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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 44F this Tuesday morning on the coast. Rain should arrive later today then sprinkle out tomorrow morning. Dry Thursday & Friday then a lot of rain returns later Saturday & all of next week it looks like. Daily rainfall amounts are forecast up to an inch daily, so good but not huge amounts forecast so far.
COOL AND CLOUDY conditions will persist through the week with additional light to moderate rain likely starting late this morning and into Wednesday. A stronger, colder system is possible this weekend into early next week. (NWS)
MOM, DAD? I'M HOME.
On 02/07/2026, at approximately 7:29 pm, Ukiah Police Department Officers were dispatched to suspicious circumstances in the 800 block of North Oak Street in Ukiah. UPD Dispatch advised the reporting party, later identified as Clarence Wells, 37, of Oakland, stated he was unsure of what happened, but medical was needed and two subjects were not breathing. Wells also told UPD Dispatch there was a firearm in the residence, but he was unsure where.
Officers arrived on scene and surrounded the residence. Due to the suspicious nature of this call, officers attempted to order anybody in the residence outside utilizing their PA System. After a short time without any response officers moved in to see if they could contact the residents. An officer observed a 72 year old elderly female victim inside with a significant head injury. Officers entered the residence and observed an additional 75-year old elderly male victim, who also had major injuries to his head.
Wells was lying down on the floor inside the residence awaiting UPD arrival. Wells was detained without incident. Due to the severity of the victims’ injuries, medical was requested to transport them for treatment.
During the course of the investigation, it was determined that Wells was a close family friend of the victims and considered them to be family. Wells was a resident of Oakland and was staying with the victims temporarily.
At some point during the evening Wells became upset and assaulted the victims with a skateboard. Both of the victims were struck in the head multiple times.
Both victims were transported by ground ambulance and later transported by air out of county to be treated for their injuries. It is unknown at this time what their condition is, but both are suspected to be stable with possible facial fractures and lacerations.
UPD Detectives were contacted to respond and take over the investigation and process the crime scene. UPD Detectives attempted to speak with Wells but were unable to determine what the motive for the attack was, or what kind of argument occurred prior. Wells was ultimately transported to the Mendocino County Jail to be booked on charges of Attempted murder (Felony), Assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm (Felony), Injury likely to cause death to an elder/dependent adult (Felony).
WOMEN RELIVE THE EXPERIENCE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT While Facing Their Alleged Attacker in a Ukiah Courthouse
The case against Willy Hill is expected to go a jury later this week
by Elise Cox
For the past week, Willy Hill, a former volunteer firefighter and tree worker from Fort Bragg, has faced an uncomfortable reckoning in a Ukiah courtroom.
Four women have taken the stand to accuse Hill of raping or attempting to rape them, describing their assaults in detail while persevering through tears under repeated questioning by defense attorney Justin Petersen.
Hill, 42, previously pleaded guilty to attacking two women in 2021. When he took the stand on Monday, Hill said he agreed to the plea to avoid going to trial on a kidnapping charge, which he said could have carried a life sentence. He did not express remorse during his testimony.
Because of the plea, neither of the two women was given the opportunity to testify at the time. The plea also resulted in Hill’s DNA being entered into a database, allowing it to be compared against evidence from cold cases. That process led investigators to re-examine evidence and resulted in Hill’s return to court in February 2026.
Although Hill is charged in this case with felony assault and kidnapping involving one woman, the court permitted testimony from other alleged victims under California law allowing evidence of prior sexual assaults to be considered for limited purposes.
The first allegation referenced in court dates back more than 13 years. Hill was questioned about an allegation from more than 13 years ago involving a teenage girl, in which he was accused of inappropriate conduct. Hill denied the allegation.
Hill also disputed testimony from a woman who described a harrowing encounter in 2018. The woman said she met Hill at a local bar, where he introduced himself as “Tucker.” She was a forester new to the area, and the two spoke briefly about their work — she marked trees for cutting, and Hill cut them.
When the woman left the bar, she testified, “Tucker” followed her and asked if she would see him again. “He said we should go back to my place or go back to his,” she said. “I said no, I’m going home. He started following me to the extent that I started running.”
The man stopped being friendly, she said. “He came up behind me and pushed me against a fence on the side of the sidewalk.” The woman testified she could not remember what he said next. “All I can remember is me saying, ‘Please, please stop. Leave me alone.’” She testified that he pulled down her pants and raped her.
Afterward, the woman testified she was disoriented and traumatized. New to town, she knocked on two doors asking for help before giving up. After wandering for more than an hour, she eventually found the police station.
She was able to identify Hill from a photo lineup. “I gave them a description, and they almost immediately knew who he was,” she testified. However, she said the officer she spoke with appeared not to believe her. When the officer asked her to go to Willits for a forensic exam by a trained nurse, she declined. She said she handed over her pants and left. She never heard from the Fort Bragg Police Department again.
On the stand, Hill testified the encounter was consensual. “She told me I could pull her pants down, and I was not convicted of anything in that situation,” he said.
Another allegation stems from October 2019, when Hill met a woman at the Pub Sports Bar in Ukiah. On Monday, Hill testified that the two hung out and played pool. He suggested multiple explanations for how his DNA could have ended up on the woman, including that she may have used the men’s restroom after him because the women’s restroom was crowded. He also claimed a pet parrot moved between them while they were together.
However, when questioned by detectives in 2023, Hill initially said he remembered nothing about the encounter. After detectives informed him that his DNA had been found in samples collected by a forensic nurse following an attempted rape near the bar that night, Hill said the DNA could have come from a glass of beer. He told police all they could prove was that he had been at the bar.
Deputy District Attorney Eloise Kelsey pointed out that Hill did not provide a detailed account of the evening until his testimony on Monday — after reviewing police reports, body-camera footage, and listening to his accuser testify under questioning from both sides.
According to the Ukiah woman’s testimony, she went to the bar, had drinks, and began walking home. A man followed her. As she neared her apartment, she confronted him and told him to go home. She testified that he overpowered her, dragged her into a secluded area, and struggled to pull down her pants while pinning her to the ground.
A blackout that night left the area in darkness, but the woman said she remembers her attacker’s face. She reported the attack later that evening and was examined that same night by a forensic nurse, who collected DNA samples.
The evidence was not immediately connected to a suspect, and the woman went on with her life.
About a year and a half later, Hill was at a friend’s home in Fort Bragg playing poker. The host and his wife had known Hill for eight years. When Hill’s ride home did not arrive, the wife offered to drive him.
“We got into my truck and drove up our dirt road, and when I turned, he started putting his hands down my shirt,” the woman testified. “He grabbed my nipples.”
The two were on a private road about six minutes outside of town. The woman said all she could do was keep driving.
“I started covering my chest,” she testified. “He was grabbing my arm and pulling it away so he could grab my breasts with his other hand. He went down my shirt, down my bra, continued grabbing my breasts. Then he shoved his hand down my pants and was sticking his fingers inside of me.”
That incident occurred in April 2021.
Four months later, Hill was at the Welcome Inn bar in Fort Bragg. He was out on bail following his arrest related to the alleged assault on his friend’s wife. A woman at the bar testified that she knew Hill’s girlfriend, the mother of his child. Hill tried to put his arm around her when he saw her in the bar, she said, and she pushed him away.
When she left the bar, Hill followed her, she testified. He came up behind her and pulled her into an alley. “He was trying to pull my pants off, and I was on the ground,” she said. “I pushed him in the face, and he ran off. I ran to my boyfriend’s house.”
Hill was present in the courtroom as each woman testified last week and again on Monday. Monday afternoon, Hill took the stand in his own defense.
Hill described negotiating his plea deal, saying prosecutors initially sought a 10-year sentence. He ultimately agreed to a three-year sentence instead for felony attempted sexual penetration with a foreign object and assault with intent to commit rape.
“Would you do the same thing today?” Petersen asked.
“Yes,” Hill replied.
Petersen and Deputy District Attorney Kelsey are expected to deliver closing arguments starting on Tuesday. The case will then be submitted to the jury.
(mendolocal.news)
FORT BRAGG CRABBERS HAUL UP THE LAST POTS AND WRAP THE SEASON — A Better Year Than 2024–25
by Frank Hartzell
Fort Bragg crab boats have been pulling their pots over the past ten days as catches dwindle, and most crews now say they’re done for the year. On Sunday night, the Myra Jean came in with a discouraging haul and decided to call it. Frank has spent the past month down on the docks talking with fishermen about prices and harvests — still the only reliable way to understand what’s actually happening. Agency data arrives months, sometimes years, after the fact, and both processors and fishermen are known to exaggerate when it suits them. Bob Juntz, who owns much of the harbor, has been out on the docks nearly every time we’ve stopped by, including at dusk on Sunday. A former urchin diver, Juntz doesn’t inflate numbers or complain for effect; at this point, he’s seen it all.
Juntz said fishermen were getting about $5 a pound — higher than at the start of the season, but still well below what commercial boats had hoped for. Normally, a poor catch drives prices up by simple supply and demand, while big landings push them down. But Noyo Harbor is just one stop along the West Coast, and heavy catches elsewhere drag prices down for everyone. The word on the docks was that Eureka had a much stronger season. Given how unreliable agency reports and industry chatter can be — both sides of the contract table tend to spin their own version — we’ll have to take that as the best available truth.
According to Juntz, crabbers earned more per pound last year despite landing fewer crabs. He said 2026 was a tougher year overall, but still better than 2024–25 thanks to the stronger local catch. The season here didn’t open for commercial boats until mid‑January because December tests showed elevated domoic acid levels. San Francisco and Bodega Bay were scheduled to open just after New Year’s, but a price strike delayed their start until just before the Noyo fleet finally hit the water. Local fishermen now also benefit from a rule preventing boats from one harbor from rushing into another just as the fishing gets good.
A few enterprising commercial boats may still be heading out — the season technically runs until June — but it’s rare for anyone to fish past March. Recreational crabbing in Noyo Harbor opened in December and runs through July 30.
In the end, this season didn’t end with a headline so much as a shrug — a few tired boats easing back into Noyo after one last try, a handful of crabbers deciding they’d seen enough. That’s how it goes out here: no speeches, no drama, just men and women reading the water and calling it when the ocean has had its say. It wasn’t the year they hoped for, but it was better than the last one, and sometimes that’s the victory you get.…
WILLITS RESIDENT RUSSELL GREEN ANNOUNCES CAMPAIGN FOR MENDOCINO COUNTY 3RD DISTRICT SUPERVISOR
I'm a Willits-based business owner and Artificial Intelligence Architect running on a platform of responsive, practical local government. I believe the 3rd District deserves leadership that listens and leverages modern technology to get things done.
Willits, CA — Russell Green, a fifth-generation Mendocino County resident and local business owner, today announced his candidacy for 3rd District Supervisor. Green filed his official declaration of candidacy this week, launching a campaign focused on practical solutions, modernizing county systems, and responsive local government.
“I'm running because I believe our district deserves leadership that listens, shows up, and gets things done," said Green. "I'm not a career politician. I'm a builder. I've spent my career creating jobs and solving complex problems with technology, and I want to bring that same technical precision to the Board of Supervisors.”
The 3rd District includes Willits, Laytonville, Covelo, and surrounding areas of inland Mendocino County. Green has deep roots in the district as a graduate of Willits High School and a father raising two children in the community.
“The people of the 3rd District are hardworking, independent, and resilient," Green continued. "They deserve a supervisor who understands their challenges, from road conditions to permitting delays to public safety. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and fight for our communities by getting the government off your back and out of your wallet.”
Green's campaign emphasizes transparency, accessibility, and a commitment to modernization. He plans to leverage his background in software automation to slash bureaucratic waste and increase the efficiency of county services.
“Government should serve the people, not the other way around," said Green. "That's not just a slogan. It's how I'll operate every single day.”
Community members who wish to donate, endorse, or volunteer can visit https://green4mendo.com For more information or media inquiries, contact [email protected] or text (707) 272-7805.
INCUMBENT SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE PATRICK PEKIN recently posted a notice that he’s running for re-election to the Superior Court Bench against a “challenger.” Pekin’s re-election notice included a long list of endorsers by the usual Mendo swells including all of his judicial colleagues, a bunch of recognizable attorneys, and the DA.
Judge Pekin, readers may recall, a coast attorney at the time, had appeared occasionally with his attorney wife when they were in private practice on the Coast in our former Court Reporter Bruce McEwen’s reports in the mid-2010s.
In a somewhat unusual election for Superior Court judge in 2016 Pekin narrowly lost to Keith Faulder for a vacant seat. (Faulder later said that the AVA’s endorsement tipped the balance.) Pekin later ran unopposed for another open judge seat (Behnke’s) and was elected in 2019/2020. At that time Mr. McEwen’s wife Marilyn Davin wrote a profile of candidate Pekin.
Now, in an even more unusual election, a local attorney from Willits named Colby Friend is “challenging” the incumbent Judge. Except for when coast attorney/prosecutor Mark Kalina ran against Judge Jonathan Lehan in the 1990s, we can’t recall another example of a local attorney running against an incumbent judge.
Mr. Friend’s lawyer website says he specializes in “Federal and California State Appellate cases, real estate law, probate, criminal, contract, personal injury, and civil rights litigation. We unfortunately do not take any family law cases at this time.”
In 2022 Mr. Friend ran (unsuccessfully for the Willits Unified School Board, telling the Willits Weekly: “I’m running for school board because I want to be able to make policy to ensure the children have everything they need for a productive positive education. I was not happy with the way the children and the teachers were treated through the pandemic. I felt the education suffered, nutrition suffered, health suffered. The pandemic rules were oppressive and not conducive to learning. I will protect the kids from more of that. The teachers also need to be treated fairly. It is wrong that Ukiah teachers, only 20 minutes south, receive a substantially higher salary.
“I am a homeowner in Willits, an attorney, a farmer, a business owner, and father of five children, two who have already graduated from Willits schools with honors in 2016. Three are in Willits schools currently. I helped start the community garden, I coach three sports a year, I’m on the board of the baseball league. I act in the Willits Community Theatre. I volunteer for Sober Grad. To say I am vested in this community is an understatement. I believe in Willits, I believe in our youth, and I want the best education opportunities possible. I have terrific ideas, energy to make them happen, and determination not to fail.
“A vote for me is a vote for sensible school policy. I have three children in the schools, so I want what’s best for these schools. Nobody could want it more. I see the kids’ experiences. I know what’s going on and what is missing. If I thought it was being handled, I wouldn’t run for school board. It could be much better. I have to make sure the school is the best it can be.”
Despite this, Mr. Friend came in sixth, next to last in a seven candidate race.
We don’t know why Mr. Friend is now running for judge. It’s too bad that Pekin’s legal colleagues have all endorsed Pekin without even hearing from Mr. Friend. It’s also too bad that Mr. Friend has not provided the electorate with reasons that he should replace Mr. Pekin, nor has Mr. Pekin said why he should be re-elected other than his legal colleagues have endorsed him. When Kalina ran against Lehan, Kalina criticized Lehan’s court (justifiably, in our view; Kalina had personal experience as a prosecutor in Lehan’s court). Kalina said Lehan’s court was a “catch and release court,” which at the time was true. (The late DA Norm Vroman had waged a year-long disqualification campaign against Lehan saying Lehan was prejudiced against the DA’s office and didn’t understand the law.) Kalina got about a third of the vote in the election against Lehan, mainly because Kalina lacked name recognition in the county-wide election.
Since Mr. McEwen is unfortunately no longer reporting on the local courts, and the DA is writing his own press releases and producing his own statistics, except for the high-profile Cubbison case, we don’t know much about what goes on in Superior Court these days. Therefore, these judge elections, like so many other elections these days, are little more than popularity contests. Unless Mr. Friend can come up with some reasons to unseat Pekin, his lack of name recognition and endorsements will make his election a long-shot. But perhaps Mr. Friend is playing a long-game here, such as putting his name out there for possible appointment by the next Governor when the next Superior Court judge retires.
(Mark Scaramella)
MORE ON PATRICK PEKIN
Hastings Law School in SF changed its name because Hastings the school’s name sake was the number one person responsible for the native American genocide in Covelo and all of Mendocino County …
The state bar announced that all attorney alumni should use the school’s new name on websites… and beyond, but unfortunately and sadly right here in Mendocino County some have chosen to still use the murderers name proudly when disclosing where they were educated, one of whom being up for reelection in June 2026 Judge Pekin …
Think about that and consider why he didn’t care to do the honorable thing and immediately take down Hastings name and replace it with the school’s new name!
WODETSKI VS. STAR THISTLE — the smart money is on the thistle
Navarro Point thistle-removing this Wednesday, 10am-noon. Volunteers are welcome!
At the Navarro Point Preserve this Wednesday, Feb 11, volunteers will spend 10am til noon removing thistles. You’re invited to join us on this beautiful Mendocino Land Trust's coastal property 2 miles south of Albion. There is a forecast for 18% chance of light rain that morning, so if it is raining around 10am the thistle-removing will be cancelled. Bring clippers if you have them but they are not needed. Email or call Tom Wodetzki if you have questions: [email protected]; 937-1113.
LVN TRAINING IN UKIAH
A new pathway into nursing is here! Mendocino College is launching a new Vocational Nursing (VN) program at the Ukiah Campus, expanding local access to in-demand healthcare careers. Building on more than 50 years of vocational nursing education in our community, the program now offers the same high-quality training at nearly half the cost compared with previous years — making it one of the most affordable routes into the profession, with total estimated program costs of about $6,022.
The full-time, three-semester program combines classroom learning with hands-on clinical experience, preparing graduates to step directly into healthcare roles across the region. Applications are open now and will be accepted through March 13, with classes beginning in August 2026. Attendance at a mandatory pre-application workshop is required.
Ready to get started? Learn more and apply on the Mendocino College website: www.mendocino.edu/LVN
‘PINK’ SHOW AT PARTNERS GALLERY
February 12 — March 7
Second Saturday Meet the Artists Feb 14, 5-7pm
In February Partners is presenting Pink, a show exploring pinkness, or the presence of pink in the work of gallery artists. There is a wonderful variety from a tiny pink square on a crossword page to several pink-tinged landscapes, watercolor cactus flowers and a 16 foot pink velvet earthworm. Pink can be soft, feminine and receptive, but also brazen, shocking and aggressive. Pink’s presence is sometimes surprising as in a tinge on rusty metal or a reflection in the water. Works include porcelain sculpture, mixed media collages, photography, painting, stuffed fabric, weavings and wet felt wool.
The show opens February 12 and continues through Saturday March 7. There is a Second Saturday Meet the Artists February 14, 5-7pm.
Gallery hours are Thursday through Monday 11-4pm.
The gallery is located at 45062 Ukiah St in Mendocino.
www.partnersgallery.com
LEW CHICHESTER (Covelo)
Here’s a response to Tommy Wayne Kramer’s rag on museums and why I don’t agree with his attitude.
Art museums, at least the ones with the famous paintings, allow a person who has seen these pictures all one’s life in a book to finally understand why some of them are regarded as special.
I was raised in a family which had an appreciation of many aspects of our culture. The books, the architecture, the paintings, philosophy and religion, politics, and I was blessed to be taken around to view the important buildings, to hear JFK give a speech in the UC coliseum, to go often enough to the DeYoung to at least know what to look for. It was only as a young adult in New York, at the Museum of Modern Art, that I “got it.” I saw the real thing, not some little picture of the painting in a book.
The Persistence of Memory (you know, the melting clocks and the ants) is tiny, perhaps no bigger than a sheet of notebook paper and seems to have been painted with a single hair it is so detailed. And it has texture. “Surreal” doesn’t begin to cover the description.
And then right around the corner, BAM, is the Sleeping Gypsy, it’s life size, huge, and you have to stand back to even take in the effect. The next one is Rousseau’s The Dream, again it seems like it’s life size and boggles the brain.
This is why we have museums, so a regular person can actually see the thing, the real thing, that everyone has been saying for generations is something special. Yes, these things are special. The museums themselves may be awful but that’s not the point.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, February 9, 2026
BRYAN ANGEL, 22, San Jose/Ukiah. DUI-any drug.
JERRY FLOYD, 65, Ukiah. DUI.
ALBERT GUALANO, 40, San Francisco/Willits. Controlled substance with two or more priors, under influence, paraphernalia.
MATTHIAS HOFSTADLER, 35, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.
JACK LARRAMENDY, 20, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.
DANNY MARTIN, 61, Willits. Probation revocation.
JACOB MILLER, 42, Portland/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
RUSSELL PAULSON JR., 29, Willits. Probation revocation.
DEANNA RENFORT, 50, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, paraphernalia, probation revocation.
HAILEY RILEY, 25, Ukiah. Burglary, probation revocation.
NATALIE RODRIGUEZ, 34, Ukiah. Petty theft with two or more priors, parole violation, probation revocation.
JOSE SANDOVAL-REYES, 31, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, criminal threats.
JOSEPH STONE, 38, San Luis Obispo/Ukiah. County parole violation.
HIGH-END CLOVERDALE HOUSING, RESORT PROJECT PUTS ‘LITTLE COUNTRY TOWN’ AT CROSSROADS
by Amie Windsor
CLOVERDALE — Sonoma County’s northernmost city is a blue-collar bastion where many people take pride in their roots stretching back generations.
They don’t mind if the community of 9,500 residents, tucked at the top of the famed Alexander Valley grape growing region, tends to be overlooked by the rest of Wine Country.
Long hitched to its logging legacy, with a largely faded citrus crop in its past, the town still holds tight to its farming and industrial roots. Today, many more residents work for the school district, in service and local government jobs, or in construction. Even in a tumultuous time, the grape growing business retains its hold, too, with vineyards that stretch from the city limits to the foot of the Mayacamas Mountains.
One spot on the valley floor at the city’s southern outskirts, however, is commanding an outsized amount of attention these days.
There, on 266 acres once slated for a now-defunct resort project, an out-of-town developer that first came to the county in 2023 as host of an aspirational month-long retreat and pop-up village, has proposed something that many Cloverdale residents think clashes with the identity and heritage of what one denizen called their “little country town.”
On former industrial land, builders have proposed a sleek, mixed-use community, with more than 600 homes, a resort hotel, two restaurants, office, commercial and light-industrial space, and possibly, its own school.
As proposed, Esmeralda — dubbed after the retreat that debuted three years ago in ritzier, nearby Healdsburg — would be Cloverdale’s largest development in a generation and by far its most transformational. While it has been welcomed by some residents and officials who tout its economic appeal and gains for the local tax base, many here are skeptical.
They see the fabric and face of their close-knit community at stake.
No dedicated, on-site affordable housing is planned for lower income residents, and much of what is on the blueprints could be far out of reach for many in Cloverdale.
Pricing for the homes would range from $600,000 to $4 million, according to Esmeralda documents, which also note that “pricing will change over time as the housing market evolves.”
“Why does it have to be so dense? We like how small it is,” Paul Pieri said Thursday, Feb. 5, at a packed town hall meeting scheduled to answer questions about the project.
“Why here?” Pieri continued. “You’re going to blow us out of our little country town.”
The project has inspired some comparisons to a far larger and highly controversial proposal to carve an entirely new city out of a sprawling patchwork of Solano County farmland scooped up mysteriously in recent years by what turned out to be a coalition of ultra-wealthy tech investors. They also have outlined a vision of a walkable, self-supporting community designed around transit and local jobs, with the latest plans geared to making the city a modern ship-building hub set on the shore of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Esmeralda principal Devon Zuegel, a public face of both the Healdsburg retreat and the proposed development, says Esmeralda is nothing like the larger California Forever. Still, the project has been clouded by some of the same pressing questions — about its financial backers and the scope of its ambitions.
The land, site of what was once to be the Alexander Valley Resort, is held by Diablo Commercial Properties, agent for owner Spight Properties II LLC, since prior developer Laulima pulled out.
Zuegel said Esmeralda Land Company intends to close on the purchase “once we secure approvals” for the project
Little has been shared about who is behind the project, a void that continues to rile many residents.
“What is the concern about telling us who they are?” Cloverdale resident John Halliday asked at the meeting.
Zuegel said only that it is 19 “local Bay Area families” who have invested in the property and project, adding that “they’re actually real people, and if someone doesn’t like the project they could just find their address.”
Zuegel acknowledges Esmeralda would be something entirely new for Cloverdale.
“I’m not going to deny it,” she said. “This is a big dream.”
The proposal calls for a mix of apartments, town homes and single family houses. The developers also are planning for a racquet club, two indoor pavilions and an elementary school.
With more than 1.8 million square feet of landscaped area, including a dog park, community garden, sports fields for youth teams and playground, the project is conceived to be a walkable, bikeable community for multiple generations, according to Zuegel.
She estimates the development could bring an additional 1,500 residents to Cloverdale at full buildout, about a decade after groundbreaking. It still needs city council approval, which if secured, could pave way for construction — on the hotel — as early as spring 2027.
“We’re trying our hardest to make it a reality,” Zuegel said.
At town hall, a drumbeat of concern
Proponents faced a raft of concerned voices and fearful residents at the Feb. 5 town hall meeting.
The meeting represented the apex of Esmeralda’s nearly two-year public outreach, which has included nearly a dozen meetings and other efforts.
The more residents have learned about the development, the more they’ve taken to social media outlets and kitchen-table discussions to reckon with what could be ahead for their city. The city council’s public comment period has become a dependable snapshot of some of that debate.
“I’ve been doing real estate for 25 years and I’m surprised by the amount of engagement,” said Michael Yarne, a real estate developer and another Esmeralda principal.
There’s still plenty to come, too.
The developer’s next steps will be to finish a litany of studies and clear planning and regulatory hurdles with the city, a process expected to take until April. The public will have a 20-day period to comment on that package — a draft environmental study, general plan amendments, zoning amendments, tentative master plan and a development agreement between Esmeralda Land Company and the city.
Once the entitlements package is complete, Zuegel and Yarne expect to present the proposal to the Cloverdale Planning Commission in May and the five-member council in June. Both meetings will be open to the public.
“Part of our job is to scrutinize and examine all the documents to make sure it’s in the best interest of the city,” said City Manager Kevin Thompson.
Many residents aren’t sold that outside developers, even with their lofty promises to inject new business and vitality in the city, have their best interests at heart.
At times, some of that scrutiny has veered into conspiracy theories — that the land will be used as a military or weapons base, for example, conjecture that the developers have quickly sought to put down.
Terry Hull wondered aloud at the Feb. 5 meeting if the developer was part of the so-called Network State, an online movement that uses cryptocurrency to fund self-governing micro-communities.
No, answered Zuegel.
If approved, Esmeralda will be part of the city and its residents, businesses and property owners will pay “taxes and more into the school district, city, county, state and United States of America,” she said.
Integrating the Esmeralda community with Cloverdale would be important to the future of both, she signaled.
“We are going to be part of Cloverdale,” she said.
To stitch together the 3-square-mile city and Esmeralda on its southern border, the developers have begun conversations with Sonoma County Transit to extend Route 68, the free Cloverdale shuttle, into the community once it is built out.
Zuegel said they also want to add bike lanes to Asti Road in an effort to increase safe routes between downtown and the community.
“We’re very excited to be part of the community,” she said.
But the development will still be highly divergent from many larger housing projects approved over the past decade in Sonoma County, where the tight supply of homes, as in much of the Bay Area, has spurred officials to prioritize affordable and workforce units.
Cloverdale is actually one of the leaders by that benchmark, having recently approved more than 300 new apartment units for low-income to very-low income residents. That number represents about 8% of the city’s housing existing stock.
Esmeralda’s proposed 605 homes would be sold or rented at market rate.
“Who are these houses for?” 23-year Cloverdale resident Betty Landry asked. “Because they aren’t for us. Most people will not be able to buy these houses.”
Water worries
Water — and the lack of it at times in what amounts to typically the driest and hottest part of Sonoma County — is a towering concern.
Many in Cloverdale talk about the lengths they had to go in 2021, when the state’s last punishing drought led to a citywide 50-gallon per day limit for individuals.
Adding hundreds more homes residents in one swoop could strain the city’s supply in those dry spells, which experts predict will be longer and deeper in the coming decades.
“My concern is about the water,” said Mary Kelley, a former Cloverdale Unified School District teacher. “They say they’ll put up tanks, but will that be enough?”
The city relies largely on wells fed by subsurface flows of the upper Russian River, itself sustained by the smaller of two regional reservoirs, Lake Mendocino, east of Ukiah.
To offset some of the projected water use, the developers are proposing to build two 500,000-gallon water tanks, for use in emergencies and droughts. Project representatives have also told the city they would like to move forward as customers of a future municipal recycled water project.
A study commissioned by the developers indicates the city would have enough water to take on another 1,500 residents, at least during an average rain season.
The firm estimated the project would need at least 76 million gallons annually, or 233 acre feet — equating to a 20% increase in Cloverdale’s current annual average usage over the past 20 years. (An acre-foot is equivalent to the amount of water needed to flood most of a football field one foot deep, and can supply the needs of three water-efficient households for a year.)
The current annual citywide usage is 383 million gallons, or 1,175 acre feet annually. The most the city has used over the past 20 years was 569 million gallons, or 1,746 acre feet, in 2013. Cloverdale’s state water rights allow it to pump a maximum of 910 million gallons, or 2,792 acre feet, from its river-fed wells.
By 2035, the targeted completion date for the Esmeralda project, the developer’s consultants expect citywide water demand to hit 639 million gallons, or 1,961 acre feet. By 2045, demand would be 676 million gallons, or 2,074 acre feet, according to the consultant’s projections.
In drought years, that demand could push Cloverdale to the brink of its allotted supply.
But Yarne, the Esmeralda principal, in past comments and on Feb. 5, downplayed the severity of the area’s last three-year drought, one of the worst in a generation. He called it a “regulatory drought” not a “physical drought.”
“There was water. Cloverdale just couldn’t have access to it,” he said at the Feb. 5 town hall.
That doesn’t square with documented conditions and events at the time, when Gov. Gavin Newsom stood in April 2021 on the dry bed of Lake Mendocino to proclaim what would be a state emergency.
Benny Alden, who sits on the region’s municipal advisory commission, said developers were failing to plan for the long term. Geyserville, just to the south, is tapping a new downtown well and building more than 100 new apartments, he noted.
“This isn’t planned well,” he said, worrying about downstream effects. “If each plan is individually examined then yeah, there’s enough water. But is there?”
What lies beneath?
Residents also voiced concern about the property’s history. The site has been home to past industrial operations, including a Louisiana Pacific Co. sawmill, a Masonite & International Paper wood treatment facility and a Hot Rocks gravel mining plant.
It also encompasses two wood waste landfill areas, a truck repair shop and vineyards.
Because of its industrial past, the property has been documented with both soil and groundwater contamination, including the presence of pentachlorophenol, Zuegel and Yarne said.
According to the National Institutes of Health, pentachlorophenol dust or vapor irritates skin and mucous membranes, causing coughing and sneezing. Ingestion causes loss of appetite, breathing difficulties, sweating, coma. Overexposure can cause death.
A cleanup order has been in place from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board since the early 2000s. Past property owners, including the Louisiana Pacific, Tyris Corp. and Masonite Corp., conducted investigations and remediation under the oversight of various state environmental regulatory agencies, including the California Department of Health Services and the regional water board.
In 2005, removal and closure of Louisiana Pacific’s woodwaste disposal site began. At the same time, the sawmill also underwent separate remediation related to groundwater, associated with the Masonite wood treatment facility, according to water board documents.
As of last month, all regulatory oversight cases associated with the environmental conditions at the site were closed.
Still, certain construction is prohibited on nearly 9% of the property, including hospitals, housing, day care facilities and schools
Esmeralda principals said they were diligently evaluating the industrial property’s past.
“It’s not in our financial interest to buy a site that is dirty,” Yarne said.
Uncertainty looms
The meeting did not assuage concerns shared by many residents, but some attendees believe the development would benefit the city.
David Blanchard, a Cloverdale resident since 2019, said growth of the tax base would better equip the city in an era of strapped municipal budgets. Developers expect the project would inject $2.4 to $4 million in property and sales tax annually, into the city.
“It needs to be a concerted effort,” Blanchard said. “We don’t want a bunch of empty homes where property tax comes in, but it’s not bringing in sales tax and not contributing to the local economy.”
At the end of the meeting, Suzanne Black, a fifth-generation Cloverdale resident, shared that she remained in a daze about the project.
“I’m finding myself not understanding,” she said, citing concerns about environmental hazards and the ripples of a growth spree. “I’m just still really confused.”
(pressdemocrat.com)
FAIR WAGES, NOT TIPS
Editor,
Another debate as an employer asks customers to tip more. A bakery. Table service and counter service. Should I tip the O’Reilly salesperson who spent more time and effort with me and probably earns less than the food service person? What about the vet tech who removed my dog’s stitches? A shoe salesperson who spends time and effort, often a no-sale anyway? Pay employees and price products accordingly. Workers should not be, as Blanche DuBois said, dependent “on the kindness of strangers.”
Wendy Tohtanjoseph
Sebastopol
DESTROYING AMERICA FOR BITCOIN AND GOLD BAUBLES
Editor:
We know men by their deeds. In Minneapolis and other cities where ICE is deployed, we are witnessing the predictable outcome of allowing these men to violently attack both citizens and noncitizens with impunity. Who sprays pepper spray into the face of a person lying, restrained, on the ground? Who shoots a protester who is trying to drive away from the protest, in the head, at point-blank range? Who shoots a man trying to help a woman who is being pepper-sprayed, after he is lying defenseless on the ground — again and again and again? ICE is attracting sadists and sociopaths, and Donald Trump is well pleased with the theater of indiscriminate force.
This is what it looks like when a ruthless regime begins taking over our America by force. Trump is pre-conditioning his base and the military for military deployment to prevent the free and fair elections this November that would return Democrats to control of Congress in a blue tsunami. If he succeeds, American democracy will end in November 2026.
Trump will jackboot American exceptionalism into the trash bin of history and call the failure of American democracy a win. For Bitcoin and gold baubles.
Nancy Shaffer
Glen Ellen
I'D LIKE TO BE RADICALLY ACTIVE IN POSTMODERN AMERICA NOW
Hello everyone, Just typing this up at the main public library in Washington, D.C. I'd like to leave the homeless shelter, since I've no further need to be there, after President Donald J. Trump had the D.C. Peace Vigil removed from the front of the White House. I have sufficient money, EBT monthly benefits, and health insurance to provide for this body-mind complex.
If you also wish to be radically active, insofar as environmental and attenuating peace & justice global issues are concerned, please contact me. Jivanmuktas intervene in history!
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
"BREAKFAST is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner.
I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked."
— Hunter S. Thompson
THE 49ERS WENT CHEAP THIS YEAR. IT HANDED THE SEAHAWKS A SUPER BOWL.
by Eric Ting
When the Seattle Seahawks defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the 2013 NFC Championship Game and won Super Bowl 48, at least they hoisted the Lombardi Trophy at a location that wasn’t the 49ers’ home field.
The Legion of Boom Seahawks overtaking the Jim Harbaugh-era 49ers, while painful, at least had a feeling of inevitability to it. Frank Gore, Patrick Willis, Justin Smith and others were clearly aging, and Colin Kaepernick’s regression made it obvious that the 49ers of that era had an expiration date. Also, the early-2010s Seahawks were absolutely loaded on both sides of the ball — so much so that even Seahawks fans lament they won only one Super Bowl (thank you, Malcolm Butler).
There was nothing inevitable about the Seahawks eclipsing the 49ers in 2025. And there are no “at leasts” here. This was a winnable Super Bowl, and the 49ers, while injury ravaged, could have given the Seahawks a better game in the playoffs if the team, under owner Jed York, had not undergone a cash spending purge in the 2025 offseason.
To this day, no one is really sure why the team’s cash spending suddenly went down. General manager John Lynch has spoken vaguely of needing a financial “reset,” and fullback Kyle Juszczyk said the team had “financial restrictions.” None of this is actually true in terms of salary cap space, though. The team had around $35 million in cap space going into free agency after the Deebo Samuel trade. And the Brock Purdy extension was structured to provide only a $9.12 million cap hit in 2025. By season’s end, the team’s $20.1 million in cap space was the seventh most in the entire NFL.
The salary cap is manipulable year over year if ownership is willing to spend on upfront cash. Much ink has been spilled on this topic, and there is no amount of billionaire owner hand-waving that distracts from this cold, hard fact. There is always money to be spent on improving a roster, and York, who has been aggressive in much of his 49ers tenure, decided that 2025 was the year his pocketbook just hurt too much.
York, after making this choice, has done plenty of hand-waving. He stated in April of last year, “I don’t know that as we looked at the [free agency] board, that there was somebody that we felt would make an impact more so than making the decision to go pay Brock.”
Again, it is a completely false premise that the 49ers had to choose between paying Purdy and spending on the rest of the roster. Even after the Purdy signing, the team had more than $24 million in cap space, and the largest contract the team gave out in 2025 was to backup tight end and serial loser of the football Luke Farrell for three years at $20.5 million. And further illustrating that cash spending does not equate to cap spending, the Farrell contract had a cap hit of less than $3 million for 2025.
There were many 2025 free agents and 49ers departees who could have helped San Francisco beat a flawed Seattle team in 2025. Yes, this Seattle team was flawed. Everyone who watched Sunday’s Super Bowl knows this was not the 2013 juggernaut, and an AFC team whose best offensive playmaker wasn’t one of Drake “The Schedule” Maye and Stefon “washed up and allegedly chokes personal chefs” Diggs could have won that game.
We’ll start with the players the 49ers cut so Jed York could save some money this year. Maliek Collins had 6.5 sacks for the Cleveland Browns, and while he isn’t the best run defender in the world, the 2025 49ers struggled to generate any pressure against opposing quarterbacks on third down. Collins’ sack total would have eclipsed those of 49ers team leaders Bryce Huff and midseason acquisition Clelin Ferrell, who were tied with four apiece. Meanwhile, Leonard Floyd had 3.5 sacks for the Atlanta Falcons this season and, unlike Ferrell, can actually defend the run and could have helped the broader run defense after Mykel Williams tore his ACL.
As for 2025 free agents? The 49ers were linked to Joey Bosa in the offseason, and while he had a modest sack total of five this year, Bosa still would have led the team in sacks after his younger brother went down with an ACL tear in September. Then there’s DeMarcus Lawrence, who signed an even cheaper contract than did the elder Bosa with, guess who, the Seattle Seahawks. Lawrence recorded six sacks and helped turn that defense into one that could win a Super Bowl with minimal contributions from its offense.
On the other side of the ball, the 49ers were linked to center Drew Dalman, who made the Pro Bowl with the Chicago Bears while the 49ers posted one of the worst rushing attacks in terms of yards per carry and efficiency in the Kyle Shanahan era. As a guest analyst for NBC before the Super Bowl, Shanahan himself stated that the only way to break Seattle out of its two-high safety look is to run the ball effectively, something he lamented not being able to do in his last two games against them.
As far as throwing the ball goes, the 49ers knew they would be down Brandon Aiyuk at the start of the season and talked to Davante Adams, but Adams told the Athletic the 49ers were too cheap to match the Los Angeles Rams’ offer. That one in particular stings after the 49ers’ receivers could not separate in either game against the Seahawks in January.
This Seahawks team is good, but it was beatable. Hell, the 49ers did it in Week 1 before the injury plague kicked in. They could have done it again in January if their owner didn’t inexplicably pull back on cash spending. And in 2026, York has now put himself in a situation where he will have to spend. As was true in 2014 and beyond, this Seahawks roster is clearly better than the 49ers roster.
But unlike 2014, the talent gap between the two teams was not inevitable. It was a choice of Jed York’s making, and he got to watch the Seahawks win a Super Bowl on his own field as a result.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
"Why don’t the dozens of so-called “Epstein Survivors,” grown women supposedly raped and abused by celebrities years ago as children, name their abusers publicly? What’s stopping them as they grandstand around the country? Or is it just another grift?" Well, Virginia Giuffre got hit by a bus and then died. Maybe that would make you think twice. Also, you have to think that they were programmed at some point. Perhaps, programmed not to talk. They were also threatened or bribed. Many were selected because they were from broken families or were in dire situations.
THAT’S OUR BOY
To the Editor:
Let’s see if I have this right: The president of the United States, the president of the United States, yes, the president of the United States in the last several months has posted a video of himself flying in a fighter jet spreading excrement over demonstrators, badmouthed Rob Reiner after his murder and portrayed the Obamas as apes. Really, the president of the United States?
George Schroeter
Halfmoon, New York
WATCH THE OLD GRIFTER IN ACTION
Video shot by NBC shows Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago with Jeffrey Epstein in 1992.
https://youtu.be/KLcfpU2cubo?si=WttjVjClGkxFCrsl
BAD BUNNY STEALS THE SHOW
by Dave Zirin
The past year in Stephen Miller’s America has been unbearably bleak. When masked thugs with “blanket immunity” kidnap five year olds and murder nurses, it tends to darken the national mood. But international mega-star Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (a.k.a Bad Bunny) took the stage during the Super Bowl halftime show and gave the best possible response to Miller’s dystopic dreams: a burst of unbridled joy and a dizzying celebration of love, labor, and the power of living our everyday lives despite hardships, all performed in a lyrical language that Miller, in every possible way, lacks the capacity to understand.
People should view Bad Bunny’s singular performance as the second part of a political two-step aimed at the white-nativist heart of this racist regime. Part one was a week ago, when, after winning the Grammy for album of the year, Bad Bunny began his acceptance speech by saying, “Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say: ICE out,” to rapturous cheers. It was an ingenious first step, teeing up the halftime show as a future instrument for broadcasting the anti-ICE fervor hitting red and blue states alike.
Then came step two: bringing the technicolor beauty of Puerto Rican culture to the Super Bowl stage. In a time of monsters, Bad Bunny was posing an alternative world: a place where laborers are seen and celebrated, where hurricanes and their victims aren’t forgotten, and where community—not atomization—fuels society. In the swirl of his irrepressible music, sung only in Spanish, and an elaborate set design that conjured the Caribbean in rich and playful detail, Bad Bunny refused to step into our dismal world. Instead, he brought us into his.
I saw the game in a bar, where the people watching around me initially seemed more interested in the halftime show because of the controversy around Bad Bunny’s selection as a performer—the prospect of his Spanish-only music had predictably enraged right-wingers and prompted them to launch a counter halftime show, which spectacularly failed. In 30 seconds, though, many were standing and dancing, everyone locked into every move on the stage. When Ricky Martin came out as a surprise guest, you could feel the room swoon. At the end, everyone rose in an actual ovation.
The performance was so dense with meaning that, during the fourth quarter, people around me turned to discussing what part of the show they connected with the most—and not only because that was more fun than debating whether the Patriots were going to punt again.
For me, the most powerful moment was when Bad Bunny name checked, one after the other, every country in the Americas: a bold, delightfully unsubtle statement against white ethnocentrism and USA puffery. When Bad Bunny said during his Grammy speech,“We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans,” the “we are Americans” part had rankled some in immigrant rights circles because it seemed to differentiate the foreign-born. Bad Bunny’s rapid-fire listing—which pointedly did not ignore Cuba or Venezuela—could be seen as a response to that, telling Trump’s cruel regime that “America” is more than just the United States, it’s a region that goes from the top of Canada to the southern tip of Chile. The United States is a part of a community of nations—though it hasn’t been acting like it, instead targeting fishing boats of other members of this community and blasting them out of the sky like some fascist Death Star.
Bad Bunny’s performance will launch a thousand term papers intent on decoding every last moment, including when he gave a Grammy to a young child who had been watching from a staged living room seemingly set in Puerto Rico. Such a scene was particularly resonant knowing that, earlier in January, a five-year-old boy from Minnesota named Liam Ramos had been abducted from his school by ICE and sent to a Texas detention center. Immediately after the show, people began debating online whether or not the child on stage was Ramos himself. He wasn’t, but it speaks to how deftly Bad Bunny pulled off his two-step that masses of people thought so.
In response, of course, Trump had a racist temper tantrum. Perhaps he was offended by a billboard in the background—in English, for his benefit—that read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” For this cowardly regime, it’s now a political act just to acknowledge the cultural power of Puerto Rico, to speak a beautiful language, to sing, and to dance, and to live in peace.
During this show of shows, it was difficult to not think about a more serious moment at a recent Bad Bunny concert in Chile. There, the artist led the crowd in a song by legendary Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, who was something like the Bob Dylan of Chile, and whose songs of protest were known around the world. Shortly after the 1973 coup, Augusto Pinochet’s thugs mutilated his guitar-playing hands before the dictator had him publicly executed. Perhaps Jara’s most famous song was “El Derecho De Vivir En La Paz.” Bad Bunny had the entire crowd singing this 60-year-old song. For those who don’t know what it means, the title translates to “The Right to Live in Peace.”
One of Pinochet’s early orders was to paint over the vibrant, revolutionary murals of Chile, covering them in grey. Bad Bunny’s performance was an act of protest against such evil. It was the revenge of the muralistas. And not a moment too soon.
SHOW ME A MAN who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and 5 times out of 9 I'll show you an exceptional man. Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
— Charles Bukowski
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
When Trump Officials’ Claims About Shootings Unravel in Court
Trump Administration to Cut $600 Million in Health Funding From Four States
Maxwell Refuses to Answer Questions in House Deposition
Without a Border ‘Invasion,’ Texas G.O.P. Turns to an Old Enemy, Islam
Israel Gives Itself More Control Over Occupied West Bank
Olympic P.S.A.: Do Not Jump for Joy While Wearing Your Medal
YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT we're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.
— Steve Bannon
WHO’S NEXT? … WHAT NEXT?
by James Kunstler
It’s all backstage now. This fraught moment, the power centers locked in the coldest cold of the year, the Spanish language lessons of Bad Bunny behind us, all the real action in the battle to save the country is out of sight, moiling and churning in the deep background. Everybody’s on edge waiting for shoes to drop, praying they don’t drop on their heads.
You should have seen Senator Mark Warner (D-VA; Vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee) on Face the Nation Sunday, frothing at the mouth over Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI). He cannot believe she turned up at the Fulton County, GA, election warehouse last month, where the FBI extracted 700 boxes of ballots and other evidence for what happened there in the 2020 election. Senator Warner doesn’t want you to find out.
Senator Warner, you understand, is one of the darkest creatures slithering through the cypress knobs of the DC swamp, and his lair, the Senate Intel Committee, is a fetid backwater of seditious intrigue. Senator Warner is setting the stage for yet another hoax against the country. He’s got a “whistleblower,” ID unknown, who supposedly imputes that last spring “an individual associated with foreign intelligence” made a phone call to “a person close to President Trump” and DNI Gabbard failed to report it to his committee. DNI Gabbard simply called Sen. Warner a liar, which is exactly and succinctly correct.
Senator Warner is wetting his pants because the Georgia 2020 election tally looks sketchy to an extreme and he knows the case is beyond his control now. Pulling on that thread will unravel the whole fake tapestry of “Joe Biden’s” election and will reveal the Democratic Party to be a criminal enterprise. The nation itself has to face some unappetizing reality. Four years were stolen from the people and political devices were aligned to destroy the nation. They almost succeeded.
Over in Minnesota the major players are laying low now. Governor Tim Walz, a creep of the thirty-second degree, surrendered his career weeks ago but nervously awaits indictment for presiding over massive social service fraud. ICE is still extracting psychopathic alien mutts out of Minneapolis, while the Cluster-B ladies and their mentally-ill Antifa spear-carriers remain out in the streets banging on sauce-pans. But somewhere in an office, away from the deafening whistles, the money trails are getting tracked from taxpayers to the Learing Centers to the state’s politicians and the DNC and then off forever into the Horn of Africa. You just can’t see it now.
The giant poisonous amoeba that Jeffrey Epstein became has not yielded all of its secrets. Everybody knows that there are darker scenes lurking behind the curtain. The rumors are outlandishly horrifying, worse than anything out of Hollywood’s scare factory, a slaughter of the innocents. Who knows if they are true — well, possibly somebody knows, but these would be things you cannot want to know. One thing I’d like to know: why don’t the dozens of so-called “Epstein Survivors,” grown women supposedly raped and abused by celebrities years ago as children, name their abusers publicly? What’s stopping them as they grandstand around the country? Or is it just another grift?
It’s seven o’clock in the morning as I write (and fifteen-below zero), and World War Three has not started yet, though it seems like the whole US Navy and half the Air Force has deployed in the vicinity of Iran: the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, accompanied by guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., USS Spruance and USS Michael Murphy. . . destroyers USS McFaul and USS Mitscher in the Straits of Hormuz. . . littoral combat ships USS Canberra, USS Tulsa, and USS Santa Barbara in the Persian Gulf. . . at least a dozen F-15E Strike Eagles relocated to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan (from RAF base Lakenheath, UK). Additional aircraft like A-10C Thunderbolts noted at regional bases. . . support aircraft, KC-135 Stratotankers for refueling (active at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar), P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and transport/refueling planes (C-17s, etc., deployed around the region.
You have to wonder whether the regime running Iran has already selected martyrdom rather than yielding anything to forces who are sick of them, including many Iranians. Iranian missiles are targeted for Tel Aviv, US bases in the Emirates, and possibly even Saudi Arabia. Could be all bluff. The truth of the situation remains hidden, like everything else right now in the global arena.
Down in Fort Pierce, Florida, today, a grand jury will hear more witnesses in the sedition and treason conspiracy carried out by our own government officials since 2016. And being a grand jury, it is all secret, you will not be hearing about it in the news. Like so much else now, the action there is behind the curtain. Too many cynics believe that nothing will come of it. Yet, the blast zone from it, when it comes, will blow at us like a second American Revolution in the 250th anniversary year of the first one.
Different dynamics are aligning now, forces better structured to the survival of our nation. The only thing we know for sure: Bad Bunny has had his fifteen minutes of fame. Who’s next and what’s next? Patience, please.
(kunstler.com)
IN VIEW OF THE FACT
The people of my time are passing away: my
wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year-old who
died suddenly, when the phone rings, and it's
Ruth we care so much about in intensive care:
it was once weddings that came so thick and
fast, and then, first babies, such a hullabaloo:
now, it's this that and the other and somebody
else gone or on the brink: well, we never
thought we would live forever (although we did)
and now it looks like we won't: some of us
are losing a leg to diabetes, some don't know
what they went downstairs for, some know that
a hired watchful person is around, some like
to touch the cane tip into something steady,
so nice: we have already lost so many,
brushed the loss of ourselves ourselves: our
address books for so long a slow scramble now
are palimpsests, scribbles and scratches: our
index cards for Christmases, birthdays,
Halloweens drop clean away into sympathies:
at the same time we are getting used to so
many leaving, we are hanging on with a grip
to the ones left: we are not giving up on the
congestive heart failure or brain tumors, on
the nice old men left in empty houses or on
the widows who decide to travel a lot: we
think the sun may shine someday when we'll
drink wine together and think of what used to
be: until we die we will remember every
single thing, recall every word, love every
loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to
others to love, love that can grow brighter
and deeper till the very end, gaining strength
and getting more precious all the way. . . .
— A. R. Ammons
To the 3rd district candidate calling himself an Artificial Intelligence Architect: Just stop that. Please.
You many as well call yourself an Enshittification Advocate.
A I only looks good to those who doubt their own.
AMEN! The crap is an insidious way of keeping us in line using the power of suggestion, without most of us being aware of what it’s doing, as it gobbles energy and water….
I think that’s prose for “unemployed “
I appreciate Lew’s defense of museums, as I also disagreed with TWK’s latest column, but hoped/decided it was just more button-pushing rather than honest opinion worthy of rebuttal.
HIGH-END CLOVERDALE HOUSING, RESORT PROJECT PUTS ‘LITTLE COUNTRY TOWN’ AT CROSSROADS
Good example of how humans are a species determined to self-destruct. It never learns.
“BAD BUNNY STEALS THE SHOW”
Thanks, Dave Zirin, for your review. A great part of the pushback we are seeing in America.
And then, below, there’s Kunstler, never content to be still….
Good for you Russ! We could not ask for a better candidate. Now, get someone to take a picture better than a mugshot.
My 100% support and I suggest such to others.
WATCH THE OLD GRIFTER IN ACTION
All it would take is a lip reader to sink this guy. Where are they? Has no one thought of that? Of course they have.