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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Covelo 0.81" - Willits 0.75" - Boonville 0.74" - Laytonville 0.70" - Hopland 0.57" - Yorkville 0.56" - Ukiah 0.49" - Leggett 0.10"
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Another 1.09" of rainfall this morning added to the earlier .17" brings us a system total of 1.26", much more than forecast. On the coast this Tuesday morning I have 42F under clear skies. Dry today then scattered showers Wed & Thur, then I have mixed forecast after that? We'll see.
WEATHER WILL REMAIN UNSETTLED with a powerful front to bring strong southerly winds, moderate to heavy rainfall, marginally strong thunderstorms, and some mountain snow. Additional showers and thunderstorms will linger Thursday into Friday. Much cooler temperatures will then settle with the chance for additional precipitation and some mountain snowfall through the weekend. (NWS)
ANDERSON VALLEY FFA
Monday was Veterans Day! Thank you Veterans!
On Monday 13 FFA members came together to do something for their community.
This weekend with all the donations from our awesome contributors, FFA members went shopping for food for our Thanksgiving Dinner Boxes. The members thought they had enough money to fill 56 boxes. They were really able to purchase items for 90 boxes! The boxes will be given to the Anderson Valley Food Bank for distribution.
FFA members unfolded and taped all the boxes. Then they began to fill them. Great teamwork and organization by the members made the process go quickly. Besides the boxes the members are donating 2 boxes of mixed winter squash grown in the school garden.
After the members were finished Ms. Swehla asked each member to talk about how they felt about this activity. It was unanimous. They all were so happy to do real meaningful service for the community. They were also grateful for the things they have at home.
NCS FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SCHEDULE
The North Coast Section prep football playoff brackets were released Sunday, and 14 local teams made the cut for the postseason.
In the first season using a new playoff format, the area’s teams fell across a wide swath of divisions.
Cardinal Newman became the first Sonoma County team to be selected for the Open/Division 1 bracket. The Cardinals were named the No. 5 seed and will have a rematch with No. 4 seed Marin Catholic — which beat the Santa Rosa school two weeks ago — in the first round at 1 p.m. Saturday in Kentfield.
Windsor was awarded the No. 3 seed in Division 2 and will play at No. 6 seed Casa Grande at 7 p.m. Saturday. The Gauchos earned a home game as the league champions of the Redwood Empire Conference Valley division. Vintage is also in Division 2 as the No. 8 seed and will play Friday at top seed Liberty.
Ukiah was named the top seed in Division 4 and will play at No. 8 seed Alameda, which won its league, in the first round Friday night. American Canyon got the No. 2 seed in Division 4 and will host No. 7 seed College Park on Friday.
St. Vincent was also named a top seed in Division 5, which features three other local teams. The Mustangs will host No. 8 seed Arroyo at 1 p.m. Saturday. The No. 4 seed is Maria Carrillo, which will host No. 5 Tamalpais on Friday. Sonoma Valley is the No. 3 seed and will host No. 6 Hayward in the first round Friday.
Division 6 also features three local teams in Piner, Montgomery and Petaluma. Piner is the No. 3 seed and will host No. 6 Benicia on Friday, while Montgomery is the No. 4 seed and will host No. 5 Petaluma that night.
Roseland University Prep and Elsie Allen both made the postseason in the two eight-person divisions.
Open/Division 1
No. 5 Cardinal Newman (9-1) at No. 4 Marin Catholic (8-2), 1 p.m. Saturday
Division 2
No. 3 Windsor (7-3) at No. 6 Casa Grande (8-2), 7 p.m. Saturday
No. 8 Vintage (6-4) at No. 1 Liberty (7-3), 7 p.m. Friday
Division 4
No. 1 Ukiah (7-3) at No. 8 Alameda (8-2), 7 p.m. Friday
No. 2 American Canyon (8-2) vs. No. 7 College Park (3-7), 7 p.m. Friday
Division 5
No. 1 St. Vincent (9-1) vs. No. 8 Arroyo (8-2), 1 p.m. Saturday
No. 3 Sonoma Valley (10-0) vs. No. 6 Hayward (6-4), 7 p.m. Friday
No. 4 Maria Carrillo (7-3) vs. No. 5 Tamalpais (3-7), 7 p.m. Friday
Division 6
No. 3 Piner (8-2) vs. No. 6 Benicia (4-6), 7 p.m. Friday
No. 4 Montgomery (4-6) vs. No. 5 Petaluma (4-6), 7 p.m. Friday
8-person Division 1
No. 3 Roseland University Prep (7-3) at No. 2 Branson (6-2), 1 p.m. Saturday
8-Person Division 2
No. 2 Elsie Allen (6-4) vs. No. 3 Round Valley (4-4), 7 p.m. Friday
JUSTICE DELAYED: A Look Back at the Case Against Ousted County Auditor Chamise Cubbison
by Mark Scaramella
When District Attorney David Eyster filed trumped up felony misappropriation charges against former County Auditor Chamise Cubbison more than a year ago, Eyster thought he had a good case. Most outside observers thought the case was filed on specious grounds because Eyster simply didn’t like having his asset forfeiture spending questioned by an independent Auditor.
After the Supervisors jumped on Eyster’s bogus filing as dubious grounds to suspend Cubbison without pay, without any opportunity for Cubbison to respond, some people thought the case would be adjudicated in a timely manner and demanded that Cubbison be given her elected position back.
We wrote at the time that anyone who has experienced the Mendocino County courts would know that the case would drag out for a long time. But even our skepticism was insufficient to the distorted reality which has ensued because here we are more than a year later and the case has not even made it to a preliminary hearing where the prosecutor is supposed to try to convince a judge that there is reasonable cause to proceed.
Remember, no one has accused Ms. Cubbison of personally profiting from any alleged “misappropriation.” All she stands accused of is somehow — maybe, perhaps; the County’s emails seem to have either vanished or are contradictory — approving the use of an obscure payroll code to authorize some extra payments to the County’s payroll manager for work no one disputes was done during the high-stress covid interlude, but which, again allegedly, was not permitted because the payroll manager was a salaried manager, not an hourly employee.
That’s all this case — a felony case — is about: who approved a payroll code for one person who put in the time she was paid for.
Ms. Cubbison received no financial benefit and Ms. Kennedy was paid for work she undeniably did but wasn’t technically permitted to be paid for.
In the immediate aftermath of the DA’s charges, Ms. Cubbison was suspended — without pay — and lost her job, her excellent reputation tarnished. Kennedy was charged with incorrectly receiving pay for work she actually did due to the payroll code. Sje also lost her job, was also fired without pay, also accused of felony misappropriation, and left an emotional wreck to the point that her defense attorney filed a mental health diversion claim in open court.
Meanwhile, the man who everyone agrees initiated the use of the obscure payroll code for Ms. Kennedy, retired Auditor Lloyd Weer, remains off-scene, uncharged, comfortably drawing his generous pension, not even subpoenaed to testify.
Ms. Cubbison has filed a civil suit against the County for wrongful termination and denial of due process (we can think of several other grounds) which will probably only be addressed after the criminal case is over, if it's ever over. (Ms. Cubbison has been accruing a large legal bill over time which, presumably, will be submitted to the County and addressed in her civil case, but that’s still a long way off.)
Judge Ann Moorman, who now presides over the tattered and battered case after two previous judges were slo-mo cast aside has grumbled a few times about the delays — none of which have had anything to do with Cubbison — but she has never taken any action to speed things along or sanction the stumbling prosecution.
A few months after DA Eyster filed the case, insisting that he had no animosity for or prejudice against Cubbison despite having denounced her the year before in a Supervisors meeting, Eyster walked away from the case, turning it over to a former private attorney/associate and charging the County $400 an hour, plus a ten thousand dollar signing bonus, long-since exceeded, to do whatever she is doing to keep the comatose case on costly life-support.
Also meanwhile, the Supervisors blithely bumble along congratulating themselves for “consolidating” (i.e., disrupting without any plan or risk assessment) the office Ms. Cubbison was suspended from and trying to deal with, having installed their own more pliant executive staffer to run the office and claim credit for finishing things that were already underway under Cubbison, and for the discovery of millions in funds they magically just uncovered — after telling everyone they were broke.
By now it should be obvious that the manufactured molehill that this mountain of an grotesquely manufactured case is based on has all but blown away, but, as usual, nobody in official Mendocino County will acknowledge it, much less be held accountable.
Eyster will probably not run for re-election but will retire and retreat to tend to his well-manicured lawn, sip a nice glass of wine, and a pull down a very generous County pension.
Supervisors Glenn McGourty and Dan Gjerde, the prime malefactors behind the misbegotten “Get Cubbison” project, will drift into comfortable retirements with glowing declarations of whereas that they denied their far more capable and responsible colleague, the falsely vilified John McCowen, while Supervisor Ted Williams will face no serious criticism or opposition from his oblivious coastal constituents. And Supervisors Maureen Mulheren and John Haschak will sit idly by earning their big self-awarded pay raises, pretending that everything is just fine.
As an organization, Official Mendo will stumble along waiting to make a mess of the next big thing. (Our guess: the new jail project and/or the Psychiatric Health Facility.)
Here’s just a brief reminder of how bizarrely the Cubbison case has unfolded so far via a summary of the titles of the articles written by AVA ace reporter Mike Geniella since charges were filed last October. Just imagine how much pointless stress and wasted public money is behind each painful and ludicrous step.
October 14, 2023: DA Files Criminal Charges Against County Auditor & Former Payroll Manager
October 17, 2023: County Auditor Suspended Without Pay
October 18, 2023: A Pair of Vindictive Indictments
October 22, 2023: Mendocino County Supervisors Face Legal Challenge Over Auditor’s Suspension
October 27, 2023: Doubting The Cubbison Charges
October 31, 2023: County Supervisors Under Fire for Cubbison Ouster
November 2, 2023: The Backlash: Cubbison Support Grows
November 15, 2023: DA a No Show In Race for Judge
November 29, 2023: Cubbison Seeks DA Recusal
December 13, 2023: Cubbison Did The Right Thing; Then…
December 17, 2023: Cubbison Demands Job Back
December 20, 2023: Cubbison Fights Back
December 27, 2023: Cubbison Case Delays & Demands
January 4, 2024: More Cubbison Case Questions
January 10, 2024: The AG Seems To Be Listening
January 13, 2024: DA Not Recused
February 21, 2024: Judge Faulder Disqualified From Cubbison Case
April 3, 2024: Eyster Hires Outside Prosecutor In Cubbison Case
April 17, 2024: Last Week In Ukiah; Judge Shanahan Recuses Herself
May 9, 2024: High-Stakes Cubbison Criminal Case Delayed Again
June 15, 2024: Cubbison Prelim Set For July 25th
July 19, 2024: Missing E-Mails Found; Could Be Key To Cubbison Case
July 21, 2024: Special Prosecutor Voices Concerns About Missing County Emails
July 24, 2024: Criminal Trial Of Auditor/Payroll Manager Stalls Over Emails
August 3, 2024: Former County Payroll Manager Seeks Mental Health Diversion In Criminal Case
August 16, 2024: Court Delays Decision On Whether To Grant Former Payroll Manager Mental Health Diversion
September 28, 2024: Cubbison Defense Moves To Have Criminal Case Tossed
November 7, 2024: Special Prosecutor Opposes Dismissal In Cubbison Case
November 9, 2004: Cubbison Case Bogs Down Again
COME CELEBRATE KAREN RIFKIN'S NEW BOOK
Join the Historical Society of Mendocino County and Karen Rifkin to celebrate her new book, The History of Ukiah’s Palace Hotel. Author Karen Rifkin will share her research and writing process.
Join us to recount your stories and memories, purchase the book, explore the history and artifacts of the Palace Hotel, and enjoy some refreshments.
When: Saturday November 16, 2024 — 1-3pm
Where: The Historical Society of Mendocino County, 100 S. Dora Street, Ukiah, CA
In July 2023, the historical society unveiled our new research room, where Karen Rifkin eagerly stepped forward as one of our inaugural docents. During her time exploring our collection, she came across the Palace Hotel (Ukiah) archival collection—an exciting find, given her past experience as the kitchen manager, line cook, and sous chef at the Palace Bar & Grill. Discoveries like an original menu and a newspapers article celebrating the restaurant's grand opening stirred many memories, which she generously shared with us.
Inspired by her findings, she delved deeper into its history and uncovered a treasure trove of captivating stories. This journey fueled her determination to write a book about the history of Ukiah’s Palace Hotel. After a year of rigorous research, countless hours in the archive, interviews with former staff and patrons, and meticulous attention to detail, Karen is thrilled to announce the release of her new book!
“Journey back in time to 1895, when a drunken Vat Berryhill staggered into the card room of the Palace Hotel and fired off a round at W.H. Lyons; to 1921, when Frank Sandelin was arrested for violating the Volstead Act; to 1949, when Walter Sandelin hired Don Clever to paint the Black Bart mural; to 1978, when Pat Kuleto and company spent $3.5 million to bring good food and good times back to the declining hotel; and to the period of 1990-2017, when Eladia Laines and the City of Ukiah spent money, time, and energy in a fruitless, last-ditch effort to resurrect the dying building.
Continue the trip, right up to the present, to 2024, when, after many years of being determined structurally unsound and a danger to public safety, and after going into its final foreclosure in 2019, the Palace Hotel is presently destined for demolition... any day now...or maybe not. It's all there and more, with stories and photos, in the first definitive, chronological accounting of the Palace Hotel and the people and events that shaped its wild and colorful history.
About the Author:
Karen Rifkin graduated from Douglass College/Rutgers University with a degree in history/political science; and later moved to Ukiah to raise her family and work at Round Table Pizza. Afterward she became kitchen manager, line cook and sous chef at the Palace Hotel. After working as a massage therapist, she returned to college for her teaching credential and taught middle school students history and English. Some years later she became a feature writer and photographer for the Ukiah Daily Journal.
ED NOTES
FROM 2008: THE COUNTY’S BUILDING DEPARTMENT is getting lots of new grading complaints since the season’s first rains have arrived. Most of the complaints are from neighbors who are worried about the damage that falling sediment or a slope collapse will cause to their own property. The complaints that the Building Department is looking at are violations of the grading rules which are part of the state building code, because Mendo doesn’t have (and will never have) a grading ordinance which covers ag activity or other non-construction. Typically, the new complaints involve sloppy road construction of “driveways” switching back and forth up to a construction site, or sloppy site pad prep and grading, all done without permits or engineering or a geologist’s advice, even though it’s supposed to be done to building code standards. The Building Department is unprepared for this year’s unusually large number of complaints and cannot possibly respond to all of them. But the ones they have responded to (the potential building code violations) typically involve pointing out to the builder or property owner that their grading is obviously substandard and unsafe. Photos taken by Building department staffers show some pretty feeble, after-the-fact attempts at shoring up some fairly steep slopes below various ugly cuts into the hillside, such as little stakes and webbing to hold back the falling dirt, or straw piled onto the sliding material, or grass seeding — none of which will do much good at this late point after the damage has been done.
THE OTHER REPORTS of apparent grading non-construction violations that the Building Department gets are completely unenforceable without a County grading ordinance because they do not accompany construction and are not covered by the Building Code. In those instances, often vineyard prep, neighbor complaints go nowhere, even in fairly egregious cases.
IT’S NOT CLEAR if the property owners where these violations occur simply don’t know about the building code rules or if they were intentionally ignoring them or if they were just stupid about how to do pad and driveway construction. But it is obvious that they are cutting into steep slopes to make roads or construction pads in steeper places that are less and less hospitable to such grading activity. At least two of the situations the Building Department is trying to deal with now are on slopes that are not far above roadways and a slide or dirtfall would not only be a traffic hazard but would require state or county road crews to rush out to clear the road debris.
THESE BUILDING DEPARTMENT staffers also said that they are encountering lots of building code violations in unincorporated areas associated with pot growing. Shoddy construction, electrical hazards, clearcuts of various sizes, fuel tanks and shoddy fuel line plumbing and associated fire hazards. The whole situation is much more than the staff can handle. And with rural pot growers, there’s no grading ordinance to cover the work, and it would be very hard to even know who to cite, even assuming someone can find the time to identify and document the violation and figure out who owns the property.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS HAPPEN. One day I stepped out of my apartment front door in the City to find a plump, fifty-ish Russian woman complete with a peasant head scarf holding my neighbor’s potted flowering cactus.
Russian? I assumed so because there were lots of Russians in the Clement area at the time, and she somehow looked like the Russians I'd seen in movies. Not much of an I.D. but I went with it.
The cactus had been half-way up the stairs, placed there by my neighbor to enhance the building’s gloomy entrance. The Rooski’s back was to me because she was in the process of walking back down the stairs with the cactus, appropriating it for herself, stealing it.
I didn't know she was from the land of the bear until she started to talk, which she did, frantically, when she saw me looming above her, five stairs up from where she stood. She said she’d never seen a cactus like this one, how sweet its blossoms smelled, how beautiful it was. The reason she was now on the bottom stair with it in her hands was because she wanted “To smell da little flowers better, see dis beautiful ting better in da light.”
I felt like applauding.
As she was explaining her aborted theft she looked up at me, smiling, turning on what I guess she thought was old world charm. I smiled back, thinking to myself, “There, there, Little Babushka. Just put the plant down and hurry on home to your samovar.” Would I, an internationalist, a liberal, deny an immigrant, a new American who'd fled Stalin's terror the simple pleasure of smelling cactus flowers? Of course not. My general attitude is that if people want something bad enough to steal it, take it.
Except my stuff.
Babushka put the cactus down on the lowest step, still crooning over it, and I walked on, thinking maybe I was wrong. Maybe the covetous Slav had come all the way up the stairs off the street simply to enjoy the plant. An old world aesthete!
But cactus blooms had never emitted any fragrance that I could detect, and a block away a florist had about ten flowering cactuses in his window. I left the would-be thief still crooning over the cactus, rocking it like a baby, and walked on down the stairs and on down the street, turning once to look back to see if my assumption was correct, to see if my little babushka, now that I was fifty yards away, would snag the plant and scurry off with it.
As I turned to check on her, Babs was still lingering at the foot of the stairs, looking down the street at me to see if I was as oblivious as she hoped I might be, checking to see if she could make off with a WalMart plant only slightly less common than a primrose at that time of year.
But when she saw me look back at her she gave up. I watched her totter off without her heart’s desire, kicking myself for not giving it to her, not that it was mine to give.
When I got back an hour later, the cactus was still there. I moved it back up the stairs, still unable to smell its alleged fragrance but hoping Babushka would make a night raid for it.
THE MOST SENSIBLE comment on dog abuse I’ve read comes from Monica Schreiber of Belmont: “Actually, the manner in which Vick’s dogs lived out their days — when they weren’t being fought — is exactly how millions of ‘backyard’ dogs live all over the country, especially in rural and inner-city areas. In most places, it is perfectly legal to chain a dog to a leaky doghouse, or tie it to a tree, or put it in an outdoor cage, and leave it there for months or years on end. In fact, I’d argue that the fighting aspect of Vick’s dogs’ lives was probably less tortuous than their months and years at the end of a heavy logging chain, exposed to all elements, pacing back and forth in mud and feces, giving birth to puppies while chained by the neck. What needs to change are laws against 24/7 chaining.”
MENDO HISTORY: The MacPherson Mill
by Jack Saunders
This is a photo of the Alexander MacPherson mill at Noyo taken circa 1870 from about where the parking lot of The Wharf restaurant is today. I've seen it posted before, but I don't recall much more than that. In any case, it has always caused me to wonder.
The photographer, Martin Mason Hazeltine (1827-1903), was living in Ukiah when he registered to vote on 29 Jun 1867, but sometime prior to mid-1870 he and his family moved on to Mendocino. Hazeltine took many photos in the area during his time there, some having survived to be held in various libraries, the one here in a collection at U. C. Berkeley's Bancroft Library. A handful of his photographs include people in them. For example, he might have taken a photo of a home in Mendocino with members of the family on the porch. This photo, however, is not a house, it's a sawmill, and it's taken from a location down on a damp flat, not in "town," a place a well-dressed woman would likely not choose to wander.
The question is why did Martin Hazeltine take a photograph of this mill with a woman sitting in profile on a log in the foreground? To my knowledge the woman has never been identified.
My first thought was that the woman was associated with MacPherson or his partner Henry Wetherbee and perhaps paid for the photo to be taken, but neither had a wife or daughter that would fit with the one shown, and two MacPherson nieces in the 20-25 age range would have had no connection to the mill. It's also difficult to imagine that a woman would pay for a photograph of herself taken in profile at this location or that such a photograph from either mill owner's family would survive. The most likely "suspect" here is Hazeltine's own wife Barbara (1835-1914), a woman of largely French heritage that would have been about 35 at the time.
Interestingly, Hazeltine took a photo of the Mendocino mill from a distance around the same time that includes two young girls standing next to the crest of the road in the foreground, neither of which is directly facing the camera. He also took one of the Mendocino Presbyterian Church from across the county road with a very small girl standing in front of the gate. The girls in the former fit very well with two of Hazeltine's daughters, Effie and Viola, who would have been about 9 and 5, while the one in the latter would fit very well with his daughter Nea who would have been about 4. I can imagine that these girls tagged along at times while he took photographs in the "neighborhood" so to speak, and he took some with them included. If that's the case, he probably captured the same scenes without them, but those versions did not make it into the collections of libraries.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, November 11, 2024
HARRY BALLANCE, 49, Arcata/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
JOSEPH DELACRUZ-MCMURTREY, 39, Elk Grove/Ukiah. Robbery, assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, trespassing with property damage, controlled substance.
LEVONN FREEMAN, 36, Covelo. Failure to appear.
RANDY HARRIS JR., 44, Bayside/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.
KENDALL JENSEN, 38, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.
BRENTON MICHELS, 37, Ukiah. County parole violation.
ANGEL MILLER, 36, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)
ALVINO MIRANDA, 42, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.
GREETINGS!! NEW HERE AND LOOKS LIKE A FANTASTIC GROUP!
My name is Paul and I am an off grid homesteader hailing from S. Oregon. I bought my property cash for less than $1k per acre, my annual property tax is less than $100 per year to try and keep the Feds off my back.
I built myself a little cabin, have food and medicinal gardens and raise quail for meat and eggs. Wood heats my cabin and sunshine and water fall right out of the sky, keeps my phone and my garden charged.
If you are resourceful and considerate of your real needs and resource use, you don't have to be rich to do it. I'm going into my 3rd winter and loving the dark skys and slow, sunny mornings.
Be easy!
AND THE WINNERS ARE…
Editor:
One of the negative byproducts of having sold our public airwaves to the corporate sector is that reporting gets filtered through lenses that serve corporate owners advantageously rather than the general public. Time Magazine (not a bastion of radicalism) reports that from 1975 to 2023, the top 1% has transferred $50 trillion of wealth from the bottom 90% to themselves.
Donald Trump is a byproduct of this experiment in radical inequity. No matter how many times the administration trumpets or their data supports a “remarkable” economy, its distorted distribution leaves nearly all salaried people disaffected, denied security, accumulated wealth and, to say the least, skeptical about democracy.
Everywhere that unregulated capitalism tilts toward billionaires’ favorite philosophy — neoliberalism, the belief that markets are sacred and must never be regulated — working classes are losing agency and standing, working harder and shifting right. The corporate sector’s wealth dominates governance and the results are the anxiety, discord and division we are experiencing.
When will we have the grown-up conversation required to address this? Can such discussions occur when our national news corporations remain profit-seeking entities?
Peter Coyote
Sebastopol
SANTA ROSA VIETNAM VETERAN’S FIGHT HIGHLIGHTS CHALLENGES OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS, VALUE OF ADVOCACY
It took more than 50 years — and a legal intervention from a Sonoma County nonprofit — to restore James Wofford’s relationship with the military and his pride in his wartime service.
by Andrew Graham
Begun in 2019 and bolstered by the award of state and federal grants in the year’s since, Legal Aid of Sonoma County’s veteran services program provides a range of services to those who served in the military and today face legal issues.
One area is securing for veterans the benefits they were promised when they entered the military ‒ including the work upgrading a charging discharge that is described in this story. Mikayla Pentecost, an attorney with the program, told The Press Democrat that work has been a growing success. Since 2019, Legal Aid’s attorneys have won more than $2.24 million in retroactive benefits for their clients, free of charge. They’ve earned people an estimated $3.3 million in monthly payments from the time of winning their cases until today.
As one might imagine, that kind of success has led to a growing number of referrals, and the program today has a waitlist. Legal Aid continues to schedule appointments into next year, she said, but notes that it could be a while before they can take on a case. Legal Aid’s directors are worried that the incoming presidential administration could cut some of its federal funding streams, dampening future growth of the program.
An already-awarded federal grant that lasts through 2025, however, has allowed Pentecost and her colleagues to also take on legal challenges confronting homeless veterans or those on the verge of homelessness. Those challenges include issues acquiring a driver’s license, consumer debt loads that make securing housing difficult and the expungement of criminal charges.
In 1971, walking point for his squad on a scouting mission in Vietnam, James Wofford spotted a gray-haired North Vietnamese Army soldier, alone on a jungle path.
Wofford would later recount in written statements how he motioned for the soldier to get down on the ground and surrender. But as the enemy soldier complied, four bullets passed over Wofford’s left shoulder ‒ his commanding officer had opened fire, killing the man Wofford considered his prisoner.
Until then, Wofford had been a proud soldier. “I took great pride in my ability to move among the enemy undetected … I was proud of my work and my fellow scouts were like family,” he wrote. “I was a good soldier, tough, well trained, brave, determined and resourceful.”
But after, he began to come undone. For the rest of his time in Vietnam, he stayed high on heroin and alcohol. “I wanted to numb all my feelings and thoughts,“ he wrote. ”I went into survival mode. I stayed alive, but did little else.“
It would take more than 50 years to restore Wofford’s relationship with the military, along with his pride in his wartime service for his country. He could not have gotten there without the help of his wife and a unique program from one of Sonoma County’s civic nonprofits.
In October 2019, Legal Aid of Sonoma County opened a new division to provide legal advocacy for veterans. The program is a rare asset for local veterans and the only one north of San Francisco, according to the program’s founder and supervising attorney, Mikayla Pentecost.
In 2020, the group secured a state grant that allowed them to ramp up their efforts to find and assist veterans with legal issues. Though Pentecost hadn’t met Wofford yet, his was the type of case she was looking for ‒ one in which his discharge status was blocking him from the federal benefits his service entitled him to.
Wofford’s story shows the challenges veterans of foreign wars can face in accessing services from their country, particularly when something has marred their service record.
Soldiers returned from Vietnam, and have returned from other wars since, carrying considerable psychic damage. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs only began to acknowledge post-traumatic stress disorder as a disability in the 1980s, as psychologists began to better understand the disease.
When Wofford came home from Vietnam on a 45-day leave, he was suffering greatly. In documents Pentecost provided to The Press Democrat, he detailed a number of horrific events he witnessed, from the shooting of the surrendering soldier to the loss of friends to enemy fire. In one instance, while trying to pull a wounded soldier to safety, the man’s severed leg came off in his hands, Wofford would later recount.
Deep into drugs and alcohol, racked by nightmares and paranoia, Wofford went weeks without leaving an Oakland apartment. When it was time for him to return to service, he went absent without leave instead.
Wofford was 18 when he went to war. “He was a kid,” his wife, Karen Wofford, said.
In his own accounting of going AWOL, Wofford wrote that his drug use made returning impossible, and added that “at that period in my life I had not learned one of the basics of life: that running from a problem would not solve the problem.”
On March 3, 1973, the army kicked him out after 471 days of being AWOL. He was labeled an “other than honorable” discharge, better than being dishonorably discharged but a category that blocked his access to veteran benefits. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnam veterans came home with the same status, according to researchers from Harvard Law School.
The army stood by its decision, rejecting Wofford’s appeals on three occasions. The lack of access became more poignant as Wofford’s health began to deteriorate.
The discharge status affected Wofford in other ways too.
The outcast soldier had a stack of medals to his name, among them a Bronze Star for heroism in a combat zone. Much of his service was spent on dangerous missions to rescue downed airmen. But when Karen ordered versions of his medals and put them in a nice display case, Wofford threw them away.
Though Wofford remained proud of his service, and even of the intensity of the role he played in Vietnam, his discharge status and the VA’s rejection of his appeals left him unable to feel accepted as a veteran.
“It was just something in his head that was kind of messed up,” Karen said.
Karen, a veteran herself and now a retired sheriff’s deputy, met James when he was 38, his two past marriages in the books. They both worked at the same private security company. She found Wofford handsome, smart and funny. He was a practical jokester and had kicked his drug habit, though he continued to drink until later in life.
The PTSD continued to present challenges. Karen learned to let James know she was coming into the bedroom by making a kissing noise. If she ever surprised him, he had a tendency to wake up and grab her by the throat.
Wofford had twice sought to get his discharge status changed. In 1978, his request was rejected by a five-member panel on a 3-2 vote. In 1981, he filed to receive the army’s new benefits for people disabled by PTSD. Two years later, he received another rejection.
In the late 1990s, Wofford, at age 48, suffered a severe stroke. Fortunately, even veterans with a bad discharge status still get access to immediate health care for service-related injuries. And doctors linked Wofford’s stroke, at a relatively young age, to his exposure to Agent Orange, the toxic chemical the military used to try and defoliate large stretches of jungle.
But he could not receive any disability pay or other compensation through the VA, and the stroke left him in a wheelchair, unable to speak or work.
He and Karen lived on her income from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, and on an insufficient Social Security check for James. “We were so broke,” she recalled, “and I was working full time and caring for him, which really kicked my ass.”
In 2010, Wofford again sought to change his discharge status. This time, Karen helped him draft a statement describing the trauma he had lived through in Vietnam, including his first documentation since the war of what he considered the execution of a prisoner of war. But he was again rejected.
Karen made another try in 2020, visiting Sonoma County’s veteran service office with fresh paperwork. She felt quickly dismissed by an employee there, she recalled. “He just said, ‘You know what, with your characterization of service, forget it. You just don't get anything.’”
After more than 30 years, the VA’s last rejection of Wofford felt final.
“We had given up, very much so,” Karen said.
Then, in 2021, another county veterans employee took a fate-changing action and included Wofford’s case in a list of referrals to Legal Aid’s new program.
Pentecost described the county veteran services department as a close partner with her program.
She came in with a plan to push the VA to not only change Wofford’s discharge status, but also afford him retroactive benefits.
Karen helped her dig up documents about Wofford’s service record. Wofford had always stayed guarded about what he’d witnessed, but with the two women on his side they crafted a new, more compelling and detailed statement. In December 2021, Pentecost filed a 137-page brief with the VA.
The filing walks through not just Wofford’s service and the circumstances of his discharge, but also documents moments where the VA should have acknowledged the challenges he faced and changed his discharge status.
Months later, Karen was out running errands when she had to park her car and take a couple of phone calls.
The first was from the VA, about a medical bill.
“After a while, every time the VA called, I just kind of melted down,” she said.
But the next call came from Pentecost. The government had agreed with their filing. Wofford’s discharge status would be changed and his service, at long last, fully recognized.
She started crying. And not so much because of the much-needed money. “Where his brain was is he was this beaten down guy that really felt like he'd been a failure,” she recalled, “and that was going to change now, and it did change a lot. He really became kind of a different person after that, in a really good way.”
Pentecost had won the Woffords not only income going forward but also more than $91,000 in back pay. She in fact believes the government owes them more and continues to appeal the government to calculate the back pay even further.
The money is life-changing for many of her clients. But, Pentecost said, what has always struck her is that often it’s not the dollars her clients seize on first when she wins a case.
“It’s admirable how a lot of them don’t really focus as much on this significant amount of money they get in back pay,” she said. “I’ll get something like ‘does this mean the VA will see me as a real veteran now? Does this mean I can carry my veteran’s card?”
And so it was with Wofford. He lived out the last year or so of his life in a skilled nursing home, where he would proudly display his box of medals to his caregivers.
Wofford died in July at the age of 73. His death certificate lists cardiopulmonary arrest, bladder cancer and a number of other issues.
And critically, after Pentecost and Karen outlined his service, the coroner noted Agent Orange exposure in the space for underlying conditions.
Pentecost is now back at it with the VA, this time pursuing the benefits a widow is due for a service-related death.
To contact Legal Aid’s veteran services program, call its hotline: 707-542-1291.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
HUFF'S SCARED
Rep. Jared Huffman discusses the coming Trump presidency: ‘I just can’t peddle false hope in the face of what I know is coming’
by Andrew Graham
Few in the North Bay have spent more time over the last year pondering the possible impacts and direction of a second administration by President-elect Donald Trump than Rep. Jared Huffman, who helmed Democrats’ task force on Project 2025, the presidential transition plan critics have labeled extremist.
After Trump’s sweeping electoral victory Nov. 5, in which Republicans captured not just the White House but also the Senate and, it seems increasingly likely, the House, Huffman is now bracing to see those plans put into action.
“You really have to take seriously everything he and his inner circle say they are going to do,” he told The Press Democrat. “I just can’t peddle false hope in the face of what I know is coming.”
During his reelection campaign, Trump denied that Project 2025, which was authored by the conservative Heritage Foundation, represents his plans for office. But the document’s authors include many former officials from his administration, as Huffman has spent much of the campaign cycle arguing, and many of its positions align with those Trump has expressed on the campaign trail, such as mass deportations and harsh immigration enforcement.
In 2017, the first Trump administration began plagued by scandal and infighting.
“Trump is going to be much more organized and professional this time around, and he is going to hit the grid running much faster,” Huffman said.
Huffman, long known as one of the most stringent environmentalist voices in Congress and a hawk on combating climate change, a week ago was eyeing a possible appointment in a Kamala Harris administration or a chance to chair the House Natural Resource Committee on which he has long served. But now, as the House increasingly appears to be slipping away from Democrats, he faces a much different two years, if not longer.
He will seek to halt Trump’s agenda in whatever way he can, but will not have too many clear options at his disposal. Many Republicans who were more moderate and opposed Trump have left or lost office over the last eight years, Huffman noted.
House Republicans are like to fully back Trump’s legislation, not undercut it.
“We’re going to get steamrolled in committees and on the floor of the House,” he said. “We will not have subpoena power, it will be very hard for us to do oversight and use the power of the purse as a check and balance if Republicans have unified government.”
As a preview of potential strategies Democrats might take, he pointed to the 2017 defeat of Republicans’ attempt to largely repeal the Affordable Care Act, the signature health care policy of President Barack Obama’s administration. That defeat, he said, came from a coalition of grassroots organizing and congressional maneuvering, that “started creating a lot of political pressure and some Republicans felt that pressure.”
But even then, what ultimately defeated that Legislation was a single, stunning vote from the late Sen. John McCain, who had a deep personal animus with Trump.
Much of the work to blunt Trump’s agenda will likely come in the courts, Huffman said, and he noted that California leaders are already preparing to litigate many of those fights.
On election night, Huffman coasted to his own victory ‒ with more than 73% of the vote counted so far ‒ in a dark blue district. On Nov. 6 the Congressman shared a post on X from Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who opposes Trump and became a chief feature on the Harris campaign trail.
“All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results of our elections,” Cheney wrote. “We now have a special responsibility, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years.”
Huffman echoed those sentiments as he stared down the years ahead. But asked if he could pick out any silver lining from Trump’s election, he said “none at all.”
“Clarity is super important as we go forward but I would never suggest that anyone despair or just surrender to all of these dark threats that are coming our way,” he said, “We’ve got to be resolved and as hopeful as possible to confront them and to get through this but you just can’t wish your way through it.”
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
AT THE NEOLIBERAL FUNERAL: ‘I’M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS.’
by Kathleen Wallace
So, yeah, I’m standing here at the funeral looking at the corpse. It’s got a liberal application of makeup covering the reality of death, but you can still see it steaming under there. It’s that hidden decay that moves forward despite the chemical concoctions. Microscopic changes until they aren’t. This is one of those funerals that you go to out of obligation. You really could not stand the guy. You know about this dead relative and their history of misdeeds. They did so many things to bring this death upon themselves, yet you understand the wailing in the front aisle. Even when someone this hideous passes away, those who were accustomed to the abuse feel lost without it. The void is frightening. And not to mention the potential is being filled with a stepdad who kinda looks with lust at the family kids. Mom is already planning to remarry and the new guy is beyond worrisome. No wonder the kids are so messed up. I don’t even smoke, but this feels like a time to slip away from this funeral to the alley to hang out with those who do, take an all-knowing drag, just this once, and not go back in.
The loss that the true left signaled might happen actually did. Who knew playing chicken with reproductive rights over the years as a funding ploy might turn out this way? The thing is, I don’t know that any of this is materially going to change the lives of those with ample money. They will always find ways to take care of themselves and their family, be it trips to “Europe”–please put your fingers around Europe when you read this (sorry for the overuse of air quotes, of course I mean Ob-Gyns who do abortions) or any other number of life changing alterations for the little people that translate over to only inconveniences for the wealthy.
And beyond this concern and the very real anxiety that anyone not male, white, straight, etc is feeling, I can’t help but feel baffled by the behavior of the liberal “brunch crowd” (sorry, by that I mean assholes who put their own material convenience above the very real struggles and plights of others). You know who I mean, the ones going into the DNC with their hands literally covering their ears so they wouldn’t have to hear protesters complain about a genocide that seems to be selecting age group 5-9 as the best demographic to drop American-funded bombs on top of. Now, I am in no way launching criticism at those who viewed a Harris vote as some kind of harm reduction, and had serious ethical issues with giving a vote to a genocidal administration. I do understand that sometimes one has to take into account if a behavior might give you personally enough time to regroup and try again to defeat some existential type threat. But I really don’t think many fall into this category. For those that do, this is not about you.
I’m speaking to the people who love poems like German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came”. Of course you know what I’m saying—we were all brought up with that type of feel good ethics, a sense that we would never, ever do something like that. We would stand up for the rights of others, even before we were personally oppressed. Because we are GOOD™. But, yeah—so I think we can see how that’s turning out. The meaning of that poem, being that if you, of course, deflect and deny the humanity of others and allow them to be brutalized, you will be next.
Those of us on the left have been screaming about the genocide, but we were treated as if it were simply one of many issues, and not a particularly important one by most of the liberals in our midst—not as if it is the culminating and defining characteristic of our nation in 2024. Yes, genocides have happened in the past; the nation exists because of one, but to say it is the way of things everywhere and in this present time is to deny the ethical pariah status the US has so richly earned with pretty much every other nation around the world. The partner in all of this, the other nation that votes alongside the US, is that food isn’t a right. So, yeah, pretty much the Empire in the Star Wars world—that’s us.
So we have, in real time, seen that poem start to play out. I fear very much for the looming Christian Nationalism coming, but to place blame on those of us who did not give full-throated support to a genocidal campaign is to miss the point entirely. You own this shit-show, not us.
This is the path that neoliberalism put us on. Every single time a faux-left candidate screwed over everyone for political expediency, or perhaps an even more sinister round-up, the left to a corral Bernie Sanders maneuver. This is the logical destination, and here we are, screaming into the station.
The Democratic Party offers basically nothing but a dangling set of offers that they don’t pay out on, and this has been the way since probably after the New Deal. I don’t think that the average upper-income Democratic voter realizes that maybe those checks that came out during the Trump administration’s COVID era really did save someone’s ass. It seems like a small thing, but I have definitely heard that referenced as in, “They all suck, but at least we got a few checks out of Trump”—that is the way of right-wing populism. They give a tiny sip and take massive credit. It’s not like it’s a new thing. Argue about issues like this and whether he should get credit, but lose sight of the forest: the Democrats are not offering anything substantial to materially improve the lives of their citizens. And there are always people willing to trade ethics for comfort. I think the best thing I saw post-election was this from @megindurti: “If you are someone who was able to overlook the genocide and cast a vote for Kamala Harris, then you already understand how a conservative was able to overlook Trump’s extremism to vote for him.”
Of course, voting in Trump, who will likely implement further cuts (or completely eliminate) things like Medicaid or Social Security, will do demonstrable harm to the working class. I’d say though, that you have to know that perhaps for the upper-level backers of the Democrats, losing is preferable to offering meaningful relief to the vast majority of citizens. The citizens will be given some glommed-up reason why things are terrible when these changes are enacted—probably along the lines of culture war distraction and application of textbook scapegoats.
Why did Harris back down so quickly and concede almost immediately, even in the face of some sketchy-sounding voting issues? I’d guess because the real power brokers are kinda fine with a Trump win, and she is nothing but a low-level soldier in this corporatocracy. She was probably told to throw in the towel. The goal is ever-tightening control of a populace in the face of resource depletion and an ongoing effort to continue concentrating wealth into the hands of the few. It’s not truly about Democrats or Republicans at this point, despite what it feels like from our vantage point. In our daily life, it will likely get much harder and there will be less freedom. From this we all need to think about what we can do locally to assist those who will likely be harmed from the social issues lurch to the right. I’m not going to spell it out but I’m sure some people can come up with ideas of mutual assistance in the face of ever tightening lack of freedom.
But again, the rhetoric of the Harris campaign—basically that a Trump administration would be the end of democracy-wouldn’t you fight a little bit when places with mail in votes like Washington state did not see the huge drop in presidential Democratic voters seen elsewhere? Now I’m not climbing a fence and storming the capital for Harris, I wouldn’t bother to say bless you if she sneezed, but there is something odd about all of this. The fact that Cop Cities, snipers on rooftops during protests for Palestine—this happened while Biden/Harris were in office. If you were truly worried about the fascists that might take over, wouldn’t you tone down the ones in your own administration? Of course you would, that’s why I’m saying this not just as simple as the fascists won this time around. They’ve been winning every election. This one just is on steroids (but only for aging men like Joe Rogan, not for the trans men!).
Self reflection is necessary, the individual self and our collective self as US citizens. This is obviously not working for anyone but about 5% of the population and it is like a disease infecting others with hatred for their neighbors. We can’t keep going on this way; we literally can’t. I hope we find a way out of this and I know one thing, walking in circles without turning on our flashlights won’t get us anywhere. And we need to take a strong look at how not caring about others, even those far, far away will come back to haunt us. The remedy will be humility, empathy and true pragmatism. Yeah, all the things Americans are pretty much hideous at.
Because again, the gnashing of teeth that is the loudest in regard to this election loss seems to be coming from those who were among the quietest about genocide. Maybe they should read that poem again and have the assignment to write out a report on what it really means and how to stop terrible things from happening.
(Kathleen Wallace writes out of the US Midwest. Her writing is collected on her Substack page.)
My son and I were on a fishing trip one year, and we had gone to bed early in order to get an early start the next morning. Some loud and rather crude language woke me and I found my son standing at a window. I went to the window and asked these guys if they would keep it down and watch their language because I had my 11-year-old son with me. They started spouting off, and told me that if I was having trouble sleeping to come on down and they'd put me to sleep. I hollered back that I was on my way. I whipped all three and went back to sleep. They never found out who I was, but I later learned they were Navy officers on leave.
— Carmen Basilio
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
After I tried to console my son's half-sister, a very sweet girl heavily into every alphabet cause, she went full crybully on me, blaming me for about 20 things, then commanding me to unfriend her and “think about” what I've done. It was ugly looking at her tantrum, like seeing an internal organ exposed. I did not play her game and am curious to see how she recovers or does not recover.
“DEMOCRATS spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
— Rep Seth Moulton, Democrat
VICTOR HUGO GREEN (November 9, 1892 – October 16, 1960) was an American postal employee and travel writer from Harlem, New York City, best known for developing and writing what became known as The Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans in the United States.
During the time the book was published, choices of lodging, restaurants and even gas stations were limited for black people in many places, both in the Southern United States and outside this region. The book was first published as The Negro Motorist Green Book and later as The Negro Travelers’ Green Book. The books were published from 1936 to 1966. He printed 15,000 copies each year.
MYSTERIES REVEALED
by James Kunstler
"People in the media are aware of how illegitimately they've done their jobs that they think they're on the very of being locked up" —Scott Adams
You must admit, it’s a little spooky how quickly and rigorously Mr. Trump intends to deconstruct those parts of the government at war with the people: clean out “rogue bureaucrats,” firehose the malignant agencies, release and expose their document trails on spying, censorship, lawfare, and abuse-of-power. The consequence would be the return of consequence in our national life. It’s been absent for so long you can hardly imagine its power to get people’s minds right.
There are already reports of frenzy among the culpable DOJ lawyers, and FBI Director Wray is set to resign before Mr. Trump can fire him. Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone radio-silent for his own good since Election Day. Expect many abiding mysteries to get unraveled, such as exactly how many federal agents did work the crowd around the Capitol on J-6, 2021 — which Mr. Wray has pretended to not be able to discuss “due to ongoing investigations.” Expect to learn more about the pipe-bomb caper at the DNC HQ a few blocks away that same day. Prepare to be amazed at how deeply criminal these schemes were. You must wonder if the document-shredding party is already underway, despite calls to preserve all the emails, memos, and texts.
Then there are the poisoned realms of the intel blob located at CIA, DHS, State, DOD, and elsewhere being subject to inquiry and overhaul. Think: John Brennan, James Clapper, Bill Barr, Michael Atkinson, Mayorkas, Judge Boasberg, Mary McCord, Col. Vindman, Senator Warner, Avril Haines, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power, Gina Haspel, Marie Yovanovitch, Jen Easterly, all their deputies, and many more unknown to the public. Some of these names may yet seem obscure to you. They were all neck-deep in what looks a lot like sedition, treason, real conspiracies, not theories. Even state officials such as New York AG Letitia James, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, GA, DA Fani Willis, would be subject to federal charges under 18USC Section 242: willful deprivation of constitutional rights acting under color of law. That is exactly what the Trump lawfare cases amounted to.
And then, of course, there are the long-running rumors of pedophilia and human trafficking networks among the elite, the Jeffrey Epstein list and the P. Diddy list. If these things exist, and they are released, history would shudder. Think: the Clinton Foundation.
These people are looking ahead 70 days with visions of shoes dropping and hammers falling. If the mysteries are revealed, it’s hard to imagine that criminal proceedings would not be far behind. You can also imagine that the motivation across a broad and powerful elite class runs white-hot to stop Mr. Trump from entering the Oval Office. So, these days ahead will be fraught with threats, schemes, plots, ploys, and deceptions. The paranoia must be out of this world among people who still have the resources and hold the levers-of-power needed to undertake nefarious deeds.
There is chatter about “a coup” being considered among as-yet-unnamed parties in the Pentagon to prevent Mr. Trump from rising back into power. It’s unclear how that would work among our high command of transsexual generals and admirals and their hapless DEI adjutants. The strata of colonels benath them might have different ideas. But it could be the starting gun for actual civil war. We would find out what the Second Amendment is all about. “Joe Biden” likes to say that the citizenry can’t go up against his F-16 war-planes, but he evidently does not understand how much mischief can be made with small arms — rifles, grenades, rockets, drones — despite examples of it all over the world lately. That is hypothetical for now, of course.
In short, these are dangerous times. Mr. Trump would be advised to stay out of airplanes until inauguration day and to be extra-careful who he puts himself around, especially in public. You also must expect more lawfare of the most extreme sort going forward to January, every possible stone unturned to find procedural tricks to prevent certification of the election. Do you think Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Andrew Weissmann just laid back and watched football this weekend? They are probably quarterbacking efforts to finagle ballots for the remaining contested seats in Congress, in order to game-out Rep. Jamie Raskin’s well-publicized block-Trump play this coming Jan. 6.
These are the darkest and most explosive parts of Mr. Trump’s admirably deep to-do list for fixing the many things that have stopped working in American life. The simplest picture of our current predicament, and why people voted as they did, is of “things going in the wrong direction,” Well, what direction is that, exactly? The tyranny of giant forces over our little lives and communities. It’s a leviathan government seeking to invade and dominate everything — and to do it with maximum malice when resisted. It has left American men and women mentally disordered, demoralized, stolen their sense of purpose, deprived them of roles in society that provide meaning, alienated them from each other, and from their history. And it has left them, as Robert Kennedy points out, catastrophically unhealthy.
All of which is to say, we have more to clean up and reorganize than just our government. We’re going to get it done, you may be sure, even if the zeitgeist has to drag us kicking and screaming out of the malaise we’re stuck in. All of this points to some very different new arrangements to made in our everyday life, beginning with the realization that the era of getting something-for-nothing is over.
TUESDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT
Trump Expected to Name Marco Rubio as Secretary of State
Bitcoin and Stocks Set Records as Bullish Bets Continue
Attack, Withdraw, Return: Israel’s Bloody Cycle of War in North Gaza
Spirit Airlines Plane Hit by Gunfire in Haiti and Forced to Divert
Chronic Brain Trauma Is Extensive in Navy’s Elite Speedboat Crews
“…WE MUST INVEST our energy into organizing mass movements to overthrow the corporate state through sustained acts of mass civil disobedience. This includes the most powerful weapon we possess – the strike. By turning our ire on the corporate state, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims or Blacks. We give people an alternative to a corporate-indentured Democratic Party that cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society, one that serves the common good rather than corporate profit. We must demand nothing less than full employment, guaranteed minimum incomes, universal health insurance, free education at all levels, robust protection of the natural world and an end to militarism and imperialism. We must create the possibility for a life of dignity, purpose and self-esteem. If we do not, it will ensure a Christianized fascism and ultimately, with the accelerating ecocide, our obliteration.”
— Chris Hedges Report, 11-10-24
County Grading Ordinance
I must respectfully disagree with The Editor where he writes that the county does not have a Grading Ordinance. The county grading ordinance can be found in Section 1870 of the Mendocino County Code. Additionally, the county adopted California Building Code Appendix Chapter J which also regulates grading. The county has the authority, tools and the regulations to enforce grading violations.
I’m standing corrected, and probably should remain standing while I revise numerous opinions.
Bruce,
While the county has the authority, tools and regulations to enforce grading violations, the question is do they have the testicular fortitude to do so.
I agree. The County does have grading regulations. Could there be improvements? Maybe.
Also, the North Coast Water Quality Control Board is on the verge of passing Water Discharge Requirements for vineyards which will add another layer of regulation including grading rules, erosion controls, sediment monitoring, stream bank setbacks, etc.
Adam,
Does this mean that the vineyard owners will have to comply with the same requirements as the cannabis farmers?
The orders are not identical but very similar. Producers will be required to have sediment, nutrient and irrigation plans. They don’t have a tiered structure. They are really pushing everyone to work under the Fish Friendly Program administered by California Land Stewardship Institute that does the mapping and develops a site management plan which includes monitoring. In addition to what CLSI/FFF already requires, they want monitoring of NTU’s of runoff from areas that drain through the vineyard and appurtenant roads, testing of wells for nitrates and applied pesticides, groundwater level monitoring of wells. There are restrictions on what you can do and when. Increased stream setbacks including ephemeral streams and drainages.
Interesting that the way Scott ward phrased that question, he recognizes cannabis as being the standard. Vineyards are spraying material that if one bathed in it would die instantly, cannabis is more essential oils and manure. Cannabis structures of any kind need 150’ setback from all stream sizes and have their culverts inspected constantly.
The orders are a requirement throughout the state. Each regional board develops standards on an as needed basis to protect water quality. Region 1, our region, is the last region to get an official order that regulates irrigated lands. The order only covers vineyards, no other crops. Other regions often have different orders that are crop specific.
They also issue orders on other land uses, such as construction. Sometimes blanket orders are issued statewide, then tweaked by regional boards.
Cannabis itself has to be setback from 150′ from a class 1 water way. There will be supporting documentation in the final EIR to justify why. I did the math on if you buy a typical planting mix to fill 400 grow pots. The amount of nitrogen is 300 lbs+ per acre plus whatever is applied. That is likely why they have such a large setback. Grapes don’t typically use much applied nitrogen.
All successful living organisms, including Peter Coyote, are required to make a profit.
Peter Coyote Net Worth
$2 Million
WTF? Have you finally gone over the edge?
Fairfax ballot election vote removes Town Council approved tenant rental protection.
RE: Fairfax, California, Measure I, Rent Ordinances Town Code Amendment (November 2024)
Fairfax Measure I was on the ballot as a referral in Fairfax on November 5, 2024. It was approved.
—> A “yes” vote supported repealing the current Just Cause Eviction and Rent Stabilization Ordinances and replacing them with standards from the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019 and prior Town Code.
A “no” vote opposed repealing the current Just Cause Eviction and Rent Stabilization Ordinances and replacing them with standards from the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019 and prior Town Code.
This measure required a simple majority to pass.
Result Votes Percentage
Approved Yes 1,588 66.50%
No 800 33.50%
Precincts reporting: 100%
Election results are unofficial until certified.
https://ballotpedia.org/Fairfax,_California,_Measure_I,_Rent_Ordinances_Town_Code_Amendment_(November_2024)
Pictures and descriptions of Lauren Sinnott ‘s latest mural, painted at Ukiah hospital complex:
https://historymural.com/memorial-mural/
RE: Huffman and Team Blue…. The fact the the Press Democrat CONTINUES to quote Liz Cheney is further evidence that mainstream media STILL has learned nothing from the election.
Of course Huff and gang do “not see any potential upsides” to the Trump presidency. They are still blinded by their own ignorance, unable to think outside the box.
I can tell you one upside: not taking advice from Liz Cheney and her Dad.
A mistake America has made is bringing freedom to people who don’t want it.
You mean like Operation Enduring Freedom? I think it’s a bit presumptuous for Americans to know what other cultures really want given our track record
George, don’t you know the difference between propagandist lies and the REAL reason we fight so many wars, none of them based, on “spreading freedom”, no matter what the liars may peddle to the gullible? We do it because we can, like any street thug.
AVA ace reporter Mike Geniella had a birthday two days ago. Happy Belated Birthday, Mike!