Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, March 26, 2014

• A Sad Week
• A Sleepless Week
• Memory Lane
• Mendo HR
• I Heard a Fly Buzz
• Concealed Weapons
• Food and Fiber
• Domestic Concerns
• Hey Richard Miller
• Caltrans Coming to Albion
• Exit Strategies
• Corporate Cuckoo
• Police Reports

THE SAD CHRONOLOGY OF A SAD WEEK

ON MONDAY, MARCH 17th 2014, at approximately 8pm, a young man named Troy Arter was driving his 1998 Dodge Ram pickup southbound on Highway One, near Ocean Drive between Fort Bragg and Caspar. Arter was proceeding at a lawful and prudent 45 miles per hour. The area, police said, "was dark with no street lights and limited ambient lighting." A disoriented and elderly pedestrian, soon identified as Joanna Cohen, was walking in the middle of the southbound lane. She was not visible and facing south, apparently unaware of approaching traffic when she was struck and killed by Arter's truck. Distraught, Arter immediately pulled to the right shoulder and stopped. Joanna Cohen was pronounced dead at the scene. Alcohol was not a factor in the accident.

ELEANOR COONEY OF MENDOCINO wrote a day later: “Joanna Cohen, the fiercely intelligent little British lady who, with her partner of thirty-five years, Lynn Turner, had been Mendocino Locksmiths, was killed last night by a car while walking on Highway One south of Fort Bragg. She was 79. Ms. Cohen had been sinking into dementia, and, in that condition, physically attacked Turner a few days before the fatal accident and then persuaded sheriff's deputies, responding to Turner's call for help, that Turner was at fault. The deputies ignored Turner's protests and attempts to explain the situation and ordered her to leave the home the two women shared. Turner had to walk to a motel. In a later telephone call, the sheriff's office told Turner to stay away, which meant leaving the afflicted woman alone. The county's Adult Protective Services, online with the deputies when they told Turner to keep away from Cohen, did not intercede, resulting, according to Turner, in Cohen being unsupervised, confused and incapable of normal behavior. Turner was allowed to return yesterday for an hour, found things in chaos and then retired to her enforced stay in the motel. She considers it likely that Cohen was coming to find her when she was struck and killed. She learned of her partner's death this morning when calling to check on her condition. A memorial service was held Friday at the Caspar Shul.

TWO DAYS LATER, on Wednesday the 19th of March, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino, 49, was shot to death when he was ambushed by a man on a major crime run that began late Tuesday night in Eugene, Oregon. Most of the following information on the terrible events come from Sheriff Allman's 5pm press conference at the Fort Bragg Police station that afternoon. The killer committed suicide shortly after exchanging fire with Lt. John Naulty of the Fort Bragg Police Department. He has been identified as Ricardo Antonio Chaney, 32, of Eugene.

ELEANOR COONEY: "Lynn Turner told me today that on Monday, the night her partner, Joanna, was struck by a car and killed on Highway 1, Deputy Del Fiorentino came to her motel room to offer moral support and condolences. She said he was a 'real sweetheart,' left his card, urged her to call him. Less than 48 hours later, he'd be killed himself in a shootout…”

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT late last Tuesday or early Wednesday, Chaney, near the famous Oregon football shrine called Autzen Stadium, carjacked a black four-door BMW with two young men in it. He forced them into the trunk of the car, but almost immediately they, being young and strong, freed themselves by an inside trunk lever and sprinted away from their abductor. Chaney wanted the car, not them, and he drove out in the BMW.

DEPUTY DEL FIORENTINO, 48, of Fort Bragg, had been with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office for many years, starting as a deputy in 1988. In 1990, he moved to the Fort Bragg Police Department, returning to the sheriff's office in 2000. He was highly regarded in Fort Bragg where he donated many hours to the high school sports program, and coached wrestling for several years. He was that rare individual, certainly that rare police officer, about whom nobody has expressed anything but respect and their deepest chagrin at his death.

AT 10:34 a.m. Wednesday morning, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office received a call from Confusion Hill at Leggett where the owner, John Mills, 55, had encountered Chaney urinating near one of the tourist attraction's structure. The owner, picking up a baseball bat, ordered Chaney to leave, but Chaney soon returned to menace Mills, who struck Chaney on the arm with the bat. The shotgun Chaney had hidden on him dropped to the floor and discharged, and Chaney ran to his stolen BMW as Mills fired at the departing vehicle with a handgun.

CHANEY, headed west, then south on Highway One where he was soon being pursued by Deputy Stefani at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. Stefani lost sight of the BMW near Cleone, by which time law enforcement had closed Highway One well north of the Fort Bragg City limits. The fugitive, apparently aware that a large, armed contingent of police were staked out along Highway One to prevent him from getting into Fort Bragg, drove west on Park Drive, 3.5 miles north of town where Deputy Del Fiorentino was soon looking for him.

AND SUDDENLY CHANEY, wearing body armor, appeared virtually at point blank range and opened fire on the Deputy with an assault rifle. Del Fiorentino never had a chance. He died instantly. Sheriff Allman placed the time of the shooting as 11:50. The Sheriff said the hood of Del Fiorentino’s patrol vehicle was “riddled with bullet holes, and its front and back windshields had been shattered by gun fire.”

OFFICERS from the Fort Bragg Police Department were nearby and ran to the sound of the gunfire where they found Chaney trying to remove the murdered officer's handgun from its holster. Chaney then fired at Lt. John Naulty six or seven times before Naulty was able to return fire. Chaney, Allman said, seemed to have been shot in the leg before disappearing into roadside brush where it is believed he shot himself, but how exactly he died awaits autopsy results. He was in possession of two assault rifles and a shotgun.

COAST REPORTER FRANK HARTZELL: "Deputy Del Fiorentino was a really calm, steady guy, and from all I could tell a nice guy. He really helped me once with a mental health situation when I worked for Mental Health and impressed me. He was a bailiff at Ten Mile Court too, as I remember. What a terrible loss."

CHANEY had a record of at least five arrests, including on assault and weapons charges, dating back to 2002, according to Lane County, Oregon, authorities. He was most recently arrested March 6th on drug possession and weapons charges. He was released later that same day.

THE MURDER OF DEPUTY DEL FIORENTINO by Ricardo Chaney seems to have been preceded by another Chaney rampage.

EUGENE POLICE have confirmed that Ricardo Antonio Chaney was also the author of a second murder, that of retired University of Oregon professor, George Bundy Wasson. The professor was apparently shot and his home set on fire late Tuesday night, just before Chaney began his crazed dash south in a carjacked BMW. Wasson had also been an assistant dean of students at the university and a tribal elder with the Coquille tribe in North Bend, Oregon. Chaney's lethal association with Wasson, a tribal elder with the Coquille tribe in North Bend, Oregon, seems to have come through Chaney's father, also an elder in the Coquille tribe and close to Wasson. Wasson consulted Chaney's father on Native American practices, and the Wasson-Chaney families were neighbors in Eugene.

CHANEY'S RAMPAGE when George Wasson was found shot to death inside his longtime residence on Elk Avenue, Eugene, after firefighters responded to a neighbor’s 911 call that Wasson's house was on fire.

SVEVO BROOKS, the neighbor, said he awoke to the sound of a car rumbling down the dead-end street just moments before he heard “an explosion” and saw the front of Wasson’s home engulfed in flames.

CHANEY and Wasson, 79, were acquainted, and Chaney and his family had lived  down the street from Wasson. Chaney’s father, the late Richard Chaney,  met Wasson  during Wasson's 20 years  as a cultural anthropology professor at the U of O.  IN A 2001 dissertation titled “Growing Up Indian: An Emic Perspective,” Wasson — a doctoral student at the time — mentioned Richard Chaney in a dedication, writing that Chaney “readily shared esoteric cultural perspectives with me.”

AFTER MURDERING Wasson by gunshot, and setting fire to the two-story home, Chaney, driving a friend's car, left the scene and, forty minutes after the fire at Wasson’s house was called in, police were summoned to a carjacking near Autzen Stadium. The victims, two men in their 20s, reported that a masked, armed man, soon identified as Chaney, had forced them into the trunk of their 2006 BMW.

ONE OF THE MEN was able to pull an interior safety latch, which allowed him and his friend to free themselves from the trunk while the car was still in the parking lot. Neither man was injured, and Chaney was out on nearby I-5 headed south. It's not known when he turned west to 101, but he did, and everyone who knew Deputy Del Fiorentino wished as one he hadn't.

THE SLAIN DEPUTY is described in the Press Democrat by his former football coach at Napa High School, Les Franco, as “the best lineman” he'd ever coached. “He was naturally born with some really great strength,” Franco said. “He had a great laugh and a great smile. He was always friendly with people. He wasn't your typical high school jock walking around campus. He was good to everybody.”

DEPUTY DEL FIORENTINO took a second in the heavyweight division of the state wrestling championship in 1982 and graduated from high school a year later. He earned a scholarship to wrestle at the University of Oklahoma, and was inducted into the Napa High Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998.

ALSO SPEAKING to the Press Democrat, was an old and close friend, Thomas Sly, also a police officer with both the Fort Bragg Police and the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department, who lamented the senselessness of Del Fiorentino's murder. “I think I'm like most Americans. We want the right to own a gun. We watch that stuff on TV and it doesn't have an effect on us. It's always somewhere else,” he said. “But you get a kid like Rick who just gets splattered. He probably had no chance at all. It makes you think about why is it necessary to have one of these things, particularly in a lunatic's hands, somebody that's desperate like this individual obviously was.”

CHANEY had a history of at least one arrest on methamphetamine charges. His Wednesday rampage certainly sounded as if it was meth-fueled.

MEDIA ACCOUNTS of shootings often refer to “modified” guns. Chaney apparently possessed a “modified” AR-15, a combat weapon. Modified how? Modified to become fully automatic? Off the shelf, this powerful firearm is not the kind of gun any rational person would feel the need to own, let alone “modify” to shoot more bullets, faster.

WHY THE EUGENE POLICE let Chaney go on his way after an earlier stop when he was found with ecstasy, the AR-15 and body armor, has not yet been explained. And we still don't know anything more about the two young men Chaney highjacked and stuffed into the trunk of the getaway BMW. They freed themselves unharmed in the parking lot where their BMW was taken.

DA DAVID EYSTER released this statement last week: "Pending completion of an ongoing formal investigation, the District Attorney's Office does not contemplate commenting on any details in the shooting deaths this week on the Mendocino Coast of a sheriff's deputy or his suspected killer. A clear, concise explanation of the events surrounding the deaths will be outlined in a report at the conclusion of the investigation. At this point it is not a matter of days but weeks before such a report is expected to be completed and ready for public distribution. Some of you may recall the exhaustively detailed report released by DA Eyster in the wake of the Aaron Bassler case. It is anticipated a report similar in scope will be prepared in this case. Please feel free to call with any questions. We may not be able to provide the answers you seek, but we are prepared as usual to assist in whatever ways possible. We have attached for your information the most recent press statement issued by the Sheriff’s Office.

FERMIN BAEZA, 45, of Fort Bragg, was only 30 feet from the lethal gunfire that began with the murder of Deputy Del Fiorentino. He'd been working nearby and had sought shelter in a pump house to get as far and as safely away from whatever was going on as fast as he could. Initial police reports said “a second man,” believed to be Chaney's accomplice, had run from the scene of Chaney's fatal shooting of deputy Del Fiorentino. Baeza, not knowing he was the second suspect, crouched, terrified, in the pump house for two hours, not knowing what the heck was going on all around him. When the police finally searched the pump house he experienced more terror when the guns were aimed at him. Another two hours of interrogation, and Baeza was finally free to leave, taking his nightmare memories with him.

THE LOGISTICS of a mass memorial service for slain deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino are complicated by the absence of places to hold them in Fort Bragg. There's the small-ish Cotton Auditorium, the Fort Bragg High School gym and, outside in the weather, the high school's little jewel of a football stadium; those are the three venues that can accommodate a large crowd. The late Vern Piver's service was standing room only in the gym. Piver, like the late deputy, was enormously popular, not only in Fort Bragg, but throughout the County for both his ebullient personality and his unflagging commitment to youth sports. Fort Bragg City councilman, Jere Melo, also a murder victim at the hands of a maniac, was honored with an outdoor memorial in the football arena. Del Fiorentino, also a man with a Piver-Melo quality of community respect, will draw a huge number of people. So, with rain expected for the middle of the week with the memorial scheduled for Wednesday morning, and school in session? Got to be Cotton Auditorium, which it is on Wednesday, (today, 26 March) at 10am.

ON TUESDAY NIGHT, the 25th, a Candlelight Vigil was held in front of the Fort Bragg Justice Center located at 700 South Franklin Street in Fort Bragg, California.

BOTH EVENTS are expected to draw unprecedented numbers of mourners lamenting the loss of a very fine man.  Deputy Del Fiorentino is survived by his wife, children (ages 21, 19, 18, 6), stepson (age 29), grandson (age 5 months), stepgrandchildren (ages 6, 3), parents and siblings. Anyone wishing to make monetary donations to the Ricky Del Fiorentino Memorial Fund can do so by contacting or visiting any of the Savings Bank of Mendocino County locations or by mail to PO Box 3600 Ukiah, Ca 95482 (707-462-6613). To donate online via PayPal to Deputy Del Fiorentino’s memorial fund go to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/MendocinoSheriff

WE'RE TRYING to find chapter and verse, but if I remember correctly, Right To Farm is aimed at heading off complaints from people who move in next door to an ag operation, knowing that the ag operation is there. Almost everyone in Anderson Valley was in place before the vineyards installed their noise machines, almost all of which have been installed this year. Therefore, the County's noise ordinance trumps the County's Right To Farm ordinance.

AS OF THIS MORNING, Tuesday, the Anderson Valley has endured 8 straight days of early morning aural assault.

FOR NOW, though, the bottom line is the bottom line of the wineries. We sacrifice our sleep for their vines.

I WONDER if local realtors, henceforth, will be forced to attach sale covenants: "The buyer must agree to forgo sleep from the middle of March until the middle of April of every year…"

MEMORY LANE. From the San Francisco Chronicle of March 29th, 1964: "Crescent City, Del Norte County. A mighty tidal wave roared out of the Pacific over this sleeping lumber and fishing town early yesterday with catastrophic results. Ten persons were known dead, 15 were missing and scores were hospitalized. A 36-block area was either knocked flat or severely damaged. Power poles snapped and falling wires touched off fires that firemen could not reach through the swirling waters. One blaze caused four tanks at the Texaco storage yards to explode. Another fire burned down the Pontiac agency show rooms. The devastating wave caught people by surprise. They had heard a radio alert of a wave expected at 12:15am and many watched the gentle current rise and ebb at that time. The disaster came an hour and a half later. The huge wall of water smashed its way to Elk Creek at the edge of the downtown area and a wave 5 feet high surged over the creek banks and into the business area. Every one of the 156 small and large businesses was damaged. [ed note: the wave was approximately 20 feet]. The wave knocked buildings off their foundations, sent a large motel floating out into the center of Highway 101, sailed a barber shop across a business street into a store, and took its yet uncounted human toll." (Elmont Waite.)

“I see by your resume that you are a man.”

I HEARD A FLY BUZZ - WHEN I DIED

by Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air -

Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset - when the King

Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable - and then it was

There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -

Between the light - and me -

And then the Windows failed - and then

I could not see to see -

AH, CHECK THAT. An on-line commenter rightly points out that Mendo's concealed weapons permitting process isn't as simple as I've described it, and it is unlikely a psycho could negotiate it, assuming, of course, that all the ranchers and Rotarians who do get them aren't psychos, always a dubious assumption. I do agree, and all you libs may want to step out of the room for this one, that given the unhinged times, and given that many of us rustics live a half hour to an hour away from an officer of the law, possession of a gun seems only sensible. I have several myself, but I don't have a concealed weapons permit. I keep them at home. Mostly. Potential assassins will have to guess when I don't have one with me, hastening to add that I'm not a gun fetish guy, a Guns and Ammo guy, a guy who spends hours gazing at his guns, tidying his guns, fondling his guns, loving his guns. I see no point in assault rifles and other essentially military weaponry. A shotgun is all you need to repel the intruder, and a handgun is all you need if you're hiking around Spy Rock or Bell Springs Road or a Pinot tasting. And I have a kind of authorization from none other than the late DA, Norm Vroman, who told me once, "Bruce, if there's one person in this county who should have a gun, it's you." Yeah, yeah. But newspaper people get threatened all the time; it comes with the job. The phone rings. "You've gone too far. This time you get it." Click. Gotten lots of those over the years. But if someone really wants you gone, they're not making midnight nut calls or leaving anon notes, they're going to do it. And all the guns in the world won't stop them from getting you gone.

USED TO BE in Mendocino County, that agriculture was defined as food and fiber. Some of us may recall the Point Arena Parrot controversy where the parrot lady insisted that her parrot farm was agriculture and her neighbors said her enterprise was a huge, squawking nuisance that threatened the Stornetta's next door turkey farm. Parrot Lady got the last laugh in that one — she sold her place, with the parrots, to the Indians up the road, and the Indians were exempt from local zoning laws. Maybe the Indians aren't exempt, but nobody was inclined to argue the matter. Never did hear what became of the parrots, long-term.

FOOD AND FIBER, class, that's our lesson for today. Wine grapes aren't fiber and they aren't food.

GLOBAL AFFAIRS: "The US would be better served these days to literally mind its own business. With Detroit in bankruptcy, why would we send Kiev billions of dollars? American urban infrastructures — water, sewer, gas, and electric lines — are falling apart. We have no idea how we’re going to manage most of the crucial economic activities of daily life in ten years, when the illusions of shale gas and shale evaporate in a dark cloud of disenchantment, when we no longer have an airline industry, and most Americans won’t have the means to own automobiles, and there’s not enough diesel fuel to plow Iowa mega-farms, or enough oil and gas based fertilizers or herbicides to pour into the eroding topsoil, and not enough fossil water left in the Oglala aquifer or enough electricity to run the center-pivot sprinklers where the prairie meets the desert? How are Americans going to live and eat and get from Point A to Point B and keep a roof over our heads in this beat-down land? We’re having no conversation about these things and the political landscape in this country is a wasteland of mirages and dust devils. That is the true weakness of the USA now. We’re incapable of seeing the disorder in our own house. Why should we even glance overseas at others?" — James Kunstler

HEY RICHARD [Dr. Richard Miller, former KZYZ program host],

Sure, I'll write to the AVA and say you were "suspended for cause" -- instead of saying you were "banned" -- although I have no idea what that "cause" might possibly be. John Coate tells the Board as little as possible, so Coate never actually told me what the "cause" was that led to you being off the air for the last six months. Moreover, I can't imagine an old radio pro like you violating any rule that would give Coate "cause" for your suspension.

Concerning your statement "The issue is that when the Bush administration raised the  amount of the fine they could levy on station from $50,000 to $500,000 they effectively put every small station  radio GM on notice that the entire station could be closed based on a violation." -- Coate  pulls this stunt all the time. It's a scare tactic. And it's selectively enforced. For example, one of Doug McKenty's callers drop the f-bomb, and he's kicked off the air and "Open Lines" is cancelled. Meanwhile, W.Dan Houck and Sherry Glaser air pre-recorded material containing the f-bomb on their respective shows, and they both get a free pass.

You demean yourself, Richard, by sucking up to Coate. You're better man than he is. And you're a better man than being submissive to Coate's iron will.

Let me repeat: You're a better man, Richard. Better than John Coate. More intelligent. More educated. More emotionally and spiritually aware. Coate is a taker. He is especially a taker at the station. He takes a salary that's more lucrative than any of his predecessors as general manager in the entire 25-year history of the KZYX. How about that for taking?

Coate takes in other ways, too. He takes control from people. He takes energy from people -- life force. I get depressed and anxious when I'm around Coate. So I avoid him. Really. Coate even takes credit for "rescuing" the station. The station was rescued five or six years ago by the station's 100 volunteer programmers and 2,300 members. It is hubris for Coate to take credit for something we all did together. It's a bunch of baloney.

Coate takes. And he takes. And he takes.

Meanwhile, Richard, you are a volunteer, and you are a giver. You give our listeners a wonderful radio show that explores alternative views on health and healing. And you've given the world a beautiful gift in  the form of a nationally-recognized healing center at Wilbur Hot Springs. At Wilbur Hot Springs the world-weary travelers that we all are, can find rest, respite, rejuvenation, and sometimes, if we're lucky, we may find rebirth, too.

Thank you, brother.

John Sakowicz, Ukiah

TWO HIGHWAY 1 BRIDGES TO BE REPLACED IN ALBION

Caltrans plans to replace two bridges on Highway One in Albion, beginning in three years. One is over the Albion River above the harbor, and the second is one-half mile south over Salmon Creek.

Two dozen citizens met March 20th in Albion to express concerns about this duo project and explore alternatives, before Caltrans comes to Mendocino to make its presentation on April 23rd. The desires of most of the meeting attendees were threefold.

1) Keep the present Albion River Bridge since it is the last Highway One trestle bridge left in California and has become an iconic symbol of the Mendocino coast.

2) Oppose plans to greatly widen Highway One from north of the Albion River Inn south to the Navarro Ridge Road. Caltrans wants to double the width of this rural two-lane road at the southern entrance to the Mendocino Coast and turn it into a broad, high-speed highway, even though it narrows at both ends into winding, hilly two-lane roads again. Most attendees prefered to keep the scenic and rural qualities of the current two-lane road.

3) Insure that any Caltrans work impacts drivers, local residents and businesses, emergency responders and the environment as little as possible. When these two bridges were being painted last summer travelers were sometimes delayed for over an hour.

While many think you can't change Caltrans plans, in fact citizens have altered them in the past. When the Noyo River Bridge was being replaced a few years ago, then Mendocino resident Vince Taylor objected to the proposed railings that would have blocked views out to the ocean and down into Noyo Harbor. Caltrans eventually devised a new see-through railing to use on this bridge response. This new "Mendocino Railing" has since been adopted repeatedly around the state.

Also, Elk residents appealed Caltrans's plans for the Greenwood Creek Bridge there that has been being replaced for the past two years, and that brought about a completely new, more environmental-friendly bridge design.

The public is invited to one more planning meeting before the April 23rd Caltrans meeting. It will be on April 10th at 7 PM at the Albion School.

Citizens who would like more information, to be added to the Albion Bridges email list, or to circulate a petition to save the historic Albion Bridge should contact Tom Wodetzki at tw@mcn.org or 937-1113.

EXIT STRATEGIES
Preparing for End-of-Life

Join us April 12th at Ukiah Methodist Church
From 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
270 N. Pine Street / Enter Through Front Doors
(Additional Parking & No Stairs from Bush St. Entrance)

Local End-Of-Life Support Resources

• Help with Advance Directives
• Hospice & Comfort Care
• Threshold Singing
• Family Directed After-Death Care
• Legality of Burial on Own Land
• Managing Grief

Donations Gratefully Accepted
For More Info Contact Margy @ 415-215-1510

BIG OIL LOBBYIST SERVES ON FEDERAL MARINE PROTECTED AREAS PANEL

by Dan Bacher

A prominent California oil industry lobbyist not only served as a high ranking official overseeing the creation of marine protected areas in California, but also currently sits on a federal marine protected areas advisory panel, according to information published on the NOAA website.

In one of the biggest conflicts of interest in recent California history, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called "marine protected areas" in Southern California from 2009 to 2011. (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp)

During the period from 2004 to 2012, she also served on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast. Under her leadership, she and other corporate interests made sure that oil industry operations, including fracking operations in Southern California waters, weren’t impacted at all by the creation of "marine protected areas."

While grassroots environmentalists, Tribal leaders and fishermen have blasted Reheis-Boyd’s leadership role in what passes for “marine protection” in California, few people are aware of her service on a federal marine protected areas panel also.

The National Marine Protected Areas Center website (http://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/fac/membership/) lists Reheis-Boyd as a member of a 20 member MPA (Marine Protected Areas) Advisory Committee.

According to the website, the Committee members “include representatives from different geographic regions, including the Great Lakes and U.S. territories. They represent a wide variety of interests including resource management (state, territory, and tribal), science (economics, anthropology, and marine sciences), policy (environmental and social), and industry (commercial and recreational fishing, oil and gas production, shipping and ports, and recreation and tourism).”

The website explains the purpose of the Advisory Committee:

“The Marine Protected Areas (MPA) Federal Advisory Committee is mandated by Executive Order 13158 and is supported by the National Marine Protected Areas Center. It is made up of individuals with diverse backgrounds and experience, who represent parties interested in the use of MPAs as a management tool. Committee members, 30 in all, are appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, and serve four-year, non-renewable terms. They represent a broad stakeholder community, including scientists, academia, commercial fishermen, anglers, divers, state and tribal resource managers, the energy and tourism industries, and environmentalists, among others.

In addition, nine federal agencies are represented by non-voting ex-officio members of the committee.

The committee's role is to provide expert advice and recommendations to the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior on implementation of aspects of Section 4 of Executive Order 13158, the heart of the national MPA initiative.

The committee functions solely as an advisory body, complying fully with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972 (5 U.S.C. App. 2).”

Interestingly, while the biographies of other members of the committee are listed on the website, Reheis-Boyd's biography isn't listed. The website states, "Bio coming soon." (http://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/fac/bios/)

The first MPA Federal Advisory Committee was appointed by the Secretary of Commerce in 2003 and met for the first time in June 2003.

Reheis-Boyd’s presence on both state and federal marine protected area panels is very alarming when you consider that Reheis-Boyd is the head lobbyist for fracking and offshore oil drilling in California.

In her latest post on the WSPA blog, the oil lobbyist/"marine guardian" slams the Carson City Council's vote to impose a moratorium on fracking and oil exploration in the city, following in the wake of the LA City Council's vote to ban fracking.

Reheis-Boyd claims that Carson's action has "no scientific basis," in spite of a plethora of studies, reports and videos documenting the environmentally destructive impact of fracking on groundwater supplies, rivers, wildlife, fish and human health, and claims the campaign was instigated by "outside groups" (http://www.wspa.org/blog/post/wspa-responds-city-carson-oil-drilling-moratorium)

Reheis-Boyd said, "The Carson City Council’s vote to stop all oil and natural gas exploration and production activities is an alarming development. The Council’s action appears to be a response to outside groups with little connection to the local community that are pursuing an aggressively anti-oil and natural gas agenda.

There is no scientific basis for the Council’s action. Hydraulic fracturing has been used safely and effectively to produce oil in California for more than 60 years without any harm to water supplies, air quality, or other environmental resources. It is unfortunate the City Council was persuaded to take the precipitous action by the outside advocacy groups using false and misleading information. In fact, Oxy has repeatedly stated that hydraulic fracturing will not be used for this project and has asked the City of Carson to withdraw hydraulic fracturing from the project's scope.

It is even more alarming that the Council acted to halt all oil and natural gas drilling, even that which does not utilize the hydraulic fracturing technology. The decision will deprive the city of the significant revenue it would otherwise receive from those prohibited activities, revenues that could have been used to support police, fire and other local services."

Besides writing numerous posts on her WSPA blog, Reheis-Boyd has become a media super star, penning numerous opinion pieces and letters in the mainstream media, and is frequently quoted in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press and other major media outlets. Of course, these corporate media outlets fail to mention that Reheis-Boyd has served as a state and federal "marine guardian" who led the panel that developed so-called "marine protected areas" in Southern California.

Corporate “environmental” NGO representatives and state officials have continually gushed that the privately-funded MLPA Initiative created “underwater parks” and “Yosemites of the Sea.”

In fact, the alleged “marine protected areas” in state waters developed under the leadership of the big oil industry lobbyist and her collaborators on the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force fail to protect ocean from oil drilling, fracking, pollution, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.

While Reheis-Boyd apparently doesn’t wield the same power on the federal marine protected area advisory committee that she did as Chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” in Southern California’s state marine waters, the fact the oil lobbyist has served on a federal panel charged with advising the federal government on MPAs is disturbing, to say the least.

In both cases, this is a classic example of the “fox guarding the hen house” – and how big money purchases political power in California and the U.S.

Caleen Audrey Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said allowing a big oil industry lobbyist to serve on state and federal "marine protected area" panels is "outright WRONG."

"How can this continue to be overlooked and allowed? Where is the public on these things? When will the public refuse to accept this outright WRONG? The Mega Corporations have loop holes to provide funding and personnel to government to run their billion dollar destructive project through. It is so sad the public has no recourse because they are held hostage and want the two bit jobs!"

POLICE CALLS AS OF WEDNESDAY MORNING

TV STOLEN -- Caller in the 1100 block of Airport Park Boulevard reported at 11:07 a.m. Saturday that a television and a remote control was stolen. An officer responded and took a report.

POT POSSESSION -- An officer contacted a suspicious person on the 100 block of South Orchard Avenue at 11:12 a.m. Saturday and arrested a 28-year-old man for possession of marijuana. He was cited and released.

WOMAN ASKING FOR GUN -- Caller from a business in the 1000 block of North State Street reported at 11:54 a.m. Saturday that a suspicious woman was in the store asking for a gun to hurt people with. An officer responded and took the woman to Ukiah Valley Medical Center for a mental health evaluation.

THEFT FROM UNLOCKED VEHICLE -- Caller in the 1100 block of Incline Drive reported at 12:06 p.m. Saturday that a wallet had been stolen from an unlocked vehicle. An officer responded and took a report.

SHOPLIFTER -- An officer responded to Kohl's on North Orchard Avenue at 2:35 p.m. Saturday and arrested a 17-year-old girl for shoplifting. She was transported to juvenile hall.

MOTORCYCLE KEYED -- Caller in the 200 block of North Orchard Avenue reported at 3:50 p.m. Saturday that a woman in a blue SUV just keyed his Harley-Davidson motocycle. An officer responded and took a report.

THEFT FROM UNLOCKED VEHICLE -- Caller in the 1000 block of Despina Drive reported at 5:50 p.m. Saturday that a wallet had been stolen from an unlocked vehicle. An officer responded and took a report.

GIRL ON SCOOTER WITHOUT A HELMET -- Caller in the 400 block of Oak Manor Drive reported at 9:36 p.m. Saturday that a young girl was riding an electric scooter without a helmet and the caller was concerned for her safety. An officer responded but did not find the girl.

GIRLFRIEND HAS NOT RETURNED CAR -- Caller in the 700 block of South Oak Street reported at 12:58 a.m. Sunday that his ex had not returned his car since borrowing it Wednesday and he wanted to press charges for a stolen vehicle. An officer took a report. At 11:36 p.m., the caller reported that the vehicle was returned.

LOUD PARTY -- Caller in the 400 block of Clara Avenue reported at 1:48 a.m. Sunday that people had been having a loud party in the backyard since 10 p.m. An officer responded and counseled those responsible.

LOUD MUSIC, OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE -- Caller in the 700 block of McPeak Street reported at 12:51 p.m. Sunday hearing loud music and loud, offensive language coming from a nearby group. An officer responded and the group turned the music down.

EX REFUSING TO RETURN CAR -- Caller in the 1200 block of South State Street reported at 2:02 p.m. Sunday that she loaned her car to her ex-boyfriend and now he was refusing to return it. Before an officer responded the man had returned the car, but then the caller reported that he left in it again. She did not want to file a stolen vehicle report.

The following were compiled from reports prepared by the Ukiah Police Department regarding calls handled by the Fort Bragg Police Department.

TAKING ITEMS AT MEMORIAL -- Caller at the Fort Bragg Justice Center reported at 2:25 p.m. Sunday that a woman took items from a memorial there and left what looked like a bag of trash.

DOG KILLED CHICKEN -- Caller in the 200 block of South Harrison Street reported at 3:49 p.m. Sunday that a neighbors' dogs got out and killed his chicken in his back yard.