ($92-$11.44) = $80.56 refund is due to Plaintiff

Exhibit Summary: Plaintiff's Exhibit 2, attached hereto and incorporated by reference are copies of the newspaper that demonstrate the subscription expiration date, which shows that he had paid for the additional two years service.

ED REPLY: Dude! We're still laughing, Thanks for the joke. Most welcome in these dark days.

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ACTUALLY EXISTING LDS

Editor,

As a socialist and devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), I read a recent article entitled “Socialists in the Kingdom of God" by Gus Breslauer with great interest.

The article was very astute in its assessment of the LDS Church's early history and in observing that its egalitarianism rivaled anything accomplished through political ideology during that era or since. Sadly, however, like so many historians and observers, Mr. Breslauer draws the conclusion that the conservatism of leaders such as Ezra Taft Benson signifies a shift in the Church’s doctrines away from the spiritual foundations of the pioneer era and toward the enshrining of private property and capitalism.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Church may be rich, but no one is being enriched by the Church, and few other institutions in the world do as much good or lift as many people out of poverty as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As a socialist, I wouldn't be a member if it were otherwise.

Esteban Martorell

Los Angeles

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R.I.P. JOHN MAYFIELD

To the Editor:

I remember back when there was a Denny’s restaurant in Ukiah, John would “hold court” in the back of the restaurant. He and his entourage would sit all the way in the back and talk county politics over their Value Slam Breakfasts.

John knew me from my public comment during Board of Supervisor meetings. Occasionally, I would join the group at Denny’s. And I would just listen. I would just shut up listen to John and I would learn from the master himself. I would take mental notes.

Sadly, everything John said about County CEO Carmel Angelo and her power grab was true. Everything John said about the expansion of the Executive Office and their obscenely bloated payroll was true. Everything John said about Carmel Angelo’s Stalin=like purges and wrongful terminations of department heads was true. Everything John said about the mismanagement and deliberate obfuscation of county finances was true. Everything John said about the county’s screwball budget process was true. Everything John said about the county’s over-reliance on a cannabis economy and lack of real economic development was true. Everything John said about the county’s ballooning unfunded pension liability and the “two sets of books” bookkeeping in the Teeter Plan was true.

John Mayfield saw it all. He was grumpy and guff, but county politics would put anyone in a bad mood.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

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WHITE DOOFUS

Editor:

Your bit tracing the financial shenanigans of The Trees Foundation, Earth First! etc. brings back some memories; I had forgotten about that guy “Shunka.” Then the bit that it meant “white doofus” made me laugh. Of course all direct activists took forest names, in order to make things a little more complicated for arresting officers, I went by “hawk” which would have afforded me no legal protection, since that was just the name by which I was known anyway! But I wasn’t gifted the name in any ceremony with any Medicine Man! I just came to it because I just kept having so many extraordinary experiences with raptors, that could only be described as spiritual. After a particularly intense one; I started to contemplate changing my last name, it took me a few years to do it because I knew it was a strange thing to do, and would attract lots of attention from many quarters. But the experiences just kept piling up, so it seemed obvious I should do it. My birth family was mortified, and did not use it for many years; my adopted son started calling me “Hawk” and that stuck!

To this day I still get a lot of strange reactions, when I first meet people in person they are surprised to see a white man; and Natives just DON’T know what to make of me. (I.e., “Is this guy for real, or just another White Doofus?”) But since my stroke has afforded me a type of strange early retirement I have lots of time to think and just be, I spend a lot of time just being in nature, and I’m increasingly aware that nature is not just a concept, but a singular living, conscious, entity, and she speaks to me a lot! I don't think I’m anything special. I just think I’m being afforded the opportunity to relearn what our ancestors knew, before the unholy alliance of monotheism and capitalism found it in their interest to sever us from our birthright!

As regular AVA readers know; I have not lost my concerns for economic, and political affairs of out county and the World. But I do see the institutions we have created to prop them up as cheap, shallow expressions compared to our REAL power!

Thank you for following the bouncing ball of my philosophical meanderings

Chris Skyhawk (aka White Doofus)

Fort Bragg

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HERE'S HOPING

Editor:

Most people, like me, have had a problem distinguishing wishes from good judgment. I remember several skirmishes where my expectations collided with common sense (traumatic moments) when I heard something I did not want to hear. My first semi-adult confrontation with disappointment was when the San Francisco Giants traded Willie Mays to the New York Mets. No one could mention the Bay Area team’s name without me ranting about them for the next 10 years. Nearly half the nation is about to face a crisis like that. I hope we are more mature than I was.

Tom Fantulin

Fort Bragg