Mendocino County Today: Sunday 4/27/2025

By AVA News Service on April 27, 2025

RAIN and cloud cover are receding as the exiting low proceeds southeast. Winds will build through the day along the coast and exposed ridges this afternoon. A dry, warming trend is expected through mid week. Chances of precipitation return late in the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A 70% chance of rain yesterday brought me no rainfall, it's raining right now just to the east of us, go figure? A little breezy with 47F under clear skies this Sunday morning on the coast. Clear skies & breezy the next few days then another shot at rain next Friday. No really.

GOOD PROTEST TURN OUT IN FORT BRAGG!

About 100 people protested today in FB, warming up for May Day’s big protest! Plan to participate!

Here are Bob Dominy’s great photos.: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2RGtnIORGuK7f4

Susan Allen Nutter, [email protected]

DECEASED VICTIM RECOVERED FROM SUBMERGED VEHICLE IN RUSSIAN RIVER

This afternoon at 2:31pm, Santa Rosa CHP personnel responded to a crash on SR-1, north of SR-116. It was reported a vehicle was submerged in the Russian River with a deceased occupant inside. Preliminary investigation indicates a Ford Ranger was traveling on SR-1 when the Ford veered off the roadway and into the river. Sonoma Sheriff Deputies and family confirmed the the driver as Clifford Souza, 74, who had been reported missing on April 23. Details of the crash including when the crash occurred remains under investigation. Anyone with any information about this incident can call the Santa Rosa CHP office at (707)806-5600.

MICHAEL KLEPPE: MISSING FROM FORT BRAGG

Since the late afternoon of Thursday, April 24, a Fort Bragg woman has been searching for 64-year-old Michael Kleppe, who vanished after leaving his workplace at Sherwood Oaks that day. Despite a growing effort by local authorities and loved ones, there is still no sign of him.

Michael’s wife, Shirley Kleppe, described the heartbreaking situation that began last Thursday. She last spoke to her husband about 10 a.m. at work and he seemed normal. Her daughter who also works at Sherwood Oaks didn’t notice anything odd either. Shirley then picked up her grandson at 3:15 p.m. and then her daughter from Sherwood Oaks about 3:30. Michael, who was scheduled to leave work around 4 p.m., simply disappeared.

“When I called his job, they said his car was there but Mike was not,” Shirley said. When they rushed to Sherwood Oaks by about 4:30 p.m., they found troubling clues: on Michael’s work desk, he had left an envelope containing a letter. In it, he expressed despair and, according to Shirley, provided some directions on how she would be taken care of. He left behind his phone, credit cards, and the key to their storage unit in Paradise, the town they fled after fleeing the results of the Camp Fire three years ago.

Shirley says she immediately contacted the Fort Bragg police, and a missing person report was filed. Shirley said that officers began checking with bus drivers and flagged other transportation with a BOLO for her husband, but Michael has not been located.

However, one coworker reported seeing Michael at the intersection of Oak and Main Streets around 7 p.m. the night he disappeared, acting unusually. First, crossing the street and then doubling back.

Shirley says he is likely wearing a blue jean jacket with a sheepskin lining, Levi jeans, and possibly a brown T-shirt. He also wears eyeglasses attached to a neck strap, similar to the one seen in the photo released by police a little after 5 p.m.

Michael had withdrawn $3,800 from the couple’s bank account before disappearing, a move that family members say was completely out of character for the soft-spoken man.

“He’s such a good guy. He doesn’t have a mean streak in his body. He’d do anything for anybody,” Shirley said, her voice breaking.

This is not the first time Michael has struggled. After the Camp Fire, he once disappeared briefly but was persuaded to return home after Shirley was able to reach him by phone. This time, however, he has left his phone behind and Shirley is extremely worried. She has spent every day since Michael’s disappearance searching for him across Fort Bragg, checking motels and campgrounds. So far, there have been no confirmed sightings other than the first evening.

“It’s cold at night,” Shirley said, worried. Michael loved camping, but no camping gear is missing from their home, making it unlikely he planned to spend time outdoors.

Michael is described as 5’7” tall, weighing around 180 pounds, with scars on his right leg and no tattoos.

The Fort Bragg Police Department is asking for the public’s help. Anyone who sees Michael or knows anything about his whereabouts is urged to call (707) 964-0200 immediately.

For Shirley and her family, every hour that passes deepens the mystery — and the heartbreak.

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON $144 MILLION COURTHOUSE

The largest civic project ever in Mendocino County promises to reshape downtown, Perkins Street corridor

by Mike Geniella

A $144 million new Mendocino County Courthouse in Ukiah is rising alongside railroad tracks crossing Perkins Street, the main corridor that links the commercial core of Ukiah to the Highway 101 freeway.

A formal dedication Wednesday will mark the beginning of work on what is the biggest civic project in the county’s history. At high noon, city, county, and state officials and the public will gather at the historic Ukiah Train Depot to witness what has taken 20 years to become a reality.

State Judicial Council representatives say it will take two years for construction crews to complete a public works project that is expected to pump millions of dollars into the surrounding community, and in effect expand the commercial core of Ukiah with promises of new retail developments and infrastructure improvements along Perkins Street.

Ukiah’s Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley said, “There’s no doubt that we are at a unique point in time where the decisions we make today will dramatically shape the future of our downtown.”

The scale of the new courthouse project is monumental.

It dwarfs other private and public improvements locally, both past and present. The state funded project has been 20 years in the making, a stop and go process that survived funding crises, multiple delays, and public debates about the location.
For the first time since 1860, court functions will be conducted away from the heart of downtown Ukiah, shifting to a site three long blocks away.
The new courthouse will embrace the latest technologies and meet national standards for “green” public buildings. It will replace a 1950s-era county-owned building which is dated in appearance and function. The current courthouse is out of compliance with current safety, seismic and handicapped accessibility codes. It has been deemed by federal officials as a “high-risk” building because of seismic concerns. In 2023 the Judicial Council of California ranked the new Mendocino County Courthouse as an “immediate need.”

There are lingering public concerns about the facade of the new courthouse, which local critics describe as resembling a “barcode.”

State and local court representatives, however, believe that the perspective will change when trees and native landscaping surround the new courthouse.

Superior Court Executive Kim Turner said the new courthouse will provide a fresh, forward look for Ukiah’s downtown.

“It is a building that will help define the future,” said Turner.

The new three-story courthouse covers 81,169 square feet, and provides seven courtrooms, court-related offices, jury assembly room, attorney/client meeting areas, and separate and secure hallways for in-custody defendants. Adjoining property to the east is owned by the state’s Great Redwood Trail Agency, but previous plans for private development have been abandoned and are no longer a priority, according to representatives.

An unresolved issue surrounding the new courthouse is the lack of space for the county District Attorney or Public Defender, two county offices whose daily functions are intertwined with the court system. The DA’s Office is currently located on the bottom floor of the existing courthouse, which once housed all county administrative functions. The Public Defender Office is currently located on School Street a block south of the existing courthouse.

The two county offices eventually may be relocated closer to the new courthouse if private developers step up to provide space, or an existing county-owned building at Perkins and State Street is remodeled to provide the District Attorney Office with a new home. Even so, how to create seamless interaction including transit between the courts and the necessary county office functions remains unclear.

What happens to the current courthouse when the courts relocate in 2027 is also an issue.

The County of Mendocino owns the current courthouse building and site, but with an estimated $9 million in costs to bring the near 75-year-old structure into compliance with current seismic safety and accessibility standards raises questions for local taxpayers.

One possibility is that the county might deed the site to the City of Ukiah, which favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza to the block bounded by State, Perkins, School, and Standley streets.

Deputy City Manager Riley said, “There are a lot of pieces to put together, but it is a serious possibility.”

“For all the reasons that the (current) courthouse was deemed needing replacement and cost prohibitive to repair, it is unlikely that the county will continue it as a workplace,” said Riley.

Riley said she envisions a new Thomas Plaza occupying the historic heart of downtown where the courthouse now stands, with the current city-owned plaza site being developed for commercial purposes, adding an anchor at the southern end of the downtown core.

However, the city’s representative on the county Board of Supervisors said Friday no “formal talks” have occurred between the county CEO, the City Manager’s Office, and court executives.

Supervisor Maureen Mulheren acknowledged there are “many great ideas that have been brought up about the old Courthouse and opportunities at the new site.”

“At this point it’s too soon to start public meetings and discussions” about the fate of the old courthouse, said Mulheren.

Relocating the Thomas Plaza is one of two projects besides the courthouse that could reshape Ukiah’s core downtown.

The other focuses on efforts to stabilize and clean up the landmark Palace Hotel, which recently garnered attention from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Palace offers possibilities of a boutique hotel, bar and restaurant, and specialty shops a block north of the old courthouse. Page & Turnbull, a noted San Francisco architectural firm specializing in historic preservation, prepared preliminary plans for such a project at the Palace in 2023 before the then owner Jitu Ishwar scuttled a deal with local investor Minal Shankar.

Riley agrees it is too early to make pronouncements about the Plaza and Palace ideas, but “the possibilities are there. The next few years are going to be exciting times.”

Commercial realtor Todd Schapmire agrees downtown and the Perkins Street corridor seem poised for a new level of activity after years of languishing.

Schapmire and family members were engaged in the sale of a prime corner lot at Perkins and Main streets that is targeted for new student housing for Mendocino College. Old metal buildings dating back to Ukiah’s farm town history are to be torn down to make way for a project expected to infuse the downtown with dozens of youthful occupants of the college housing.

Schapmire also participated in the sale of the former Curry Furniture building on Perkins to the Pinoleville Rancheria, and the purchase of the former Savings Bank branch further east on Perkins to Redwood Credit Union. Renovation of that building into new offices for the credit union is already underway.

“I feel things are better than they were a few years ago when Perkins was a pretty drab entry into downtown Ukiah,” said Schapmire. Homeless issues remain, he said, “but even they seem a bit better.”

The city is investing millions of dollars in public grant money into infrastructure improvements in the downtown area, including a completed streetscape project narrowing State Street down to two lanes through the downtown core, replacement of water and sewer lines, and repaving deteriorating streets. The City Council recently voted to approve increasing a contract with Ghilotti Construction Inc. to $15 million for the “Urban Core Project” for major utility replacement, road rehabilitation, and pedestrian enhancements along the major corridors of Perkins, Gobbi and Main streets.

Even so, the scale of the new courthouse project and its cost dwarfs everything else.

The courthouse is a massive public undertaking utilizing a design/build program that gives the state complete control over what the community will live with for decades to come.

Whatever residents feel about the design or location, the new Mendocino County Courthouse promises to reshape the face of Ukiah from the downtown to the freeway a half mile away.

Deputy City Manager Riley said while the new courthouse is a state project, city and county representatives have been “at the table for nearly two decades.”

“We recognize the importance of this civic anchor in the downtown, and we have expanded significant resources to help ensure that not only it remains downtown but that it is appropriately coordinated with our existing streets and infrastructure,” said Riley.

Perkins Street’s appearance will be improved and drainage issues that have long plagued the thoroughfare will be corrected.

Riley said new commercial development along the Perkins Street corridor will begin to transform what has been a drab entryway into the downtown.

“We are going to see major changes in the next 3-5 years,” predicted Riley.

Riley ticked off changes already underway, or will begin soon:

Mendocino College has purchased the property at the corner of Perkins and Main Street across from the Mendocino County Library for student housing.

The 11,000 square foot former furniture building known as Curry’s is under new ownership, and a project is planned.

Redwood Credit Union is renovating the former Savings Bank branch site on Perkins on the edge of Pear Tree Shopping Center.

Starbucks is building a new drive-through in the Pear Tree parking lot facing Perkins Street.

Hobby Lobby, a nationwide craft store, is taking over the former JC Penney’s store a block off the intersection of Perkins and Orchard streets.

Habit Burger & Grill, started in the 1960s in Santa Barbara, will revamp the decrepit former Denny’s at the southeast corner of Perkins and Orchard. Habit Burger is a nationally acclaimed operation, and its “charbroil burger” 10 years ago was labeled the best in the U.S. by Consumer Reports.

Ukiah’s loss of its redevelopment funding has hampered city development efforts since 2012, when state lawmakers in 2012 ended local redevelopment agencies, and their ability to hold back tax revenue from the state.

Riley said the city’s former Redevelopment Agency had allowed Ukiah to invest in affordable housing, eliminate blight, revitalize commercial areas, and build projects of economic and community importance. She cited as examples the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, the Alex Thomas Plaza, and matching grants for façade improvements.

With the end of redevelopment agencies, Riley said the city’s “lane is more or less reduced to infrastructure.”

Still, that is positive, said Riley, in creating an environment that appeals to developers and investors.

“We are setting the table,” said Riley.

LOCAL EVENTS (today)

AV UNIFIED NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley USD Community,

As a newcomer to AVUSD this year, I have been so impressed by the dedication of our little community to the success of our students. Our local business, parents, alumni, and staff are unmatched! Our community does not just give lip service to supporting local education, they show up with actions, involvement, and even financial support. Senior Awards Night was the crowning glory to a year of amazing support from our community groups, who showed up for our kids with donations totaling over $350,000.00. With a small graduating class of 28, simply does not happen anywhere else!

Our graduates are well prepared for the future, whether they plan to attend community college, a 4-year university, or one of the excellent trade schools available. They are ready to fly, and the funds provided by our donors will help to make their dreams attainable.

Anderson Valley USD is deeply grateful to our donors, including Lions Club, Yorkvillle Community Benefits Organization, Anderson Valley Garage, AV Sports Boosters, Independent Career Women, The Unity Club, Miner-Anderson Scholarships, Anderson Valley Arts Association, American Legion, AV California Schools Education Association, AV Teachers Association, Michael Shapiro Business Scholarship, Cheri Fish Memorial Scholarship, William W. Sterling Memorial Scholarship, AV Wine Growers Scholarship, and the Anderson Valley Education Foundation.

Special thanks, also, to the parents who have raised and supported these students from Kindergarten through their newfound adulthood. They are incredible people. You are heroes and your children will change the world for the better. Thank you for providing the foundation, and congratulations on a job well done!

Upcoming Events!

April 22-May 9 - CAASPP Testing at AVES (3rd-6th)
April 26, Prom at the Fairgrounds
May 5, AVES TK-3 trips to the Wildflower Show
May 5-9, 2025 teacher appreciation week
May 12-16 - CAASPP Testing at AV Jr/Sr High
May 15 - Agriculture Day at AVES
May 13, Board Meeting Ribbon Cutting Event
May 20, 225 Sports awards dinner
May 22-26, 2025 Senior trip
May 22, 5:30 AVES Open House
May 26, 2025 no school
May 28, 2025 FFA Drive thru dinner
May 30, Peachland Graduation
June 5, FFA Awards Night at AVHS
June 10, 6th Grade Promotion
June 11, 8th Grade Promotion
June 12, High School Graduation at AVHS
College Day TBD
6th to 7th Orientation: date TBD

Thank you to our Community Schools Coordinator, Nat Corey-Moran, for the updates below. (Fliers for the first two events have been sent out previously and are available in school offices.)

Day of The Child

Day of the Child celebrations are on Sunday, May 4 at the Anderson Valley Elementary School. The event will be from 1:00-3:00, with a potluck lunch with handmade tortillas starting at 12:00. Kids games, face painting, a volleyball game, family art projects and community organizations such as the library, fire department and Migrant Education. There will also be a salsa competition, bring your best recipes. Join us to celebrate our children together!

Boontling Classic

The 40th annual Boontling Classic 5K run/walk is on Sunday, May 4 at 10:00, starting on Anderson Valley Way right in front of AV Elementary. Join us for this fun and healthy community event!

Pomo Partnerships Assembly

Please join us for our Pomo Partnerships assemblies on Friday, May 2 (8:30-9:20 at the AVHS Gym, 12:45-1:20 at AVES on the Old District Office lawn.) There will be a presentation by Progressive Tribal Alliance about Pomo culture and history and traditional dancers as well. Parents and families are welcome, please sign in at the office when you arrive on campus.

Anderson Valley Elementary Family Work Party, Saturday, May 17, 9:00-1:00.

Please save the date and join us to help make our school even more beautiful. Weeding, pruning, planting, and other landscaping jobs are planned and your participation is welcomed and encouraged. More details coming out soon, please contact Nat Corey-Moran ((707) 354-3330 for more information.

Important Information

CAASPP Testing Is Important!

CAASPP Schedules

AVES: April 22-May 9

AV Jr/Sr High: May 12-16

Please make every effort to have your child be present at school on these dates, as make-up testing is not ideal; taking the test with their peers is the best way for your child to focus and show what they know. These scores will be used to identify students who need extra support courses in 25-26. Strong scores may also identify your child for additional, challenging coursework.

While no single test defines a student, we encourage all students to give their best effort so that we have accurate information to guide their academic journey. With your continued support at home, we can use this data to ensure every student receives the opportunities and challenges they need to thrive. Please ensure your child is at school, well rested, and ready to do their best during the CAASPP tests.

Vacancy on the Board of Trustees

Saoirse Byrne has resigned from the Board due challenges around scheduling conflicts. We in AVUSD are deeply grateful to Saoirse for her leadership on the board. She has kept the importance of outdoor instruction and the building of creativity and free expression at the forefront of our conversations. Her passion for student learning and her fresh perspective have been a great benefit to the district.

If you or someone you know might be interested in joining the Board of Trustees, please review this Board of Trustees Vacancy document and let us know!

Summer School

Summer School will be June 23-July 22

8:30-12:30 / ASP 12:30-5:30 Transportation provided

(bus leaves for the day at 3:00 p.m.)

AVES will provide activities including sports, crafts, science, art, and field trips. Here is the AVES Summer School flier

AV Jr High will provide fun learning activities.

(More info coming soon.)

Sr High School provide credit recovery opportunities

(More info coming soon.)

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

These four wonderful dogs are lucky enough to be living in foster homes, where they are getting lots of love and training until they find their forever homes--so we have lots of information about them. Chester is 20 weeks old and Romeo is about 11 months. Rocky is 2 years old and Pacino is 1 year old. Head to our website at mendoanimalshelter.com to see lots more about this darling quartet and all of our adoptable dogs and cats. P.S. One of our awesome volunteers will be sponsering a portion of Pacino’s adoption fee!

For information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.

Join us the first Saturday of every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter. For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!

MORGAN BAYNHAM

So you want to support the Boonville County Fair? Here’s how to do that. We need 10 or 12 folks to help with the up coming Pinot Fest @ Scharffenberger Cellars in Philo. The more people who volunteer the more they could ‘relieve’ each other and enjoy the tasting. The Fair is a major beneficiary of the wine auction. Forgive me this is copied and pasted below.

— Morgan

Mendocino County Fair needs your help;

Potential Volunteers needed for Pinot Festival. Below is the current schedule of what is needed. Please let me know what times you would like to help.

May 15th Thursday Fairgrounds set up: 2 - 4 volunteers needed. Start time will be determined later, but probably around 10am - 1pm. I will update with times as soon as we plan it.

This is to set up the tables and chairs, staging the area for the conference. This is a small affair and significantly scaled back from years prior.

May 17th Saturday 11am - 3pm: 2 volunteers needed for trash management - this does not entail picking up garbage, it is a supervisory position that I need someone responsible for (optimally 2 people relieving each other). We have rented the large trash containers. Someone needs to be posted in front of the containers at all times to make sure the trash is sorted properly and that the recycling is broken down to fit as much in as possible. If you have 2 team members that can switch off, both people will be able to enjoy Pinot Fest, too.

May 17th Saturday - 1pm - 4pm: 4 Volunteers needed for the first 2 hours of this shift to help with maintaining the festival tasks, empty spittoons, fill water pitchers, pass out cookies, take trash bags to the containers. There will also be an hour of clean up (see below). Volunteers are welcome to come early to enjoy the festival, and will have some time during their shift to participate.

May 17th Saturday - 3pm - 5pm: 2 Volunteers needed to clean up, washing spittoons, water carafes, breaking down tables and chairs, putting dirty linens in bags, gathering AVWA signs. Anyone can help with this, teenagers, etc…

Please pass this along if you know of anyone else that would like to volunteer.

Thank you,

Gina Pardini

Business Assistant

Mendocino County Fair & Apple Show

707-895-3011 - [email protected]

CHUCK DUNBAR: Weeping Mulberry tree and Red Dragon, With all of our rains this year, this tree has bloomed like never before, a beauty, planted by my wife about 25 years ago. Spring goes on!

ED NOTES

SPEAKING of ballgames, much as I admired the Giants’ Ryan Vogelsong back in his heyday, his post-game spiel after beating the Cardinals about how God had taken a personal interest in him and the National League playoffs, reminded me that it was time to grab my Old Testament for Mathew 6:5-6: “And when you pray you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Play ball!

HEAR! HEAR! From the AVA comment line: “First Five, founded by the now disgraced ‘MeatHead’ dude from Archie Bunker, ranks as the slickest liberal phony baloney ‘children’s’ scam ever devised. In Humboldt they wine and dine and plead for funds while absolutely nothing goes to the neediest. Solution: disband the endless county Commissioners (unelected) and give 100% of the cigarette tax to the children and families needing childcare to work, healthcare premiums and stipends to play sports and attend camps… This is a solid gold plum for a very few lucky appointed commissioners and their staff in all 58 counties and the State level.”

THE CalFire site just south of Boonville was once home to one of Anderson Valley’s most illustrious citizens, Henry Beeson, of the pre-Cal Bear Flag Revolt. He was a boy of 16 as I recall, when he and the rest of that rag-tag mob of drifters, outlaws and drunks, took over Sonoma, locked General Vallejo away, drank up everything in the General’s wine cellar, made themselves a flag with the drawing of a wild pig on it that they later said was a grizzly bear, and declared independence from Mexico. Beeson settled on his ranch south of Boonville where CalFire now squats in a malignant cluster of unsightly structures. Beeson, by the way, later became doubly famous also from his saddle-making, his being considered the best available in all of California. His customers traveled from far and wide to buy a Beeson custom saddle.

FROM THE SF CHRONICLE of November 5th, 1937: “A Fort Bragg grandmother today recounted a thrilling story of her fight against a giant octopus and how she and two other women finally beat the monster to death before it could drag her beneath the waves of the Mendocino Coast. Mrs. H.C. Graves was gathering abalones. She felt something brush against her leg, and thinking it was a bit of seaweed, tried to kick free. She was unsuccessful. Glancing down, she was horrified to see a monster devil fish sweeping its tentacles toward her. One long arm reached up and grabbed her left wrist. Another came up and swept around her body. Struggling frantically, Mrs. Graves kept her right arm free. Screaming for help, fighting to keep from being dragged down, she clubbed the octopus with her heavy abalone iron [a crowbar-like device used to pry abs from their rocks]. Her companions rushed to the beach to her aid and joined in beating the big devil fish until it was killed. The fish, when dragged ashore, measured 10 feet 5 inches from the tip of its longest tentacle to the opposite tip. There were seven of those mighty arms, and the octopus was one of the largest ever taken on the Mendocino Coast. Nearby were two smaller devil fish that slithered off as the women battled the big one.”

GREAT REPORT by Mike Geniella on the new County Courthouse nobody wants and few Mendo citizens even know about will begin construction at the foot of West Perkins, Ukiah. This project is a typical Mendo blunder whose unplanned consequences will be one more civic burden toted by our descendants, loaded onto their unsuspecting backs by a nexus of incompetents, including their majesties of the Superior Court, for whose sole comfort and convenience this eyesore monstrosity is being erected.

SUPERVISOR MO MULHEREN’S comment that it’s “too early to talk publicly” about the fate of the current Courthouse typifies the local non-process on this looming debacle. Too early? When were there any public discussions about the new or the old Courthouses?

I THINK it was a Frisco-Lib who said, re the homeless, “We can’t arrest our way out of this problem.” Yes, we can, sorta, by adopting, at last, the recommendations contained in the $50,000 Marbut Report commissioned by the County a few years ago and immediately ignored, except by Fort Bragg where, via a savvy, humanely concentrated effort lead by the Fort Bragg Police Department the intractable were identified and appropriately sorted out, with a bunch being provided with transportation outta here to their families.

IN OUR BESET County seat, governed by people who should never, ever be permitted anywhere near the reins of authority, and home to more nicely compensated helping professionals than there are free range homeless people the helping pros can pretend to be helping, the Ukiah Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department arrest the same small population of drunks, dope heads and un-helped mentally ill over and over again, all of them processed on through the County Courthouse with the rest of the walking wounded and citizens with annual incomes that put them also on the brink of permanent outdoors living. (The new courthouse should have been designed as a barrel with statues of armed judges on top shooting the fish below.)

THE NEW “MENTAL HEALTH WING” of the County Jail is expected in early 2026. It looks like the construction will come in more or less on time and within budget (around $42 million). The cost no longer includes any Measure B money since the County used about $7 million of last year’s carry over to cover the large cost overage above the state’s $25 million. The original project description said it would have “90 new maximum security beds in three pods with one recreation yard in each pod, a classroom, a visitors’ center, and a medical exam/procedure room.” We have looked over the plans for the new stand-alone facility and it looks like the maximum capacity is upwards of 200 beds if the cells are doubled up. The design is a modern octagon shape with a central observation post that is designed to allow monitoring of day rooms and the cells behind them on the outer perimeter with much less staff than the old square jail design. The plans also include a full complement of ancillary and administrative areas totalling about 21,000 square-feet. There are multiple interview rooms, visitor areas, health service staff rooms, storage rooms, sallyports, a dental exam room, medical and psychiatric exam rooms, a “staff courtyard,” attorney rooms, conference and meeting rooms… Sheriff Kendall says the new wing will require only ten additional corretions officers, but we have not seen a staffing/budget plan, nor have the Supervisors asked any questions about it, despite its planned opening in less than a year. Round the clock staffing for seven days a week typically takes 4-5 people per position, so we expect that the estimate of ten additional staffers is on the low end and may not include all the staffing to fill all the rooms and services that the building can accommodate. There’s been some talk of using some Measure B money to cover part of the staffing costs. But so far, the estimates for that are low because Measure B money is supposed to be focused on non-custodial mental health treatment and drug rehab. Obviously, given the County’s budget squeeze, there will be pressure to apply as much Measure B money to the jail staffing as possible. (Mark Scaramella)

SO, LIKE…. along with the Psychiatric Health Facility )PHF) nearing completion, there will be plenty of room for the habituals and the unattended 5150’s to be housed and maybe even get more or less functional again away from street drugs and other seductions. (Although the PHF is only for the “severely mentally ill.) In the meantime, and it’s meaner than ever out there, apply the Marbut strategy to all the Ukiah Valley’s dependent persons which, some of us will recall, means homegrown dependents accommodated and housed first, the rest strongly encouraged and assisted to leave or go home after no more than a couple of Plowshares meals and a map to north and southbound on-ramps. Ukiah has long been known by the traveling community as a soft touch, so soft a lot of them settle in permanently.

GET OLD and you find yourself saying, “This is the last time I’ll have to do this.” And, “This is probably my last pair of running shoes.” And maybe even the lament, “I’m on my way out, but fascism is on its way in and I’m too decrepit to get to the barricades this summer.”

WEDNESDAY morning, as I was slid into an MRI tube at an “imaging center” on VanNess in San Francisco, I was reasonably certain I was experiencing my final examination by the tube’s magical processes, as they hammer, whir, and pound away at my innards for a claustrophobic hour. Why the heck are these things so unendurably noisy? It’s like being trapped in a steel drum while people beat on it with sledge hammers. This was my fourth excursion into the sarcophagus over the past year, but the least onerous because the Van Ness imagers provided ear plugs, which made the tube time a little more comfortable.

A BLOCK AWAY, I was pleased to see a noisy demonstration in front of the Tesla agency about which I have mixed feelings given that these vehicles are a step up from fossil fueled transportation. Of course Musk is an utter swine, as if Trump could ever attract decent human-type beings to his gang of thugs, nuts and incompetents, and it’s gratifying that these demos have cost Musk a lot of money, but he has so much money, thanks to the rightwing’s steady roll back of a fair system of taxation, that he’s beyond all fiscal accountability.

THEN it was up to UCSF on Parnassus for a catheter swap by a briskly efficient young woman who got it done with a marvelous combination of efficiency and humor, the latter, I would think, a prerequisite for a task few people could perform without a solid sense of the absurd.

YOU MEAN a woman had to do this? Afraid so, and believe me as a child of the ‘50s and a psyche formed by John Wayne and the Marine Corps, it took some doing to get used to nurses of whatever gender, but especially women, rummaging around the sequestered regions of my failing anatomy, especially my battered pud. I wrote out a note to this angel of the catheter: “I wish I could double your pay.” She laughed, and was gone.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, April 26, 2025

BRETT ADAME, 33, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, probation revocation.

FREDY BELTRAN-GARCIA, 26, Redwood Valley. DUI.

JOY CUNNINGHAM, 43, Mendocino. Disobeying court order.

DAVID HERNANDEZ, 39, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, stolen vehicle, paraphernalia.

VERGINIA JOHNSON, 55, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

AGUSTIN MARTINEZ-SANTOS, 24 Fortuna/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

ADRIAN PALOMINO-SANGUIANO, 26, Rio Dell/Leggett. DUI, controlled substance for sale, armed with firearm in commission of felony.

MANUEL RAMIREZ, 33, Redwood Valley. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15% with priors, suspended license for DUI.

NINA SMITH, 51, Gualala. Burglary.

REALIA SPECIALE, 42, Willits. Failure to appear.

MEMO OF THE AIR: Sredni Vashtar went forth. His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.

Marco here. Here’s the recording of last night’s (2025-04-25) 8-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0641

Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I’ll take it from there and read it on the air.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you’ll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Making them smile. When Nikola Tesla smiles, that’s my favorite one of these. I imagine Nikola Tesla crashing a Musk event, pointing his finger at Musk, across the stage, and Flash!Bang! (lightning). Or a sustained zuzzzzuzzzzzzzt! of electrical fluid forty feet through the air between his fingertip and Musk’s nose, Musk all surprised cooked pain, his arms out to the sides, his head and cheeks jerk-wiggle-wobbling left and right, with that cartoon bibbled-lips sound. Not the Dance of Electricity that Laurie Anderson described, but close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtVnANT6T70

Del Shannon - Runaway. The solo instrument sound comes from something called a Farfisa (say far-FEE-suh) organ. The Italian company that made them is still in business, but they make doorbell intercoms now. I had a Moog Satellite for awhile that could be made to sound very close to a Farfisa organ. Too piercing, man. Too piercing. (via Perfect For Roquefort Cheese) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSWMJxbxj7c

This VR game reminds me of a short story I read thirty or forty years ago called something like The Boy Who Walked Around All the Moons of Jupiter. I’ve tried and tried to find it, but it’s just nowhere. I know I didn’t imagine or dream it; it was in a pulp paper magazine. Anyway, the narrator was a reporter interviewing a 20-something boy who was on a treadmill in his basement with a video helmet on his head, attempting to walk around all the moons of Jupiter, one after the other, in virtual reality. At the end, the reporter gets his interview and is leaving, but he notices and points out that the boy has pissed his undershorts (which is all he’s wearing; I forgot to say that). The boy, on Adrastea or Valetudo or Themisto or whatever, calls out, “Mom. I’m wet!” for her to come downstairs and do something about that.https://kottke.org/25/04/0046698-baby-steps-is-a-forthcomi#comment-section

And War Pigs in Amharic! https://theawesomer.com/amharic-black-sabbath/769231/

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

UNLIKELY CAFE HYBRID LETS YOU GRAB YOUR COFFEE AND JOINT WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR CAR

‘I’m more excited than I’ve been in a long time’

by Matt LaFever

Gold Rush Coffee and Green Rush Cannabis in Eureka, Calif, is shaped like a coffee cup. (Tashina Benson)

In Eureka, California, once the epicenter of the state’s cannabis trade and now something of a weed rustbelt, Gold Rush Coffee and Green Rush Cannabis is blazing a new trail for the marijuana industry while also redefining the neighborhood cafe. Inside the brushed-aluminum drive-thru shaped like a coffee cup, customers sip lattes, munch bagels and buy their daily joints, all under one roof. It’s a fusion born from necessity and a bit of Humboldt hustle that wasn’t even legal a year ago.

This unlikely hybrid is an experiment in an industry where survival now requires reinvention. For owners Tashina and Mike Benson, it’s also deeply personal.

The Bensons own a legal pot farm in Humboldt County, but they told SFGATE that the coffee shop idea took root in 2020 when Tashina connected with Joe and Karen Paff, some longtime friends and the founders of Green Rush Coffee. The Paffs had run the business since 1980, which includes the drive-through coffee shop on Broadway and a roasting facility across town. They were ready to retire but hadn’t found the right buyer.

That changed when Mike turned to his wife and said, “I think we should buy Gold Rush.”

The interior of Gold Rush Coffee and Green Rush Cannabis in Eureka, Calif.

At the time, the couple was running a pot farm while raising a toddler, with another baby on the way. “It just seemed like insanity at this moment,” Tashina said. Buying the business, she added, was like “taking on another baby.”

Still, it felt right. She had worked at a cafe throughout high school and “knew the coffee shop like the back of my hand.” What she didn’t know, she admitted, was “buying the coffee beans and roasting the coffee beans and really the wholesale aspect.”

The couple bought the coffee business in 2022, but the Bensons weren’t just banking on winning customers with their coffee alone. They were betting that combining their coffee business with their cannabis background could create something new.

Mike Benson, who moved from Alaska to Humboldt County 13 years ago, had settled in the remote outpost of Salmon Creek, once an off-grid hub for cannabis farms. “These communities in the hills were booming,” Tashina Benson told SFGATE. “There’s, you know, school systems, road maintenance associations … everybody really came together to make things work.”

The Bensons own a legal pot farm in Humboldt County. (Mike Benson)

That was before legalization dropped wholesale prices and put family farms out of business across the region. “So many people have moved on,” she said. “The bulk market since legalization is really hard on a farmer — like, you just cannot make a living wage. It’s not realistic.”

During the pandemic, she and her husband found that in the legal market, bulk cannabis buyers were offering “a good ticket” for their Salmon Creek farm’s product. But once the market shifted, they hit a wall. “We never developed a brand or packaged our product for retail,” she said, adding that as small farmers, “we felt we didn’t have the team to do it.”

Faced with the grind of cold calls, networking and marketing, they made a conscious decision that running a cannabis farm wasn’t worth the time if they didn’t also have a store. That realization led them to a new idea to combine what they already knew best: coffee and cannabis. They began exploring whether the cafe’s lobby could double as a dispensary. Tashina and her husband started digging into regulations, meeting with city officials and checking with the state. At the time, the rules didn’t allow made-to-order food in dispensaries, so they began building a wall between the coffee shop and the dispensary, but local officials tipped them off that Gov. Gavin Newsom might soon legalize food sales at dispensaries.

Tashina Benson said they decided to not rush the process and hope the governor would approve the legal change. Then, on Sept. 30, 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom made their dream possible by signing Assembly Bill 1775, allowing dispensaries to serve non-cannabis food and drinks. It took six more months of work, but they finally opened their hybrid cafe and dispensary on April 3, 2025.

The grand opening of Gold Rush Coffee and Green Rush Cannabis in Eureka, Calif. (Tashina Benson)

Three years after buying the coffee shop, the couple opened their cannabis cafe, made possible by state laws that gave small operators like them a way to stay economically afloat in the cannabis game.

A little over two weeks into their grand opening, the numbers are promising. “For the soft open, we hit all the numbers we wanted to hit,” Mike Benson told SFGATE. “The reception has been great.”

Customers aren’t allowed to actually smoke their joints inside the coffee shop, as they do not have a consumption lounge license. But customers can buy coffee and joints at the drive-thru without leaving their car with the help of a QR code ordering system.

The dispensary’s cannabis menu consists almost exclusively of marijuana grown in the sun and soil of the Emerald Triangle, a rarity in the commercial cannabis business that prioritizes indoor cannabis. But even as they carve out a niche, the larger industry around them continues to shrink. “A lot of farmers have hung up their, you know, straw hats for lack of a better word because they just don’t know what to do or where to go,” Tashina told SFGATE.

For the Bensons, Gold Rush Coffee and Green Rush Cannabis is a bright spot in a difficult time, a creative gamble in a place known for reinvention.

“Hopefully, we can make this work, and at the very least, we can be sufficient enough to keep business operable,” Mike said. “I’m more excited than I’ve been in a long time.”

STEPH CURRY CARRIES WARRIORS without Butler to Game 3 win over Rockets

by Sam Gordon

An hour after the Golden State Warriors beat the Houston Rockets at Chase Center for a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven first-round playoff series, Jimmy Butler, inactive for Game 3, took to Instagram to celebrate.

He posted a photograph of Stephen Curry’s logo lighting a cartoonish nighttime sky from atop a building.

“Thanks batman and team. excluding Buddy,” the caption read.

Bat-Signal, Curry-Signal activated.

With Butler sidelined on Golden State’s bench in a brown fur coat with a pelvic and deep glute contusion, Curry was Batman, as Butler says, in a 104-93 victory for the Warriors. Via 36 points on 12-of-23 shooting, seven rebounds and nine assists in 41 minutes, he outmaneuvered Houston’s harassing defense for his 60th career 30-point playoff game.

Buddy Hield, the butt of Butler’s jokes amid their burgeoning bromance the last two months, had 17 points and five 3-pointers in 29 minutes off Golden State’s bench. Fellow reserve Gary Payton II added 16 points, the most he’s scored in a playoff game, including 11in the final quarter.

He made the go-ahead layup with 5:27 to play.

Anchored defensively by Draymond Green, the Warriors held Houston (14-of-24 free-throw shooting) to 39.5% shooting and forced 15 turnovers to overcome a 13-point deficit. Fred VanVleet scored 17 for the Rockets, for whom Jalen Green (38 points in Game 2) shot 4 of 11 and Alperen Sengun shot 7 of 18 for nine and 15 points, respectively.

Game 4 is Monday night at Chase Center, where a sellout crowd dressed mostly in yellow Saturday roared and howled for two-and-half hours.

Curry was showered with “MVP” chants at the free-throw line.

“This is what the playoffs are. They’re about injuries and they’re about guys who step up and we had both today with Jimmy being out,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “You have to be able to withstand that and win a game here and there. We’ve done that for many years. We’ve had some of our most important guys miss multiple games in a series. So, this is what you have to do. You’ve got to find a way and our guys did that today.”

Butler has evoked the Batman motif since the Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament a week ago Tuesday behind 15 fourth-quarter points from Curry in a 121-116 win. In his postgame news conference, Butler called him “Batman” and referred to himself as “Robin.”

During Game 1 Sunday, they indeed were the Dynamic Duo at Toyota Center.

Curry scored 31 and Butler scored 25 with seven rebounds, six assists and five steals in a 95-85 win in Houston. But Butler’s Game 2 first-quarter fall — on his tailbone when he was undercut by Amen Thompson while securing a rebound — kept him out of Game 3 altogether.

It also triggered the Bat-Signal.

Asked what he thinks about the Batman comparison, Curry said: “I mean, you can call it whatever you want to. I just know that I need to play at a high level for us to win and so does he and so does Draymond and so does everybody. Whatever you want to call me, I’ll embrace it and hopefully it keeps happening.”

Absent Butler, the Warriors started Quinten Post (12 rebounds, four assists) and Jonathan Kuminga (seven points) in the frontcourt with Green beside Brandin Podziemski and Curry in the backcourt.

Baskets were hard to come by at first.

Houston’s trapping, blitzing defense limited Curry to four first-quarter shots — and Golden State to one field goal during an eight-minute stretch in the first and second quarters — as the Rockets secured a 37-24 lead behind 13 first-quarter points from VanVleet.

Then Curry’s offensive aggression increased to the tune of 13 second-quarter points. He explained afterward “there was kind of a moment in the second quarter where I had to get a little bit more assertive and not let the double teams and traps take me out of possessions.”

A 9-0 run keyed by five points from Hield gave the Warriors a 49-46 halftime deficit as 12 third-quarter points from Curry kept them afloat. Said Golden State’s Green regarding Curry: “We all follow him just with that type of tenacity. You’re not going to be the guy to let him down when he’s playing like that. I don’t think anybody wants to be that guy when he’s coming out and he’s giving that type of effort.”

Houston’s continued aggression toward Curry opened space for Payton toward the rim. He finished three layups and a dunk in the fourth quarter while adding a catch-and-shoot corner triple from Curry.

The Rockets shot 7 of 21 in the fourth quarter as Green quarterbacked cohesive team defense.

Kerr said Butler remains day-to-day. Payton said the Warriors “absolutely” gained confidence winning without him. Hield said “Robin was out tonight so I had to step up. That was it. I was Alfred tonight.”

Curry said they need Butler to win 14 more playoff games, “but if there’s a situation where somebody is not available, next-man up mentality, it’s got to be a belief and a confidence. Two months ago, I don’t know if we had that.”

(sfchronicle.com)

PATRICK BAILEY’S WALK-OFF HIT, ROBBIE RAY’S BEST START KEY GIANTS’ 3-2 WIN OVER RANGERS

by Susan Slusser

Retired San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford returns for a celebration of his career, throwing out the first pitch, Saturday, April 26, 2025, during Brandon Crawford Celebration Day at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

On a day honoring the best shortstop in San Francisco Giants’ history, the team’s current shortstop emerged from an April funk with a game-tying single in the fifth inning against the Rangers.

Willy Adames’ two-run hit provided the Giants’ first RBIs in the series, then, in the ninth, Christian Koss moved two men into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt and pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey knocked a base hit to right off lefty Jacob Latz, just into the game to give San Francisco a 3-2 walkoff win on Brandon Crawford appreciation day.

The Giants got another super outing from a veteran former Cy Young winner, with Robbie Ray following Justin Verlander’s strong work the night before with his best start of the season. Ray went a season-high seven innings and struck out eight, matching his season high; San Francisco has won all seven games he’s started but he hasn’t earned a win since April 11 thanks to some late-arriving offensive efforts.

It looked as if the Giants’ bats might remain somnolent Saturday, with the team extending its scoreless streak in the series to 13 innings, plus Texas starter Tyler Mahle is among the top starters in baseball this month. When the Rangers scored single runs in the first and third, both on sacrifice flies by Jake Burger, it wasn’t hard to envision Ray meeting the same fate as had Verlander the night before in a 2-0 loss.

He didn’t get the W, but left with the game tied having retired 14 of the final 15 hitters. Ray was a strike machine, with 23 swings-and-misses, 13 called strikes and 15 foul balls, and he walked just one as he whittled his ERA down to 3.73. Tyler Rogers turned in his customary scoreless inning, then Ryan Walker, trying to work his way out of a rough patch, provided his second scoreless outing in as many games. He gave up back-to-back hits to open the ninth, then got a popup and two strikeouts, including getting pinch hitter Joc Pederson, the former Giants DH, to end the inning.

Koss, in the lineup as a late replacement for Tyler Fitzgerald, opened the fifth with a base hit and Sam Huff, a former Rangers catcher, hit a drive to right that might have scored Koss except he missed the bag at third, slipped and fell down. With one out, Adames drove in both of them with his single to center.

Fitzgerald initially was in the lineup at second, but he was scratched with a chest contusion incurred on a diving attempt in the sixth inning the previous night. The injury isn’t considered significant and manager Bob Melvin said Fitzgerald was available if needed.

Jordan Hicks will go in the final game of the series Sunday. The right-hander has allowed five runs or more in each of his past three starts, putting up a 9.56 ERA in that stretch; he said Saturday he needs to throw more fastballs and he needs to throw his slider a little harder, something he’s been working on between starts. He hasn’t thrown a traditional slider since 2023, but his sweeper has been a good weapon this year, with opponents batting just .158 on the pitch. The sinker has been the one pitch that hasn’t always been there this year, with opponents hitting .313 on the pitch.

(SF Chronicle)

BIG OIL SPONSORS DINNERS AND AWARDS RECEPTIONS FOR JOURNALISTS AS STUDY REVEALS $38 TRILLION IN CLIMATE DAMAGE

by Dan Bacher

One of the biggest and most censored stories of the past few years is the increasingly cozy relationship between the oil industry, journalists and media organizations in California.

This relationship has increasing relevance in light of the climate change-induced wildfires that raged through Los Angeles and San Diego counties this January as the Trump administration, under the grip of Big Oil and Big Ag, spread disinformation about the fires and California water…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/26/2318962/-Big-Oil-sponsors-dinners-awards-for-journalists-as-study-reveals-38-trillion-in-climate-damage

SAN FRANCISCO’S INIMITABLE ARTIST, RICHARD ‘LUCKEY’ PERRI

by Jonah Raskin

Think of San Francisco artists and you’re likely to think of Ruth Asawa, whose work is currently on exhibit at SFMOMA, and Wayne Thieibaud, who had his first show in SF in 1960 and whose work is now at the Legion of Honor. To those artists add the name Richard (“Luckey”) Perry, whose colorful paintings are on the walls of the Italo Americano Museo in a show curated by Bianca Friundi, who recently told a crowd,”We’re proud to have Perri’s work here and to have him in person.”

The exhibit opened February 8, 2025 and runs until June 7, 2025. Wearing black trousers, a black jacket and a pork pie hat, Perri stood in front of his painting of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and talked for an hour about art and The City where he has lived and worked for decades.

Perri loves Italy; his father came from Sicily and his mother from Calabria. He holds dual citizenship: Italian and American. He might one day be forced to leave the US and go to Italy. It’s no secret that Perri also loves San Francisco. So no one was shocked when he told the audience at the Italo Americano Museo in Fort Mason, “I love this city.”

Perri doesn’t love all of the city’s 46.9 square miles.

He loves a particular slice of San Francisco that is vanishing but that hasn’t entirely disappeared. Perri loves the old San Francisco that once had a thriving waterfront, ships in the harbor, longshoremen and cafes like “Red’s Java House” at 38 Bryant that was founded during the Depression of the 1930s and that is still serving its signature sausage sandwiches on Mondays and the ever popular corn beef and hash on Saturdays and Sundays. “I express my attachment to this place through my paintings,” Perri says. “There’s a lot of freedom here.”

No one has captured in color the urban face of old San Francisco more faithfully than Perri and that’s no accident. For years he owned and operated a bar at Mission and 29th Street where the regulars were, he says, characters out of the pages of Damon Runyan and had names like “Gorilla Dog,” “Indian Dave” and “Baldy Ray.” In their company, Perri acquired the nickname “Luckey.”

The Italo Americano Museo in Fort Mason’s Building C is exhibiting more than two dozen of his iconic canvases of landmark places like Red’s Java House and City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Avenue, plus San Francisco personalities like Gavin Newsom, and the poet, publisher, and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as Sterling Bunnell, the Bay Area psychiatrist whose patients included a great many artists and writers.

Perri isn’t as well known as many of the places, such as Coit Tower, he has captured on canvases, and not as famous as some of the people, including ex mayor and now Governor Newsom, whose portraits he has painted. But neither is he a complete unknown. Over the decades he’s acquired a small devoted following.

Call him the peoples’ painter. Granted, he doesn’t paint workers or working class neighborhoods but he paints the places where workers have eaten and the streetcars that they’ve taken to and from employment. Perri’s studio on the second floor of the Odd Fellows Building on Seventh Street near Market, isn’t located in a neighborhood that’s a destination for tourists and foodies. Call it an outdoor living room for members of the lumpenproletariat.

Perri doesn’t have an agent and he’s not connected to a gallery, which enables him, he says, “to paint whatever I want to paint.” Not a single canvas exhibited at the Italo-Americano Museum has a price tag. “I’m not trying to sell my work,”Perri says. “And I’m not thinking about living a long life. I’m thinking about painting.” He adds, “But if you want to buy one of my canvases we can talk.” A quotation from Perri on a wall painted white reads, ”I have more ideas and images in my mind than I have seconds in my life.” At the age of 81, he’s still painting, still tapping into his creative energy. Years ago, during a bout with depression, Sterling Bunnell provided a dose of much needed talk therapy, but mostly Perri’s art has kept him feeling good about himself and the world. He’s been a lucky man.

Perri was born to a blue collar Catholic family; his father came from Sicily, his mother from Calabria. His father worked for the railroad and was injured on the job, an experience that his son has long remembered. Working class life could be precarious. Perri grew up in Rockville Center on Long Island, before the coming of Levittown, the suburban housing development.

He got out of Long Island as fast as he could, left the church and went west, attended college in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Tempe, Arizona before enrolling at the San Francisco Art Institute. “I arrived with flowers in my hair,” he says. He joined the underground comic scene, met and worked with Art Spiegelman long before Spiegelman mined his father’s concentration experience and created the Maus comic books with Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. Spiegelman made art from the darkest of material.

Perri’s paintings might, on a first take, look realistic, but they’re not, especially not the colors. “They all express a certain mood,” Perri says. A journalist named Julie Zigoris noted that his paintings express both loneliness and a sense of nostalgia. That sounds about right, though one might also say that working class people are an invisible, palpable presence. The immense skies in Perri’s work have no matching colors that one might see and recognize in the skies above Russian Hill or Golden Gate Park, and his street cars look far more psychedelic than any streetcars that operate on Market Street.

The Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh, famous for his sun flowers, blue skies and wheat fields with crows, has inspired some of Perri’s best work. “The application of the paint is the important thing,” he says. What he’s after is called “luminosity,” which he defines as the “spirituality of something that is gone.” Indeed, his art captures the luminosity of San Francisco. The word, luminosity, also provides the title of his book for sale at the Italo Americano Museo.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)

BILL KIMBERLIN:

Recently I read a discription of the actor Sterling Hayden’s adventures on his schooner, “Wanderer” out of Sausalito, Ca. But that account didn’t mention his years with a private railroad car side tracked in Sausalito. I remember it from the late 1960s and early 1970s. On a rail trip East on the Burlington Zephyr he learned of a luxuory pullman car that was for sale so he inquired about it.

“Hayden received a package from the railroad. It contained several photographs of a 1890s Pullman car that was currently unused in a railway roundhouse in Galesburg, Illinois. It was luxuriously built, featuring mahogany paneling inside, brass beds, and a galley. It was for sale and the railroad was asking $2,000 for it. Hayden couldn’t resist; he immediately purchased the car.

Attached to a mile-and-a-quarter-long railroad train, Hayden and his friends Billy Pearson and Louis Vogler rode the car back from Galesburg to Oakland, California, the three of them drinking the entire time. From there the car was transported to Sausalito. For the next several years, Hayden would be using it as his office where he worked on his newest writing project: a novel.

Hayden later reflected on his railroad car. In a diary entry dated November 9, 1984, he wrote: “And it’s coming back to me, just how it felt. 16 years & 7 months ago. That magical afternoon … in this old private railroad car: Burlington Northern No. 93.

“Built in Burlington Yards-1890. For some forgotten wheel (A vice Pres. or a Division superintendent). Oh the magic of that car! A schooner of the rails. Iron lined rail.”

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of information. Yes, the Trump polls are tanking, but this was all obvious to anyone with a brain who did the required homework (not much) before going to the polls last November. Example: there is a video online of a woman in Nebraska who identifies herself as a farmer. In that video, she says “we all voted for Trump and now he is deporting the undocumented immigrants we rely on to work at our farms. We are going to go bankrupt.” Who would have thought he would do such a thing? I leave this as an exercise to the reader.

LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

With Trump-Zelensky Meeting, Ukrainians See a Glimmer of Hope

Trump’s 14 Hours in Rome: Fleeting Encounters Amid Global Discord

As Cardinals Prepare to Elect a Pope, One Motto Is ‘Unity.’ That’s Divisive.

Who Will Be the Next Pope? Here Are Some Possible Contenders.

Pope Francis, Who Sought a More Pastoral Church, Is Laid to Rest

What the Pope Told This Writer About Politics

ON TRUMP’S ARREST OF A MILWAUKEE TRIAL JUDGE

by Bernie Sanders

Friday morning, President Trump directed the FBI to arrest trial court judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee. She is being charged with obstructing law enforcement, a federal crime.

Let’s be clear. Trump’s arrest of Judge Dugan in Milwaukee has nothing to do with immigration. It has everything to do with his moving this country toward authoritarianism. He is illegally usurping Congressional powers. He is suing media that he dislikes. He is attacking universities whose policies he disagrees with. He is intimidating major law firms who have opposed him. He is ignoring a 9-0 Supreme Court decision to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador, where he was illegally sent. He is threatening to impeach judges who rule against him.

Trump’s latest attack on the judiciary and Judge Dugan is about one thing – unchecked power. He will attack and undermine any institution that stands in his way. Trump continues to demonstrate that he does not believe in the Constitution, the separation of powers, or the rule of law. He simply wants more and more power for himself. It is time for my colleagues in the Republican Party who believe in the Constitution to stand up to his growing authoritarianism.

TRUMP’S VICIOUS SEWING CIRCLE

by Maureen Dowd

I was already feeling queasy about the Trump administration when I saw that the Agriculture Department was withdrawing a Biden-era proposal meant to reduce salmonella in poultry.

So besides making us jittery — and “yippy” — the Trump gang is trying to make us actually sick.

It has been another wild, whiplash-y week in Washington.

Amid an economic catastrophe President Trump personally caused, a startling new Times/Siena poll found him underwater, even on immigration, as voters recoiled at the very thing the president loves: his overreaching.

How do most Americans see his first 100 days in office? “Chaotic” and “scary” — not the paternal reassurance he might have hoped to engender with his cartoonishly macho style, his manosphere heroics and his swaggering U.F.C. and wrestling posse.

“He is replacing the meddlesome Nanny State with an aggressive, paternalistic Daddy State, based on the deference and devotion of his underlings,” Gerald Seib wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

All the talk about more traditional gender roles hearkens back to a time when women were seen as biologically unfit to hold higher office. For centuries, women were thought to be too high-strung and unstable to have a hand in running world affairs.

What if women got into the highest echelons of government, determining life and death, war and peace, and began gossiping, catfighting, backbiting and clawing each other’s eyes out? And everyone knew, of course, that women were more deceptive.

So it is grimly entertaining to see this most “masculine” of administrations reflecting stereotypes about female behavior that long kept women out of power.

Trump’s macho crew, it turns out, is a vicious little sewing circle.

Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got into a white-hot shouting match in a West Wing hall, within earshot of President Trump and his guest, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy. The fight started about their different opinions on who should lead the Internal Revenue Service but then spilled over into the efficiency of DOGE, Musk’s efficiency team.

“Bessent criticized Musk for overpromising and under-delivering budget cuts with DOGE,” Axios’s Marc Caputo reported. “Musk clapped back by calling Bessent a ‘Soros agent’ and accusing him of having run ‘a failed hedge fund.’”

Musk also had a nasty spat with Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, earlier this month over Teslas and tariffs. Musk posted on X that “Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed that hair-pulling incident, saying, “Boys will be boys.”

There was once a fear that women would be too emotional at the top, but look at Elon. He maniacally jumps around the stage, and he is known to mist up in the middle of interviews about his work and his love life.

And if you don’t want an unstable creature at the top, particularly at that bastion of masculinity, the Pentagon, why would you hire Pete Hegseth?

The lightweight former Fox weekend anchor, who promised to forgo his louche ways, made dunderheaded blunders with Signal that could have jeopardized our troops, and invited a nest of vipers into the Defense Department. (He even ordered up a spiffy makeup studio next to the Pentagon briefing room, as CBS reported.)

Hegseth followed his boss’s reality-show lead and produced the Real Housewives of the Pentagon, casting fellow military veterans as top advisers, even if none of these men had the requisite experience to run a sprawling, global organization, and they had no interest in learning. Instead, they lit up the Pentagon with bawdy meetings, vicious rivalries and power feuds. The bad-mouthing led to three firings and, on Thursday, the abrupt departure of Hegseth’s chief of staff.

Having his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox producer, by his side at the Pentagon, where she is known as the “human leash,” has not kept Pete on the straight and narrow.

Hapless Hegseth fought back at the White House Easter egg roll by accusing reporters of publishing “hoaxes” and using “disgruntled former employees” to smear him.

But the man in charge of a department with a budget of approximately $850 billion seems flighty and shaky, unable to find loyal consiglieres and unable to stick to the Pentagon’s classified message system, which is among the best in the world for a reason. It protects our troops.

When Gen. Jim Mattis was Trump’s defense secretary in the first term, he conveyed the idea that he was the adult who would make sure the highchair king in the Oval did not do anything crazy with our military. But who is the adult now?

Trump, who often casts by looks, may have liked Hegseth’s slick style and pretty face. But even the Emperor of Chaos must realize this Princess of Chaos has to go.

(NY Times)

TAIBBI & KIRN

Walter Kirn: I’m looking out the window at the 1,700th snowfall of winter here in Montana. They don’t seem to have gotten a memo here that we’re supposed to have flowers and tulips by now. Even the bears are still in hibernation.

Matt Taibbi: Really?

Walter Kirn: Yeah. There’s no real animal activity. And I basically live inside an open air zoo out here. I can see many species that people travel the world to find. It’s like I live on the Serengeti. And nothing’s happening. Everybody’s got-

Matt Taibbi: Wow.

Walter Kirn: Everybody’s in a hole. Yeah.

Matt Taibbi: Wow. Well, that doesn’t sound very pleasant.

Walter Kirn: It’s good for writing. It’s good for writing.

Matt Taibbi: That’s good. Yeah. Keeps you inside, right?

Walter Kirn: Yeah.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. That’s why the Russians were such good novelists, right?

Walter Kirn: Exactly.

Matt Taibbi: They couldn’t go outside.

Walter Kirn: Right. Each Russian novel is exactly as long as a Russian winter, if you have ever noticed.

Matt Taibbi: Right. And War and Peace was just … It was one hangover too long, right? So, oh, you missed a whole summer in between. So Walter, you found an amazing story this week. And we’re going to do a deep dive into something a little bit unusual, but it ties into a number of real news stories that happened this week. And to begin with, that involved the resignation, the sudden and unexpected resignation of Klaus Schwab, the Chairman of the World Economic Forum. And yes, here’s the AP story that came out on Monday. World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, retires as Chairman. Gave a very terse announcement, really was like a two-sentence thing, not fully explaining what was going on.

A few days after that, The Wall Street Journal came out with a story. And this is kind of par for the course in modern life, which is when somebody retires unexpectedly, you can almost set your watch by the headline the next day that the person is under investigation for some weird thing. So The Wall Street Journal came out with the story. And the implication of it, I don’t know. The key paragraph reads, “It included allegations that …” Somebody sent a letter to the WEF board that, “Included allegations that Klaus Schwab asked junior employees to withdraw thousands of dollars from ATMs on his behalf and used Forum funds to pay for private in-room massages at hotels. It also alleged that his wife, Hilde, a former Forum employee, scheduled “token” Forum-funded meetings in order to justify luxury holiday travel at the organization’s expense.” Okay. So theoretically, this was going to come out, so they got to get rid of the guy, but he was 88. He’s been there forever. Something tells me that this isn’t the whole story, but whatever. It’s a-

Walter Kirn: You will have nothing. I will have everything.

Matt Taibbi: Well, right? Yes.

Walter Kirn: But persecuting someone who heads an organization whose annual meeting is an oligarchical orgy on the ski slopes of Davos, Switzerland, and saying that they live too high on the hog is a little much, as far as I’m concerned.

Matt Taibbi: Private in-room massages. Come on. They practically have to have a courtesan screening system to get into Davos during that period of the year.

Walter Kirn: I’ve had private in-room massages at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. Anybody who gets the deluxe package, the romance package can have that.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. The girlfriend experience. Klaus Schwab’s girlfriend experience.

Walter Kirn: Klaus Schwab girlfriend experience. It’s the masseuses. See, sometimes I’ve thought about organizing a private intelligence agency that could maybe do what the CIA does, but for $10 million. And I’d just get about 12 masseuses and I’d follow the film festival and sports championship calendar.

Matt Taibbi: And Davos.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. And Davos, Sun Valley. And I’d always have a guy in the middle seat of the first class section of the LA to New York City Delta flight or whatever. And-

Matt Taibbi: Right. Get them loaded.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. And we’d just have iPhones. And I think by the end of the day, we’d have a better read on whether we’re going to war or what’s going to happen to the economy than these people do. But not that I feel sorry for Klaus. I do, however, feel that he was helpful because he was so repulsive as the face of the WEF. I hate to see him go. I think the entire world developed an aversion to him, which was extremely-

Matt Taibbi: Useful.

Walter Kirn: … wholesome and healthy. And now they’ve got a new guy that-

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. So I was just about to say-

Walter Kirn: … we have to learn to hate every fiber of in a whole new way.

Matt Taibbi: But it’s not going to be difficult. So the new Vice … He’s being succeeded by the-

Walter Kirn: Woah.

Matt Taibbi: … former CEO of Nestle and the Vice Chair of the WEF, and this is Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, if I’m pronouncing that right. I’m probably not. I would … Let’s look at the close-up of that picture on the left, if we could, for a second. Yeah.

Walter Kirn: Now, I’ve been told that it’s a form of propaganda to feature this picture because he had conjunctivitis, and an unfortunate photo was taken. And he should not be known for the fact that it looks like he is wearing a mask that Chain Saw Massacre guy stole off-

Matt Taibbi: Right. Yeah.

Walter Kirn: … someone else.

Matt Taibbi: Leatherface. Exactly. This is oligarch Leatherface. Let’s go to the other picture then.

Walter Kirn: There he is.

Matt Taibbi: There he is. Okay. There’s a word in German for this. Backpfeifengesicht, which is a very punchable face. And he’s got backpfeifengesicht in spades. But in the same way that Klaus Schwab has lots of infamous quotes that quickly became famous, so does this guy. The only thing is his are mostly in German. So let’s listen to this little address that he gave about the question of what we’re going to do about water as a commodity going forward into the future.

Matt Taibbi: Okay. Stop.

Walter Kirn: Don’t you agree?

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. They bang on about declaring water to be a human right, which is basically saying that people have a right to water. And that is the extreme solution.

THE PAIN OF A TOOTHACHE arrives long after the damage has been done. The process begins when bacteria in the mouth turn sugars from our food into acid, which etches the tooth’s enamel, allowing the bacteria to penetrate further. Only when they hit the nerve bundles at the tooth’s pulpy core does the sufferer become aware — all too painfully aware — of their predicament. Dental pain comes in pulsing waves, seemingly synchronized with every beat of the heart. Once bacteria have penetrated into the tooth, they release gasses that swell the pulp, compounding the pain. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy cites toothache as one of two examples of natural evil (the other is hurricanes).

Many ancient cultures blamed tooth worms. The Roman physician Scribonius recommended fumigation with smoke from poisonous henbane seeds placed on hot coals. Any worms that succumbed to the treatment were to be spat out. In his history of teeth, ‘Bite,’ the zoologist Bill Schutt tells us that the fumes would at least have dulled the patient’s pain by giving them a noxious high. Belief in tooth worms persisted across the centuries. A carved ivory tooth from 18th-century France opens to reveal a battle being waged within: club-wielding humans fighting a demonic worm on top of a pile of skulls.

Most vertebrates have teeth, and Schutt’s entertaining book covers everything “from three-inch fang blennies to 30-foot pre-historic crocodiles.” The evolution of teeth began in the oceans around half a billion years ago. First, filter-feeding fish evolved jaws — not to eat, but to increase the efficiency of respiration. As their mouths were repurposed to grip onto food, small bony bumps on the skin known as odontodes migrated into the jaws. Over time, these became teeth. Exactly where the odontodes migrated from is unclear. Proposals include: from the surface of the skull down into the mouth (outside-in); forward from the pharynx (inside-out); or by different means (inside and out). Though the origins of teeth remain uncertain, the rapid diversification of jawed fish in the fossil record suggests that they provided an evolutionary advantage. Schutt compares their emergence to “a farmer moving into town with a John Deere tractor while everyone else is using horsedrawn plows.”

Pretty quickly — at least in evolutionary terms — fish jaws were bristling with teeth. Some long and thin fish even evolved an additional set of pharyngeal jaws inside their mouths, allowing them to pull hapless prey further down inside the gullet without chewing.

Teeth do not mark a major evolutionary transition on a par with the creation of sexual populations or multicellular organisms, but it’s fair to argue, as Schutt does, that they played an important role in facilitating animal diversity. As different types of teeth developed, dietary specializations flourished. Unlike some other anatomical features, nobody argues about what teeth are for, though the narwhal’s horn — in fact a bizarrely modified upper canine — is an obvious exception.

Sexual selection can generate large body parts without a clear functional purpose (like a peacock’s tail), but the tusk may have its uses: recent drone footage appears to show narwhals stunning fish with a quick saber-rap.

Alternatively, some scientists have suggested that, being stuffed with nerve bundles, the tusk may sense changes in water salinity.

We don’t usually need such lateral thinking to understand what teeth are doing. For example, tiny shrews must eat constantly to avoid starvation, placing their teeth at high risk of erosion. In response, some species of shrew have developed rust-red teeth, fortified by iron hydroxide in the enamel.

— Liam Shaw (London Review of Books)

KHE SANH, OR, LATE AGAIN

I am yet propelled by a certain energy
of recollection memories of shattered forms,
brainstorms rivers valleys sacked
Khe Sanh’s red clay
upside down
…It rains a lot over there and if
they’d invite me
I’d go back,
saw vetch on the hillsides,
but you see I’ll bet it’s green again already

— Don Shanley (1976)

25 Comments

Harvey Reading April 27, 2025

“…a step up from fossil fueled transportation.”

How much fossil fuel is consumed in producing the damned Muskmobiles, including manufacture of the batteries? In keeping their batteries charged? We are being sold a bill of goods.

Reply
Chuck Artigues April 27, 2025

Forget cannabis and coffee, I want cannabis and PIZZA! Now there’s two things that go together!

Reply
David Stanford April 27, 2025

ON TRUMP’S ARREST OF A MILWAUKEE TRIAL JUDGE
by Bernie Sanders
TRUMP’S VICIOUS SEWING CIRCLE
by Maureen Dowd

DJT has these two screaming from the top of the mountain, he must be on to something right, keep it up!!!!!!!:)

Reply
Kathy Janes April 27, 2025

From today’s booking log:

Realia Speciale – failure to appear

There’s a haiku in there somewhere. Or maybe a limerick.

Reply
- Mark Scaramella April 27, 2025
  
  You can always turn a deaf ear
  Or just guzzle another beer
  But if you don’t show
  To jail you go.
  You better not fail to appear.
  
  My wife was supposed to post bail
  To keep me from going to jail.
  So I ignored the subpoena
  And got caught between a
  rock and a hard place: Epic fail.
  
  My lawyer seemed so sincere
  When he told me to just stay right here.
  But when the siren came on
  He was long gone.
  The cop said I had failed to appear.
  
  The charge said probation revocation.
  As I was about to go on vacation.
  I thought it was wierd
  Because I had appeared.
  But the officer said no, it was just a citation.
  
  Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar April 27, 2025
    
    Dang, that’s a good one, Mark. I thought you were always a very serious guy, but here we go, also a comic poet! Made this old man smile.
    
    Reply
  - Kathy Janes April 27, 2025
    
    Wow – such creativity. And you didn’t say Realia once.
    
    Reply
    - Mark Scaramella April 27, 2025
      
      There’s still some Adriatic Irish in my blood.
      
      Reply
  - Kathy Janes April 27, 2025
    
    How about this:
    
    Realia’s late
    For a Speciale date
    What will be her fate?
    (his? I’m not sure)
    
    Reply
George Hollister April 27, 2025

$144,000,000 is wasted on a new court house, and of course that cost will go up. We have so much government waste going to infrastructure we don’t need, and to programs that are ineffective, and much too expensive. Yet we can’t repair our roads, or do a seismic retrofit on a needed reservoir serving 600,000 people. California’s fiscal priorities are screwed up, and raising taxes on anyone will only feed the waste.

Reply
- Harvey Reading April 27, 2025
  
  Do you work for Donald Trump? Take the damned dam OUT. Get the human population “dependent” on it down to the natural carrying capacity of its habitat..
  
  Reply
  - Kimberlin April 27, 2025
    
    The current earth’s population is 8.062 billion. The Earth’s carrying capacity is not a fixed number and depends on various factors, including resource availability, technology, and human consumption patterns.
    
    Reply
    - Harvey Reading April 27, 2025
      
      Overall, when nonrenewable resources play out and/or temperature elevates to a lethal level, humans will become extinct. We’re approaching that point, sooner than you seem to think. Wishful thinking will be of no use, nor will electromobiles. I tend NOT to take seriously the nonsense spouted by robber barons (like king donald) who believe they won’t be affected in their expansive bunkers…
      
      Reply
      - Kimberlin April 27, 2025
        
        Your predictions are no more valuable than anyone else’s. As third world countries become more wealthy their populations will react just like ours have and the number of children will drop substantially. In our country and China they are starting to have to pay families to have more children.
        
        Reply
        
        Harvey Reading April 28, 2025
        
        Time will tell…
        
        Reply
Mazie Malone April 27, 2025

Good Morning,

The old courthouse should be used as a transitional accommodation for those people released from jail and from the psychiatric health facility! Psych units and the jail both release people back to the street, leaving them a slim chance of adhering to any necessary support! The thing that gets people out of their struggle and on a path of wellness is support, tons of it!! We all know people get released in very odd hours leaving them lots of room to get into trouble again. There are many stories hundreds upon hundreds of psych units dropping people still unwell on the streets, sometimes in neighborhoods and cities they have never been, some have died horribly because of it.

mm 💕

Reply
- Rick Swanson April 27, 2025
  
  Great idea Mazie!
  
  Reply
  - Mazie Malone April 27, 2025
    
    Rick,
    Thank you sir, I have more, lol 🤣!!
    
    mm 💕
    
    Reply
Bruce McEwen April 27, 2025

Urban Legend has it that there’s secret tunnels under the old part, the Nineteenth Century bit facing School Street, that connect to the old Palace Hotel and other venues.

Reply
- Mazie Malone April 27, 2025
  
  Bruce,
  
  Interesting, I wonder if those tunnels connect into the tunnels at Trinity school?
  
  mm 💕
  
  Reply
  - Bruce McEwen April 27, 2025
    
    I was never given a tour. But wasn’t the Honorable new mayor of Willits, Tom Allman, wasn’t something like that what he had in mind for the old Howard Hospital? The Measure B kerfuffle? Already there’s the old post office, only a block or two away from the courthouse, and it too sits moldering away into an eyesore and public safety hazard like the Rickerts ramshackle building in Boonville. Ooooh… I can almost visualize the many costly expert consultants rubbing their palms in anticipation of despoiling your really very practical and wise idea for the use of existing county resources but I fear it will meet obstinate scrutiny and perpetual postponements…
    
    Reply
    - Mazie Malone April 27, 2025
      
      Bruce,
      
      I also have thought about the old post office the old Currys building, heck now even big lots is available and I’m sure there will be more empty buildings. Denny’s would’ve worked too. No matter what may transpire I am very appreciative of the fact that people listen to me and have respect for my knowledge and ideas! I worked at Trinity in the very early 90s that was an experience, lol.
      
      mm 💕
      
      Reply
Craig Stehr April 27, 2025

Have accomplished all that was committed to in Washington, D.C. during this sixteenth visit. The Peace Vigil across the street from the White House is ongoing. Am more than ready to leave the rough ‘n tumble homeless shelter. I didn’t get murdered. I’ll need a pick up at the Santa Rosa airport, and a place to live with other enlightened beings. You are welcome, postmodern America, for the past 50 years of frontline peace & justice and radical environmental organizing, direct action, and all of the writing/publications.
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: [email protected]
April 27th @ 2:48 p.m. EDT

Reply
Andrew Lutsky April 27, 2025

I was stunned this morning to read in Mike Geniella’s piece about the new courthouse that the sage leaders of the City of Ukiah and Mendocino County have hatched a plan to demolish Alex Thomas Plaza to make room for commercial development. I started a petition to oppose this absurd plan, I hope you will read and support it and share. Thanks. https://chng.it/LYc7DRCXTk

Reply
- Mark Donegan April 27, 2025
  
  Signed and posted.
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Today: Sunday 4/27/2025

25 Comments

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