Mendocino County Today: Thursday 10/23/2025

Sneaker Waves | Afternoon Sun | Weapons Sitter | Native Arts | PVP Resolution | Albion River | Lake Storage | Honoring Elders | Many Gates | Turkey Tail | Shutdown Effects | Farewell AV | District Transportation | Albion Bridge | Gleaning Party | Baker Service | No Catch | Each Autumn | Cause Happiness | Autumn Leaves | If Then | Lady Astor | Burning Plastic | Nice Letter | Coach Vitello | Big Dog | Quaker Forebears | That's the Job | Lost Women | Most Words | Newsom Guard | Bates Motel | Wasted Food | Drug Addicts | Can't High | Crumb Bums | CA Housing | Front Yard | Two Tickets | Debs Died | Dead Grandmother | Lead Stories | Congress Adrift | Subtracting Knowledge | Social Media | Prufrock | Read Obituaries | Stabbing Caesar | Spiritual Descent | Fitz & Hem | Terrible Feeling

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SNEAKER WAVE and large surf risk continues through the week. Confidence remains high for an atmospheric river storm impacting Northern California Friday into the weekend. Additional rainfall is forecast to continue through Sunday and into Monday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 54F this Thursday morning on the coast, we will likely see some sun today, not sure how much ? Our forecast of Friday rain has now moved to Friday night & the weekend. Next week is looking dry after the system moves out Monday morning.

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SEARCH WARRANT RESULTS IN SEIZURE OF ASSAULT WEAPON AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES

On October 22, 2025, at approximately 0700 hours, officers from the Fort Bragg Police Department served a search warrant on a residence located in the 900 block of John Cimolino Way.

The warrant was in response to information they had received regarding possible weapons and narcotics being present at the location. Officers were also made aware of a 10-year-old juvenile being present in the household and having access to the firearms and narcotics. Upon arrival, Officers contacted an adult female, her teenage son, and the 10-year-old juvenile who were removed from the residence and interviewed.

A search of the residence was conducted resulting in officers locating a large quantity of marijuana, controlled substances, a short barrel rifle, ammunition for other firearms, and drug sales paraphernalia. It was also determined that the 10-year-old juvenile had access to these items inside the residence and the female adult had no family relationship to the 10-year-old child.

After being interviewed, the adult female was released on scene along with her teenage son pending further investigation. Officers contacted Child Protective Services and released the 10-year-old juvenile to their care.

Based on their investigation, additional charges of Child Abuse or Neglect with the possibility of Great Bodily Injury, Possession of Assault Weapon, Prohibited Person Owning Firearm, Possession for sale, Possession of Marijuana for Sale, Felon in possession, Manufacture or import short barrel rifle, Manufacture undetectable firearm, were added to Hance’s booking charges at the Mendocino County Jail.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact Sergeant Frank at (707)961-2800 ext. 223 or email [email protected].

This information is being released by Commander Jonathan McLaughlin. For media inquiries, please reach out to him directly at [email protected].

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DEMS OUT-VOTE REPUBS ON SUPERVISORS’ PROPOSED POTTER VALLEY PROJECT RESOLUTION

by Mark Scaramella

Although some interesting points were made, both pro and con, Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors discussion of a proposed resolution to, sort of, oppose the removal of Scott Dam and the “Potter Valley Project” came down to the two Republican supervisors who proposed it (Bernie Norvell and Madeline Cline) versus the three Democrats (John Haschak, Maureen Mulheren and Ted Williams) who opposed it.

Supporters saw the resolution as an expression of Potter Valley’s resentment about various negative impacts that PG&E’s planned removal of the Potter Valley Project Eel River diversion infrastructure would have. Opponents saw it as belated attempt to muddy the waters and undermine the years of work that has gone into decommissioning planning so far resulting in a partial work-around diversion known as the NERF (New Eel River Facility (basically a pumping station to withdraw water from the Eel during high winter flows and pipe it over the hill and down to Potter Valley and on into Lake Mendocino).

The Democrats had an alternative resolution, but after the Republicans rightly complained that nobody had seen the alternative until just before the Tuesday meeting, that resolution — sure to pass with three votes from the Democrats — was postponed to a later meeting where it can be properly agendized and discussed. Not that it will matter much either.

Most of the points made were familiar to anyone interested in the subject. Why anyone would think that the Supervisors’ after-the-fact opinion on the subject holds any major weight in what appears to be an inexorable decommissioning process is mystifying.

The only point that was new (ish) to us was that even in the unlikely event that the dams are not removed, the capacity of Lake Pillsbury (behind Scott Dam) has already been substantially reduced because of large amounts of silt that have built up behind the dam which will only worsen the longer the dam stays up.

We were surprised that opposition to the proposed resolution included Potter Valley resident Janet Pauli, the long-time right-leaning self-made expert on the Potter Valley project who basically said the NERF was the best Mendo can do since the dams will be removed some day and everyone might as well accept the fact and start planning accordingly.

Questions remain about what kind of storage for Potter Valley can be incorporated in the decommissioning plans. Without storage upstream of Lake Mendocino, Potter Valley will likely experience significant periods of water shortages for ag and residential purposes when the dams are gone. But storage these days is expensive with some saying it could cost as much as $500 million for whatever they seem to think is enough and nobody knows who would pay or how much.

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LAKE MENDOCINO HAS PIONEERED A WAY TO STORE MORE WATER

by Kurtis Alexander

A decade ago, when one of California’s worst droughts almost dried up Lake Mendocino, dam operators at the reservoir 125 miles north of San Francisco faced criticism for not storing more water in rainier times.

But it was hardly their fault. The amount of water held and released at the reservoir, which serves Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties, had been dictated by old, rigid federal rules for reservoirs, to make sure they keep enough empty space for capturing floodwaters.

This week, after years of advocacy and experimentation, officials at Lake Mendocino will celebrate the reservoir’s status as the first reservoir in the nation to get the go-ahead to adopt a flexible, forecast-based operations policy. The lake’s new water control manual, reliant on modern-day weather models, and notably an understanding of atmospheric rivers, gives dam managers the ability to stash additional water, which could boost reserves sometimes 20% or more when the conditions are right.

Technically known as Forecast Improved Reservoir Operations, or FIRO, the management strategy pioneered at the lake is already being tested at other reservoirs in California and beyond, including giant Lake Oroville. The hope is that greater adoption of the practice will widely increase water supplies, while also balancing flood risk, as extreme weather events become more frequent with climate change.

“This concept was really foreign to the way of doing business,” said Don Seymour, deputy director of engineering in resource planning at Sonoma Water, the regional water provider that helps manage Lake Mendocino. “The thought was: could we start using forecasts instead of water on the ground (to manage reservoirs), and could we store more water rather than release it?”

While the idea may seem obvious, weather and water forecasting are far from perfect. To take a chance on any unforeseen conditions could have grave consequences. For example, an unexpected storm could force dam managers to discharge too much water and cause downstream flooding.

To ensure safety, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir rules, which apply to many state and federal facilities, offer conservative direction for retaining and releasing supplies based largely on the time of year and how full the reservoir is.

Because of recent advances in projecting weather and monitoring watersheds, however, a team of dam engineers and climate experts began working to develop a strategy for Lake Mendocino in which decisions about water management could be made in real time and in concert with the latest forecasts. If the forecast showed no precipitation in late spring, dam managers could opt to hold more water for the dry summer months. Conversely, a big storm on the horizon could prompt earlier water releases.

“I had a picture in my mind, as I started researching atmospheric river storms, that there was quite a bit of prediction skill on the West Coast,” said Marty Ralph, a research meteorologist and founding director of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography Center of Western Weather and Water Extremes, who was involved in the effort at Lake Mendocino. “(But) we needed to figure out quantitatively how this would work.”

By using advanced weather models and custom forecast tools — much of the work centered on atmospheric rivers since they can account for 50% of California’s precipitation — Ralph and the others came up with new guidelines for managing the reservoir.

Dam managers at the Army Corps, which runs the lake in coordination with Sonoma Water, began testing the novel approach in 2019, and by 2020, they reported a 20% increase in water storage, the equivalent of what 22,000 households used.

The Army Corps proceeded to give dam managers at the reservoir temporary approvals for employing the forecast-based strategy.

On Wednesday, those involved in developing the policy, which also include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and California Department of Water Resources, are scheduled to commemorate the signing of a new, more permanent water control manual for Lake Mendocino and its Coyote Valley Dam.

“Before this update, we would inevitably be required to release water to give airspace to the dam for the next storm regardless of the upcoming weather,” said Nick Malasavage, a division chief for the U.S. Army Corps’ San Francisco District, in a statement. “FIRO allows us to be informed by the forecast and make better decisions.”

Lake Sonoma, which is also run by the Army Corps in coordination with Sonoma Water in the Russian River watershed, has begun testing forecast-based management with the goal of similarly changing the operations manual.

Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth called the more flexible policy “critical to preparing for California’s hotter and drier future.”

(SF Chronicle)

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WE DON’T TALK ABOUT BRUNO AND WE DON’T TALK TO THE PUBLIC

by Mark Scaramella

At the beginning of Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, County Counsel Charlotte Scott replied to a question from Supervisor Ted Williams about meeting with a citizen to straighten out a Planning & Building government code compliance complain with a Mendo lawyer version of a Marie Antoinette remark: “We are an internal services department, so I am not going to be able to meet with members of the public regarding advice to my client [the County] necessarily. But I can meet with my client [the County] and give advice and I think the appropriate contact to start with would be to just give direction to Planning and Building to follow up and work with counsel and report back to the board.”

No date was offered or given. Typically, when no date is given, the “direction” is ignored or indefinitely postponed, or discussed out of the public eye, and no report is given to the Board in public because that is considered privileged communication between the Board and its attorney.

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A little later, Helen Sizemore of Ukiah, a principal circulator of the petition to recall District Attorney David Eyster: “I’m concerned about the public service of the District Attorney. He’s a public servant. We should be able to meet with him. I have attempted to do that. I’ve gone to the office at the first floor of the courthouse and he has people there who telephone his office. He has a secretary that has never responded to my phone calls, and I’ve never been able to meet with him. So I think that you are his boss, basically. Who is his boss? How can he not meet with the public if they want to meet with him?”

Supervisor John Haschak: “He’s an elected official. So that means the boss is the public.”

Sizemore: “So how do we get to meet with somebody who is an elected official? All of his people do not respond? I’m sure I’m not the only one that has the desire to meet with him and is not successful. So I’m just bringing that to your attention. I don’t know who else to talk to.”

Supervisor Madeline Cline (seemingly shocked that there was a problem): “Have you gone to DA’s office to meet with him in person?”

Sizemore: “Yes! I have. I went to the courthouse. His office is on the third floor and the office where you meet his people is on the first floor and there’s… I don’t know. Even if I went to the third floor I don’t even know which door is his and it’s not accessible to me. He’s got a lot of gates. Anyway thank you.”

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POSSIBLE NOVEMBER IMPACT ON SNAP AND CALFRESH BENEFITS DUE TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Mendocino County - The United States government shutdown is anticipated to affect CalFresh benefits (federally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) for the month of November. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the Mendocino County Department of Social Services (MCDSS) are closely monitoring information released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and continue to work to provide services and benefits as allowed during these unprecedented times.

CalFresh benefits are fully funded for the month of October, ensuring the 16,742 individuals currently receiving this benefit in Mendocino County (as of September 2025) continue to receive this vital nutrition assistance. However, if the federal government shutdown extends beyond October 23, CalFresh benefits for November may be delayed.

CalFresh recipients can continue to use their existing benefits as usual—no action is required at this time. MCDSS will continue to process applications, redeterminations, periodic reports, and reported household changes during this time.

At this time, CalWORKs benefits for November 2025 are not impacted.

If you are in need of immediate food assistance, you can click here to find your local food bank (scroll to the bottom of page). For more information about CalFresh benefits and the potential impacts of the federal government shutdown, please visit the California Department of Social Services website at www.cdss.ca.gov or their FAQ page directly.

You can check your current CalFresh balance through the EBT Edge app or by calling the number listed on the back of your EBT card.

For more information, please contact Mendocino County Department of Social Services or call (707) 463-7700 in Ukiah and (707) 962-1000 in Fort Bragg.

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ALBION BRIDGE RECEIVES ANOTHER $30.3 MILLION

More than $30 million for the replacement of the Albion River Bridge was included in the latest round of funding for Mendocino County projects approved by the California Transportation Commission, the California Department of Transportation reported.

“This nearly $5 billion investment highlights California’s strong commitment to creating a modern, resilient transportation system that enhances local streets and strengthens connections between neighborhoods, job centers and schools,” California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin is quoted as saying in a press release. “Thanks to Governor Newsom’s leadership, Caltrans’ work and the Commission, we are building a safer, more connected and future-ready transportation network that serves all Californians.”

“Our local partners are steadfast contributors and valued partners in keeping California’s vast transportation network safe and efficient,” Caltrans Director Dina El-Tawansy was quoted as saying. “When added to the various highway projects also approved, this month’s action ensures that hundreds of essential improvements in our cities and neighborhoods will better enable people and goods to flow throughout the state and beyond.”

Projects approved in District 1 include:

Approximately $30.3 million including more than $4.6 million in federal IIJA funding and more than $16.3 million in SB1 funding toward replacement of the Albion River Bridge No. 10-0136 near Albion in Mendocino County.

Approximately $10.2 million including more than $9.1 million in federal IIJA funding and more than $900,000 in SB1 funding toward curb, sidewalk, signage and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements on Route 1 from the Route 20 to the Pudding Creek Bridge in Fort Bragg, Mendocino County.

Approximately $3 million toward roadway improvements on Route 128 near Philo Greenwood Road in Philo, Mendocino County.

Approximately $2.2 million in SB1 funding toward pavement, drainage and other improvements on U.S. 101 from Bell Springs Road to Route 1 near Leggett in Mendocino County.

Approximately $1.1 million in SB1 funding toward revegetation along a 1.5 mile stretch of U.S. 101 at the Outlet Creek Bridge near Willits in Mendocino County.

Approximately $1 million in SB1 funding toward revegetation on Route 20 from the North Calpella Overcrossing to east of County Road 144 near Ukiah in Mendocino County.

Approximately $10.5 million in SB1 funding for emergency allocations toward the design and construction of a retaining wall, roadway repairs and culvert improvements on Route 175 east of Buckman Drive near Hopland in Mendocino County.

Other notable projects include:

$10 million to build a floating charging station for zero emission ferries in San Francisco Bay.

$9.7 million to purchase electric buses for use around the University of California, Los Angeles campus.

Another $140 million will fund truck climbing lanes among other improvements to Interstate 80 in the Sierra foothills between Applegate and Emigrant Gap, a major west coast freight thoroughfare.

Of the total allocation this month, Caltrans reports that: “$470 million has come via Senate Bill (SB) 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, and $4.2 billion from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). California is expected to receive nearly $42 billion in federal infrastructure funding over a span of five years. These investments will upgrade the state’s roads, bridges, rail, public transit, airports, ports and the electric vehicle charging network.”

Caltrans also noted that: “SB 1 has invested approximately $5 billion annually toward transportation projects since 2017. It provides funding split between the state and local agencies. Road projects progress through construction phases more quickly based on the availability of funds, including projects that are partially funded by SB 1.” investments, visit build.ca.gov.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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GLEANING PARTY AT BLUE MEADOW FARM, PHILO

Come help pull out the summer field and take home veggies & flowers*

Saturday, 10 – 3 (unless it’s too wet)

We still have some tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, chilis, eggplant,

basil, zucchini,

zinnias and bachelor buttons

Bring boxes for food and buckets for flowers

Blue Meadow Farm
3301 Holmes Ranch Rd, Philo
(707) 895-2071 or (707) 489-0032

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BRITTANY MARIA ZAPANTA:

Services for Covelo Fire Chief William ‘Bill’ Baker on October 25, 2025

Procession from Dos Rios @ 12:15. Line up at 12 to the Covelo Valley View Cemetery (on Cemetery Lane, Covelo) @ 1pm followed by a potluck get together at the Covelo Rec Center (S Airport Rd, Covelo, next to the Covelo Rodeo Grounds and Airport).

All are welcome to come share stories and memories of Chief Baker and to have a good time in remembering a man who gave the community of Covelo and the people here 40+ years of his life on the Fire Dept and a member of the Covelo community.

This is a drug and alcohol free event.

Bring any dish of food you would like for the pot luck.

Thank you all for the kind words and memories of Chief Baker that have been shared. We will more than likely have an open mic time to tell stories because Bill impacted so many people in the community.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, October 22, 2025

(Temporarily unavailable due to booking log website glitch.)

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EACH NEW AUTUMN is closer to the last autumn we’ll have, and the same is true of spring or summer; but autumn, by its nature, reminds us that all things will end, which is something we’re apt to forget when we look around us in spring or summer.

Autumn arrives like a soft, deliberate whisper across the trembling canopy of the world, a murmur in ochre and amber that beckons the eye to linger, yet warns it not to linger too long. One feels, in the particular quiver of the leaves, the spectral touch of endings, a delicate tick of time that only autumn dares to pronounce aloud. It is a season that holds the quiet grandeur of a symphony tapering to its final chord, the faint but inexorable exhalation of life that the human heart, so obstinately cheerful in its springtime illusions, refuses to perceive.

How strange, how audacious, that we who dance beneath the emerald sun of June, can forget that spring and summer are generous tyrants; they bribe the senses with blossoms and sunlight, they seduce the eye with green infinities, yet they offer no counsel for the inevitable diminuendo.

Consider the geometry of falling leaves: how each spirals not merely downward but inward, as if tracing the secret architecture of the soul itself. We clutch at springtime, at summer, with desperate hands, and yet it is autumn that teaches us, in exquisite language of decay, that to hold is to lose, that to see is to feel the passage of everything beloved.

And what of the heart, that clumsy, splendid instrument, which refuses to acknowledge the poetry of cessation? Perhaps it is in autumn alone, in the amber dusk of November, that the heart might recognize its own quiet mortality, the soft tremor of the world’s finite beauty. Perhaps it is only then that we glimpse, fleetingly, the architecture of eternity, a cathedral built not of stone but of memory, light, and loss.

So I ask you, dear reader, in the trembling hush of your own autumns: will you continue to live in the lush delusion of endless spring, or will you, at last, lean into the amber revelation of endings?

— Fernando Pessoa

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SOME CAUSE HAPPINESS wherever they go; others, whenever they go.

— Oscar Wilde

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AUTUMN LEAVES

The falling leaves
Drift by the window
The autumn leaves
Of red and gold

I see your lips
The summer kisses
The sunburned hands
I used to hold

Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I'll hear
Old winter's song

But I miss you most of all
My darling
When autumn leaves
Start to fall

— Jacques Prévert (original French lyrics), and Johnny Mercer (English lyrics)

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THE EXCHANGE between Winston Churchill & Lady Astor:

She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison."

He said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

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BURNING PLASTIC MAY BE OUR BEST CHOICE

Editor,

I continue to read studies showing the failure of recycling efforts by large and small companies. Investigations have found that many plastic materials end up in landfills. However, recent studies have shown that incineration of plastics could produce near endpoint elimination of plastics and produce energy.

While plastic micro and nano particles are retained in ash, experts believe this concentration could be later encased in a variety of ways. Some reviewing these advances in burning plastic found that, though methods and specific locations vary, overall burning reduces plastic pollution more than burying and concentrates residues. New technologies applied to existing methods are improving outcomes even more over recycling and burying.

Researchers have found that most plastic residues in the environment are from “open burning” practices where either individuals or small waste companies burn garbage without any protection. If we could invest in plastic incinerators (or garbage ones) we could reduce the amount of plastic residues in the environment. Of course, there also has to be an international effort to limit open burning.

Niccolo Caldararo

Fairfax

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I DIDN'T ATTEND the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

— Mark Twain

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SF GIANTS HIRE COLLEGE BASEBALL COACH TONY VITELLO AS MANAGER

Buster Posey rattles the baseball world with a nearly unprecedented hire

by Alex Simon

Four days after the first reports of the possibility emerged, the San Francisco Giants have rattled the baseball world by hiring a college baseball head coach to be their MLB manager.

University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello has accepted the Giants’ manager job. ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Pete Thamel were first to report about the official agreement. Tennessee’s baseball program acknowledged the move on social media Wednesday morning with a “thank you” post to Vitello and a caption reading, “It was one heck of a ride, coach.”

In a press statement released by Tennessee, the school’s athletic director Danny White bid farewell to his championship baseball coach. “Congratulations to Tony on this incredible opportunity to lead the San Francisco Giants,” White said in the statement, as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel. “We wish him the best as he embarks on this new chapter in his career and thank him for everything he has done to transform Tennessee baseball into a championship program.”

While the Giants officially announced Vitello’s hire shortly after noon on Wednesday, wrapping up a whirlwind week for Vitello, who was first connected to the Giants job on Saturday by a trio of reporters from the Athletic (including Giants beat reporter Andrew Baggarly), Vitello continued to coach the Volunteers after the report came out and told Knoxville-based reporters that “nothing is done.” According to the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Vitello coached a practice on Sunday and a scrimmage on Monday and was at the stadium again on Tuesday for a scheduled scrimmage.

Tuesday’s scrimmage turned into quite a spectacle for Volunteers fans in Knoxville, who started a social media movement to try to get fans to go to the baseball stadium to show Vitello support. Local radio stations did live shows on the “Tony Vitello Watch” as Knoxville-based reporters posted videos of Vitello and Tennessee baseball players from afar as everyone waited for the news. He still didn’t decide by the end of the day, but reports about his decision came out on Wednesday morning.

Vitello, 47, has never spent any time in professional baseball as a player or coach, coming up entirely through the college ranks. He was a longtime assistant at Missouri — where he coached future MLB Hall of Famer Max Scherzer — TCU and Arkansas before being hired as the head coach for Tennessee in 2017.

When he arrived in Knoxville, the Volunteers hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2005 and had made the College World Series four times in program history, with their best result being a runner-up finish in 1951. But Vitello got Tennessee back to the NCAA Tournament in his second year and has made the tournament every year since, with five trips to the NCAA Super Regionals and three visits to the CWS. It culminated with a national championship in 2024.

That title cemented Vitello’s status as one of the best coaches in the college game. He’s also earned a reputation for being a fiery and passionate manager who encourages his players to play with emotion and excitement. He’s also renowned for helping players develop when they get to Knoxville, leading Tennessee to produce several MLB players during that time. The Giants have several former Volunteers in their organization: outfielder Drew Gilbert, pitcher Blade Tidwell and infielders Maui Ahuna and Gavin Kilen, the Giants’ first-round pick in 2025.

Vitello was set to make $3 million to coach Tennessee per year on a contract guaranteed through 2029. As Baggarly wrote and said on multiple occasions since the initial report, it’s likely the Giants have made Vitello one of the highest-paid managers in the sport without ever working a single game in pro baseball.

Baggarly first mentioned Vitello as a possible candidate all the way back on the day of the final game of the season — before the Giants had officially even fired Bob Melvin. Baggarly reported that Vitello and Buster Posey were both at a recent Giants-Rockies series, which saw Gilbert hit a homer off of his former Volunteer teammate Chase Dollander and said it was “possible they may have spoken.”

The Giants had been in discussions with one of Posey’s former backup catchers Nick Hundley, and Baggarly reported two weeks ago that “it’s becoming a widely held expectation the job is Hundley’s, if he is ready to accept it.” But Hundley pulled out of the running last week, according to multiple reports, and KNBR morning show co-host Brian Murphy said it would be a poor look for the Giants if both of their top targets — Hundley and Vitello — publicly turned the job down.

There’s only one such example of an MLB team hiring a manager directly from the college ranks: Dick Howser left Florida State after one year to manage the Yankees in 1980, but Howser had been an MLB coach for a decade before taking the FSU job. Even current Brewers manager Pat Murphy spent a decade climbing the MLB ranks after coaching at Notre Dame and Arizona State.

Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey hasn’t shied away from making bold moves in his year in charge. But it’s readily apparent that even trading for Rafael Devers and his $250 million isn’t close to as bold — and risky — a move as hiring Vitello and shaking up MLB precedents.

(SF Chronicle)

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HE INHERITED some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.

— James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

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THAT’S THE JOB

That’s the job, he said,
shrugging his shoulders
and running his hand
through his hair, like Dante,
or a spider
that knows its web,
That’s just the job,
he repeated stubbornly
whenever I complained
about working the night shift
in hundred-degree heat,
or hauling my ass
over the hump
for a foul-mouthed dispatcher
yelling at us
over a loudspeaker,
or riding the cab
of an iron dungeon
creeping over bumpy rails
to a steel mill
rising out of the smog
in Joliet or Calumet City
where we headed
to track down
a few hundred giants
in chains clanking together
on rusty wheels
for dragging home
and uncoupling
at the clearing yard
loaded with empty
freight cars
waiting to be loaded
with more freight,
because that’s the job.

— Edward Hirsch (2018)

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HE CAN COMPRESS the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.

— Abraham Lincoln

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AMID NATIONAL GUARD FIGHT, NEWSOM DEPLOYS TROOPS TO STAFF FOOD BANKS

by Sara Libby

As he continues to fight President Donald Trump’s deployments of National Guard troops in Democratic-led cities, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that he is calling up California National Guard troops under his control to staff food banks amid the government shutdown.

Earlier this week, Newsom’s office warned that the state’s SNAP recipients may not receive their November payments if the shutdown continues.

National Guard troops and other volunteers will be part of “a humanitarian mission to support food banks as the federal government shutdown delays food benefits for millions of California families,” Newsom’s office said.

The troops will not be performing police work, which has been a point of contention in the ongoing battle over Trump’s deployments. When a president federalizes state troops, those forces cannot perform police work.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled last month that Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this year violated the Posse Comitatus Act because they acted as law enforcement. Trump has recently ramped up threats to send troops to the streets of San Francisco, something Newsom and local leaders fiercely oppose.

California National Guard troops were called upon to staff food banks in 2020 during the pandemic.

Last week, as many federal workers experienced their first missed paycheck as a result of the shutdown, the Alameda County Community Food Bank noticed a surge in demand, its leaders told the Chronicle. The food bank coordinated a food donation to federal TSA workers at Oakland International Airport.

The government shutdown began on Oct. 1. Republicans, who control the White House, Senate and House, continue to blame Democrats, who have held firm against the GOP-led spending proposal because of its cuts to health care tax credits.

There are nearly 45,000 federal workers across the Bay Area’s nine counties, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed or working without pay.

(SF Chronicle)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I read that 40% of food produced in the USA is wasted. Maybe a program to efficiently prepare, package and distribute ‘healthy’ sustenance is in order for this period of political ‘belt-tightening’? Think MREs distributed by the USPS, FedEx and “Buster Brown”!

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JUST SAY NO

Editor,

Regarding “Six infections, three heart surgeries, more than $1 million in health care — and still he can’t escape his drug addiction” (Opioid Epidemic, SFChronicle.com, Oct. 16): The story was thought-provoking and depressing. I worked with many drug addicts early in my career as a doctor. It quickly became clear that no one could help them but themselves.

Why are we spending so much precious public money on hospitalizations, medications and operations for addicts who repeatedly harm themselves and slowly commit suicide?

Sadly, those making poor decisions need to accept the consequences and not expect others to save them.

Karla Werning

Hayward

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JOANNA MILLER:

Part of my problem is that I can't seem to get high. I tried multiple times in college; I think it's a genetic thing because one of my uncles has the same thing where we try smoking whatever, and to no effect. We can get drunk though we've got very high tolerances. It's funny, though, what people can and can't connect over. I can relate to the desire to be in an altered state; I can't actually get there.

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NEWSOM DID WHAT HE PLEDGED TO DO TO JUMP-START HOUSING PRODUCTION

by Dan Walters

Eight years ago, as he began his campaign for governor, Gavin Newsom described fixing the state’s chronic housing shortage as a moral imperative.

“This is a question of who we are,” Newsom wrote in 2017. “Housing is a fundamental human need — let’s not forget the human face behind the dire statistics.

“Housing instability can cause genuine mental and physical adversity,” he added, “and lead to insufferable decisions: no one should have to choose between paying rent or buying groceries.

Knowing that too many Californians face this kind of anxiety breaks my heart.”

Newsom pledged that as governor he would lead the effort to develop 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, “because our solutions must be as bold as the problem is big.

“I realize building 3.5 million new housing units is an audacious goal,” Newsom continued, “but it’s achievable. There is no silver bullet to solve this crisis. We need to attack the problem on multiple fronts by generating more funding for affordable housing, implementing regulatory reform and creating new financial incentives for local jurisdictions that produce housing while penalizing those that fall short.”

The 3.5 million-unit goal was never anywhere near realistic. It would have required increasing construction from about 100,000 units a year when he made the pledge to more than 400,000, doubling peak production in this century.

That said, Newsom has over the almost seven years of his governorship, pretty much, done what he said he’d do to increase housing. He has signed multiple bills meant to speed up housing permits by eliminating state and local legal impediments, capped by two major measures this year.

Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130, which makes it more difficult to use the California Environmental Quality Act as a tool to block housing projects, and Senate Bill 79, which overrides local government land use authority to authorize multi-family, multi-story housing projects near transit stops.

Meanwhile Newsom’s Department of Housing and Community Development has set statewide goals of 180,000 new units a year and 2.5 million units over eight years. It also imposed ambitious quotas on local governments to designate land for residential development and cracked down on communities that impede multi-family projects for low- and moderate-income families.

The latter effort responds to the most acute aspect of California’s shortage — housing the nearly 35 percent of Californians who are living in poverty or near-poverty, mostly due to housing costs that are among the nation’s highest.

With the enactment of AB 130 and SB 79, the looming conclusion of Newsom’s governorship and the likelihood that he will run for president, it’s time to appraise results.

Has the production of housing in California substantially increased? Unfortunately, no.

At the time Newsom made his pledge, about 100,000 units were being built each year, with the net increase substantially lower due to losses by fire or destruction. Eight years later, it’s virtually unchanged, no matter which authority one consults.

The Census Bureau reports that between 2019, when Newsom took office, and 2024 new housing permits in California ranged from a high of 120,780 units in 2022 to a low of 101,546 last year. Newsom’s own budget agrees with the Census Bureau’s data for the same period and projects future construction through 2028 at 100,000 to 104,000 units a year.

Clearly, even though systemic barriers to housing construction have been eased, many developers have been unable to see housing in California as a good investment. The COVID-19 pandemic, which had massive economic impacts, and increases in interest rates to battle inflation also have had an effect.

Housing is far more complicated than Newsom depicted it when he made his promises. He gets a ‘B’ for effort — and an ‘F’ for results.

(CalMatters.org)

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I AM ENCLOSING two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.

— George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

CANNOT possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.

— Winston Churchill, in response

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ON 20 OCTOBER 1926, US SOCIALIST AND LABOUR LEADER EUGENE V. DEBS DIED IN ELMHURST, ILLINOIS, AGED 70.

Earlier, he helped found both the American Railway Union and the Industrial Workers of the World, and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in 1918 for his opposition to World War I. At his sentencing, he addressed the court:

“Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

While in prison Debs ran for president, and received nearly 10,000,000 votes.

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AFTER A WHILE you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth.

— Hunter Thompson

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LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT

U.S. Strikes 2nd Boat in Pacific as Antidrug Operation Expands

Trump Imposes Sanctions on Russian Oil Companies as His Frustration With Putin Mounts

Federal Agents Plan a Crackdown in the San Francisco Bay Area

Trump Is Wasting No Time in Tearing Down the East Wing

As Johnson Delays, Grijalva Sues to Be Seated in the House

Louvre’s Director Says Key Camera Was Pointing Away From Jewelry Thieves

Iceland Announces an Unfortunate First: Mosquitoes

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“CONGRESS IS ADRIFT,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. “It’s like we have given up. And that’s not a good signal to the American public.”

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THEY NEVER open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.

— Thomas Brackett Reed

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I GROW OLD … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

— excerpted from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot (1911)

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I HAVE NEVER killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

— Clarence Darrow

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SEE YOU IN HELL, PUNK

The assassination almost didn't happen. If the conspirators missed their chance at the Senate on March 15, it wasn't clear when another opportunity would present itself: Caesar was planning to go to war in Parthia three days later. He was late leaving his house that morning. His wife, Calpurnia, was said to have had bad dreams, among other ill omens (“beware the Ides of March,” etc). But Decimus Brutus Albinus went to fetch him, supposedly telling him he surely didn't believe in that kind of nonsense. The conspirators were anxious about word of the plot getting out, and it's amazing — there may have been as many as 80 men involved — that it didn't. On his way into the Senate, someone handed Caesar a note warning him of the plot, but he didn't read it. There had been talk of inviting Antony into the conspiracy; then there was talk of killing him, too. But Brutus insisted that no blood should be spilled except Caesar's: murdering anyone else would weaken the apparent righteousness of their cause. When the moment came, one or more of the conspirators — Plutarch doesn't even agree with himself about who or how many — kept Antony outside to prevent him intervening. Tillius Cimber pulled the toga from Caesar's shoulders. Casca stepped up with his dagger. The others piled in. Caesar was stabbed at least 23 times. When Caesar saw Brutus among his attackers, Plutarch writes, “he covered his head with his toga and let himself fall.” Suetonius adds that he said in Greek: “Kai su, teknon.” (You too, child?)

— Thomas Jones, London Review of Books

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SCOTT FITZGERALD

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time be understood it no more than the butterfly did and be did not know when It was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could, only remember when it had been effortless.

The first time I ever met Scott Fitzgerald a very strange thing happened. Many strange things happened with Scott but this one I was never able to forget. He had come into the Dingo bar in the rue Delambre where I was sitting with some completely worthless characters, had introduced himself and introduced a tall, pleasant man who was with him as Dunc Chaplin, the famous pitcher. I had not followed Princeton baseball and had never heard of Dunc Chaplin but he was extraordinarily nice, unworried, relaxed and friendly and I much preferred him to Scott.

Scott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have been the mouth of a beauty. His chin was well built and he had good ears and a handsome, almost beautiful, unmarked nose. This should not have added up to a pretty face, but that came from the coloring, the very fair hair and the mouth. The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.

I was very curious to see him and I had been working very hard all day and it seemed quite wonderful that here should be Scott Fitzgerald and the great Dunc Chaplin whom I had never heard of but who was now my friend. Scott did not stop talking and since I was embarrassed by what he said—it was all about my writing and how great it was—I kept on looking at him closely and noticed instead of listening. We still went under the system, then, that praise to the face was open disgrace. Scott had ordered champagne and he and Dunc Chaplin and I drank it together with, I think, some of the worthless characters. I do not think that Dunc or I followed the speech very closely, for it was a speech and I kept on observing Scott. He was lightly built and did not look in awfully good shape, his face being faintly puffy. His Brooks Brothers clothes fitted him well and he wore a white shirt with a buttoned-down collar and a Guard’s tie. I thought I ought to tell him about the tie, maybe, because they did have British in Paris and one might come into the Dingo—there were two there at the time—but then I thought the hell with it and I looked at him some more. It turned out later he had bought the tie in Rome.

I wasn’t learning very much from looking at him now except that he had well shaped, capable-looking hands, not too small, and when he sat down on one of the bar stools I saw that he had very short legs. With normal legs he would have been perhaps two inches taller. We had finished the first bottle of champagne and started on the second and the speech was beginning to run down.

Both Dunc and I were beginning to feel even better than we had felt before the champagne and it was nice to have the speech ending. Until then I had felt that what a great writer I was had been carefully kept secret between myself and my wife and only those people we knew well enough to speak to. I was glad Scott had come to the same happy conclusion as to this possible greatness, but I was also glad he was beginning to run out of the speech. But after the speech came the question period. You could study him and neglect to follow the speech, but the questions were inescapable. Scott, I was to find, believed that the novelist could find out what he needed to know by direct questioning of his friends and acquaintances. The interrogation was direct.

“Ernest,” he said. “You don’t mind if I call you Ernest, do you?”

“Ask Dunc,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. This is serious. Tell me, did you and your wife sleep together before you were married?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t remember.”

“But how can you not remember something of such importance?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It is odd, isn’t it?”

“it’s worse than odd,” Scott said. “You must be able to remember.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a pity, isn’t it?”

“Don’t talk like some limey,” he said. “Try to be serious and remember.”

“Nope,” I said. “It’s hopeless.”

“You could make an honest effort to remember.”

The speech comes pretty high, I thought. I wondered if he gave everyone the speech, but I didn’t think so because I had watched him sweat while he was making it. The sweat had come out on his long, perfect Irish upper lip in tiny drops, and that was when I had looked down away from his face and checked on the length of his legs, drawn up as he sat on the bar stool. Now I looked back at his face again and it was then that the strange thing happened.

As he sat there at the bar holding the glass of champagne the skin seemed to tighten over his face until all the puffiness was gone and then it drew tighter until the face was like a death’s head. The eyes sank and began to look dead and the lips were drawn right and the color left the face so that it was the color of used candle wax. This was not my imagination. His face became a true death’s head, or death mask, in front of my eyes.

“Scott,” I said. “Are you all right?”

He did not answer and his face looked more drawn than ever.

“We’d better get him to a first aid station,” I said to Dunc Chaplin.

“No. He’s all right.”

“He looks like he is dying.”

“No. That’s the way it takes him.”

We got him into a taxi and I was very worried but Dunc said he was all right and not to worry about him. “He’ll probably be all right by the time he gets home,” he said.

He must have been because, when I met him at the Closerie des Lilas a few days later, I said that I was sorry the stuff had hit him that way and that maybe we had drunk it too fast while we were talking.

“What do you mean you are sorry? What stuff hit me what way? What are you talking about, Ernest?”

“I meant the other night at the Dingo.”

“There was nothing wrong with me at the Dingo. I simply got tired of those absolutely bloody British you were with and went home.”

“There weren’t any British there when you were there. Only the bartender.”

“Don’t try to make a mystery of it. You know the ones I mean.”

“Oh,” I said. He had gone back to the Dingo later. Or he’d gone there another time. No, I remembered, there had been two British there. It was true. I remembered who they were. They had been there all right.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“That girl with the phony title who was so rude and that silly drunk with her. They said they were friends of yours.”

“They are. And she is very rude sometimes.”

“You see. There’s no use to make mysteries simply because one has drunk a few glasses of wine. Why did you want to make the mysteries? It isn’t the sort of thing I thought you would do.”

“I don’t know.” I wanted to drop it. Then I thought of something. “Were they rude about your tie?” I asked.

“Why should they have been rude about my tie? I was wearing a plain black knitted tie with a white polo shirt.”

I gave up then and he asked me why I liked this café and I told him about it in the old days and he began to try to like it too and we sat there, me liking it and he trying to like it, and he asked questions and told me about writers and publishers and agents and critics and George Horace Lorimer, and the gossip and economics of being a successful writer, and he was cynical and funny and very jolly and charming and endearing, even if you were careful about anyone becoming endearing. He spoke slightingly but without bitterness of everything he had written, and I knew his new book must be very good for him to speak, without bitterness, of the faults of past books. He wanted me to read the new book, The Great Gatsby, as soon as he could get his last and only copy back from someone he had loaned it to. To hear him talk of it, you would never know how very good it was, except that he had the shyness about it that all non-conceited writers have when they have done something very fine, and I hoped he would get the book quickly so that I might read it…

— Hemingway

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