Mendocino County Today: Sunday, March 30, 2014

• Rezone Clarification
• Wetsuit Invasion
• Palace Intrigue
• Leachfield on the River
• Dipping Sauce Dispute
• Golden Years
• Space Oddity
• Improving Mental Health
• Corporatism
• Durand Wants to Know
• Water in the Desert
• The Pot Biz
• Lunch with Dead Dog
• Police Reports

CLARIFYING THE REZONE ISSUE (Regarding the final paragraphs of Mendocino County Today for March 29):

BUT THEN SUPERVISORS John McCowen and Dan Gjerde recused themselves on the vote last week because McCowen owns property near some of those acres and Gjerde “had negotiated a lower rate at a Ukiah hotel owned by one of the objecting landowners” — whatever that means. Which left the Board with a bare quorum of three supervisors to decide the issue.

WITH PINCHES DISSENTING, the Board then voted 2-1 to approve the recommended rezoning. Or did they? Later in the meeting Chair John Pinches returned to the item and McCowen and Gjerde dutifully recused themselves once again. In the interim someone had bothered to consult the Board’s rules of procedure and it turns out that a majority of the Board is needed to take any action. Suddenly the two Supervisors who voted for the original motion — Dan Hamburg and Carre Brown — were much more interested in finding out what it would take to get Pinches to vote in favor of the rezones.

PINCHES IS A BIG BELIEVER IN PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS — meaning he pretty much thinks it should be the right of the property owner to do what they want with their own property. During public expression a couple of landowners had come forward to complain that they were not interested in the “forced” rezoning being pushed on them by the County in a desperate attempt to satisfy the settlement agreement with Legal Services. But Hamburg and Brown thought they had the votes and no doubt were feeling the pressure to get the rezonings approved. Except now they needed three votes.

SO THE BOARD REMOVED the acres cited by the landowners to win Pinches’ support so they could get three votes in favor of the rezone. But by that time they were down to a measly 15 acres of rezone and acting County Counsel Doug Losak was telling them that he couldn’t assure them that the judge would be satisfied with such a low number. So the County will probably get hit with another fat legal bill as it struggles to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement.

THE MAJOR PROB for the County is that it agreed to rezone property that was adjacent to sewer and water, except most of the County is on septic systems and most of the water districts are under moratoriums. And under current economic conditions, the County could rezone the entire County to allow Malvina Reynolds style “little boxes” and multi-family “big boxes” (housing, that is) everywhere and given the dismal state of the local economy not a single unit of low income housing would be built anywhere. So the County will continue to be an easy mark for Legal Services.

PS. Also, Russian River Flood Control District Director Judy Hatch voted against censuring Lee Howard. The vote carried 3-2 with White and Zellman joining Shoemaker.

HERE THEY COME! Tuesday, April the first, the invasion of wetsuits. The open season for the imperiled mollusk will run from April 1 through June 30 with a one-month closure during July to give the resource a breather, the thinking goes, at a time of year when the abalone take has traditionally been high. The season resumes on Aug. 1 and runs through Nov. 30. Which is much too long because the red ab is just about fished out.

Free divers and shore pickers (16 years or older) must possess a valid sport fishing license as well as an Abalone Permit Report Card (also known as a “punch card”). The use of scuba is prohibited.

UKIAH AND THE PALACE HOTEL, the love that has no name. Both the City and the owner of the derelict property, out of necessity, are operating on the assumption that the building can be fully rehabbed and restored to at least a semblance of its old glory. If the City stops pretending, the City will have to take the building down, a process the City doesn't have the money to do.

THE OWNER of the property, Eladia Laines of San Rafael, about whom lots of people have been skeptical, wondering at first if she was even the legal owner of the place and then wondering if she had the money to restore the building, has turned out to be a real striver.

ASSUMING MS. LAINES has the money to restore the Palace, she's thwarted at every turn by vengeful contractors and, now, asbestos removal regulations. A vengeful contractor sicced CalOsha on the guy who got the clean-up job when he didn't get it, and now Laines has to find someone qualified to proceed with the job. “We've had four different walk-through bids for the work that is being required by OSHA, and those bids are due Friday,” Laines recently told the Ukiah City Council. “We are looking forward to getting past this and moving forward.”

THE BUILDING was red-tagged last month when that vengeful contractor snitched off the guy doing the work to the state.

LAINES, according to the Ukiah Daily Journal, said that she had learned who had complained to OSHA, describing the person as someone who had “criticized” her contractor when she first hired him, saying “he didn't deserve to be working on this project.”

LAINES went on to say that after the building was red-tagged, this person called her contractor's home (Norm Hudson) and “left threatening messages on his home phone that were totally inappropriate and unlawful.”

ONLY “trace amounts” of asbestos have been found on the sample taken by OSHA. But the matter was nevertheless turned over to the County's Air Quality office, and there it rests.

SO, here we have a woman trying to do a very good thing for a town badly in need of architectural uplift not only stymied by bureaucracy at every turn, but her contractor is threatened and she has to go out and find one with the right license to do the work. She must have money and the patience of the Buddha to persist as she has.

IF LOGGERS TRIED THIS…

To Whom it may concern;

Here is what I sent Michael Richardson (Humboldt County Planning) yesterday (email below), concerning the Mateel "Reggae on the River" approval from the Humboldt County Planning Commission on April 3rd 2014 in Eureka (see link below).

Maybe you have an opinion about Reggae on the River and what they are trying to incorporate in the watershed besides their 4 day music festival. I myself have never seen a commercial waste water leachfield system used in this scale below the ordinary high water mark or below the established line of vegetation of an Wild & Scenic River in California before, e.g., to treat an estimated 44,000 gallons of wastewater from a 4 day event. I also found out that the 37,000 gallons of wastewater the Mateel discharged last year in their onsite old and un-approved leachfields was not tested, so we have no idea.

If this was such a great idea, why don't all the little community services districts do the same thing along the river from their wastewater treatment plants?

It just seems to me, if someone really cared about the rivers and aquatic habitat, like the Mateel, why are they leaving this waste behind (out of sight, out of mind, leave no trace)? No one can say if this wastewater is getting into the groundwater or aquifer that could effect ESA, EFH or ESU species in the river, let alone humans. I cannot even begin to imagine what was in all that shower waste water from last year, and now you have 1000 more people being allowed to attend this 4 day event. Its just unbelievable.

It’s also weird that LACO would produce a report, without a written opinion (included in attachment)?

I mean, have you ever heard that from 10,500 people, no one ever cleaned up from urinating, defecating or vomiting in a shower from camping, drinking and partying for 4 straight days and nights before? I'm sure there was only the very minimum allowable safe limits of human bodily waste and excrement in that shower waste water from last year, right? And even more planned from this year.

How come no one else can fight this activity but me? The South Fork Eel River needs your help. Please write and say NO to leachfields in the South Fork Eel River!

Please send your reply to lisa.Bernard@waterboards.ca.gov; stormer.feiler@waterboards.ca.gov and matt.St.John@waterboards.ca.gov

Please pass this email along to other people or groups that want to help defend the South Fork Eel River and speak for the species that cannot speak for themselves.

Thanks, Ed Voice, Redway

https://co.humboldt.ca.us/planning/commission/2014/040314/final%20staff%20report_mateel_9027.pdf

From: Ed Voice
To: Richardson, Michael
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 9:33 PM
Subject: Fw: Mateel, Reggae on the River 2014

Michael,

Please note the email below. Nothing for Reggae on the River 2014 has been submitted to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWCB), as described below from Mr. Falcome at the NCRWCB. At what point would this happen? And since these new proposed temporary impacts had not been submitted to the NCRWCB, has anything been submitted to US Army Corps? To file for an 401, you need both and it comes with a 21 day public comment period as well.

Please see attachment. Why was this not included in the staff report. If it is approved by NCRWCB, it would also need an 401 for that activity. Which would also include US Army Corp approval and another 21 day public comment period.

And of course, there is the water issue, from the South Fork Eel River. How can the Mateel ask for more water, when the whole state is being asked to reduce their water consumption by 20%. And the Mateel is asking to increase the water for this 4 day event from 64,000 gallons to 96,000 gallons?

Thank you, Ed Voice, Redway

----- Original Message -----

From: Falcone, Gil@Waterboards
To: evoice@mchsi.com
Cc: Bargsten, Stephen@Waterboards
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 3:44 PM
Subject: Mateel, Reggae on the River 2014

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your interest and inquiry regarding the Mateel, Reggae on the River 2014 401 certification permitted activities. On 4/9/2013 the Regional Water Board issued a 401 water quality cert for the temporary impacts to waters due to annual installation and removal of two bridges.

This certification can be found here: http://water100.waterboards.ca.gov/rb1/water_quality_certifications/search_results.asp

We have not received a request to modify this certification. If the proposed additional grading on the river bar parking lots, installation of gravel berms or other activities that would impact waters of the state not permitted in the current certification will require request for amendment subject to review and approval by the Regional Water Board.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding this.

Thanks,

Gil
Gil Falcone, M.S.
Environmental Scientist
Non-Point Source / 401 Certification Unit
North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
5550 Skylane Blvd., Suite A
Santa Rosa, CA 95403-1072
Voice (707) 576-2830
Gil.Falcone@waterboards.ca.gov

SIGNS OF THE TIMES…

On March 26th at about 5:50 PM Ukiah Police responded to Marino’s Pizza, at 142 Talmage Road, for a disturbance involving a disruptive female refusing to leave. The officer began speaking with an employee to learn what happened, and observed the female suspect ask a bystander for a cigarette, then become angry and aggressive with the bystander. The officer had to detain the disorderly female in his vehicle to proceed with the investigation. The female had identified herself as 29 year old “Sarah Harrison,” and the officer learned Harrison tried to buy a slice of pizza but did not have enough money. Another customer bought Harrison the pizza, then Harrison requested dipping sauce and became enraged upon learning it would cost more money. Harrison threatened the employee and demanded the sauce be given to her for free, then spit at the employee and refused to leave after being asked to multiple times. Harrison then selected a pint of milk and opened it, and attempted to take it outside before being confronted by the employee. Harrison was again told to leave and finally did so, but continued to threaten the employee from outside and kicked over a table and again spit at the employee. Harrison then attempted to return to the restaurant, and when told the police were being called replied, “Good, I need a place to stay”. Harrison was arrested for trespassing.

EQUINE, the update: Chris Smith writes in the Press Democrat, "Mendocino beckons Michael Equine. He's the former drummer with Cat Mother, the band that curled up and purred on the Mendocino Coast after the wild ride of being cheated by a manager while opening for Jimi Hendrix on a national tour in 1968 and '69.

Our recent story shared that Equine is now 73, homeless and living in his car in Santa Rosa. He says he was deeply touched by what several readers did for him. One paid to get his guitar out of hock. Another brought him a brand new practice amp. Yet another slipped him five $10 bills. “It's a good feeling to be remembered,” he said. Equine also has fielded a few leads on possible affordable rentals, including one or two in Mendocino County. He lived there, on the coast, for a couple of decades but left, he said, because the woman he loved died and everything there reminded him of her. He's feeling that he's probably ready to be again in Mendo, most likely to live out his days there. He figures, “My golden years shouldn't be me lying motionless in the back of my Jeep.”

THIS IS GROUND CONTROL

to Major Tom

You’ve really made the grade

And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

Now it’s time to leave the capsule

if you dare

This is Major Tom to Ground Control

I’m stepping through the door

And I’m floating

in a most peculiar way

And the stars look very different today

— David Bowie, “Space Oddity”

HOW TO IMPROVE LOCAL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Letter to the Editor,

“What an Effective Mental Health System Looks Like” was a recent Wellness Center Health Forum sponsored by the Mendocino Coast District Hospital. Sixty people came together and half signed up to meet again and get on our Supervisors Agenda to ask for Mental Health Services. If three supervisors declare that County Mental Health and Ortner Management Group must use federal and state funds for mental health patients in accordance with Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) 5600.4; California Code of Regulations (CCR) Title 9 Rehabilitative and Developmental Services, Chapter 11 Medi-Cal Specialty Mental Health Services; then our County Mental Health Services will be effective and in compliance with State and Federal laws.

For $27 million annually, Mendocino County can have: 24/7 Pre-Crisis and Crisis Services, 24/7 Crisis Residential Treatment Services with stays up to 30 days, Medication Education and Management, Rehabilitation and Support Services, Vocational and Residential Services. We can also have a Mobile Unit to take some of these services to outlying areas, collaborating with Health Clinics, Family Resource Centers, and other spaces for possible shared office use times. IMAGINE how this would transform the world of mental health patients, their families and friends, and so many others in our communities; and also our hospitals and law enforcement.

Call me at 937-3339 if you want to work with us.

Sonya Nesch, Author of ‘Advocating for Someone with a Mental Illness’ – Comptche

ON LINE QUESTION OF THE DAY

Corporatism is the corruption of capitalism. There would not be such a thing as corporatism without the willing cooperation of our governing bodies. The revolving door that exists between the regulating agencies of our government and high paying corporate positions is ludicrous. The same agencies that are supposed to be looking out for the interests of all Americans are chock full of former corporate lawyers and management types that are now tasked with regulating, for the public good, the same industries that once payed them handsome salaries. How can we really trust the EPA, FDA, FERC, FRS or the plethora of other alphabet agencies appointed by our government to do whats right in the interest of the public good when they have one hand in the pocket of their corporate masters?

DURAND WANTS TO KNOW!

Property Management

Way was or is the lawful River Garden Apartments tenant ( Durand Evan) and or River Garden Apartments unit # 48 lawful visitors refused and or in other ways not permitted, by River Garden Apartments Property Management to have a lawful State of California registered gun on River Garden Apartments property ? Why was I ( Durand Evan tenant of River Garden Apartments # 48 ) refused or in other ways obstructed, harassed; or not permitted to have a properly registered "motorcycle" on River Garden Apartments property " Why was I or my disabled person visitors scooter prohibited from safely parking our property in a 6 x 12 safety accommodation trailer, regardless of having previously being given written consent so as to safely keep personal disabled person access transportation motorcycle and or a visitors scooter safe, from access by gay hating community drug gangs ; discriminatory vandals etc. (vanadium damage) and safe from weather damage and or safe from other environmental element s careless driver damage etc? Why were City of Fort Bragg gay or disabled war veteran visitors or other gay friendly visitors prevented from having safely parking accommodations by allowing Durand Evan to reasonably protect disabled person motorized scooter access vehicles as could have reasonably parked in a safety parking enclosure while they are transferred into a transport van for near by forestland's outings, fishing outings or participating in a GAY tenant event on the River Garden Apartments common grounds ? Why was Durand Evan prevented from reasonably respecting and accommodating the safety needs or visitors and the associated safty of tenant and visitor property of gay disabled or or Elderly mobility challenged fronds etc, Why is Durand Evan not alowed to provide needed safe enclosed disabled person parking accommodations, during rainy days etc as could be safely and reasonably provided to visitors etc.by the disabled gay resident ?

Sincerely, Durand Evan
421 South Street # 48
Fort Bragg Ca. 95437
HUD Reference No. # 09-14-0346-8

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9szax4vSyM
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVXHopuUVk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1tbvbv52-w
• http://www.dmv.org/insurance/comprehensive-physical-damage-insurance-for-motorcycles.php

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY

“I was recently down south in Palm Springs and Indian Wells, and you'd never know California is in a ‘drought state of emergency’ as declared by Governor Brown. Bright-green gold courses glowing in the desert; artificial ponds overflowing with water; fountains spraying 20 feet into the air; gushing waterfalls; water running down the sides of the streets. Meanwhile, we in the north are not flushing and are letting our gardens die. Is this fair?" (Mike Sherwood, Oakland)

FINAL DEFENDANT SENTENCED IN HUMBOLDT/SOUTH DAKOTA MARIJUANA CASE

by Kym Kemp (Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

On Monday, March 24, 2014, Jaymar Adams, the last defendant in a case involving Humboldt marijuana being transported to South Dakota, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $50,000.

The Lost Coast Outpost has been following this story since July 18, 2012, when a convoy of law enforcement vehicles arrived at Adam’s Southern Humboldt property early in the morning. Multiple places were raided at the time, including homes in Bayside and Petrolia. Former South Dakota residents and musicians Brett and Sean McFarland were also arrested and charged. Samuel Pfeifle and Pfeifle’s sister, Georgia, were convicted on related charges, as were Brandon Newell and Travis Jellis. All had South Dakota ties.

A Grower’s Life

Recently, a LoCO reader pointed out a court document provided by Adams’ fellow defendant Brett McFarland. The entire piece (see below) provides an almost unprecedented look into the mind and behavior of a marijuana grower in this area.

Though undoubtedly written with an eye towards making McFarland look sympathetic in the eyes of the court, the document is worth studying for its detailed description of the life of a grower. Also: because it was submitted to the court, McFarland must have felt comfortable that attempts to verify the information presented there would not show him to be untruthful.

McFarland’s plain writing style, clear details and lack of sensationalism gives the reader a clear look at what he perceived his life to be.

From childhood to arrest, this documents much of a grower’s life.

McFarland talks about moving to Arcata to attend HSU and becoming a medical marijuana patient, then beginning to grow for others. He gives an overview of how he farmed marijuana, with outdoor and indoor gardens. He also talks a bit about the sales piece of the business. An interesting point is how marijuana is sent out on speculation and doesn’t always yield money to the grower.

In the piece McFarland describes his brother’s collapse from Crohn’s Disease and how marijuana eased the symptoms. He also tells of the death of a medical marijuana patient after McFarland was no longer able to provide any medicine after his arrest.

McFarland wraps up his document with a description of what he has been doing since the arrest. The entire piece takes ten minutes or so to read, but offers a much clearer picture of what life is like for at least this marijuana grower.

Brett McFarland’s story:

(This is presented as it was presented to court. No changes have been made.)

My name is Brett McFarland. I was born to Mike and Gayle McFarland on October 28th, 1984 in Sioux Falls SD. My father was a high ranking officer in the United States Army and my mother worked nights as a pediatrics intensive care unit nurse. I have a large extended family in South Dakota and Minnesota; however I spent much of my adolescence living on or near different military installations around the USA. During that time I would often return to my grandparent’s farm in Minnesota in the summers where I bucked hay, picked sweet corn, and did farm chores. When I was fifteen years old my dad was just getting back from a seven month stay in Saudi Arabia and he received an assignment a little out of the norm to teach military history and ROTC at the University of South Dakota. We moved from where we were stationed in Fort Carson, Colorado to a farm south of Beresford, South Dakota. There I attended High School and labored for half a dozen neighbors doing every kind of farm work imaginable. I also spent a full summer helping a neighbor build a home from the ground up. I learned a lot about farm life, the value of hard work, and the importance of self-­‐discipline.

After finishing High School I convinced my brother Sean to move to Brookings, South Dakota, where we attended SDSU to study Horticulture. I went to school full time, worked 20 hours a week, and still managed to get high marks. By the spring of my freshman year I secured four acres of land for high-­‐ intensity organic row crop vegetable production as part of a joint business and research venture in connection with SDSU. My brother and I planted something like 2,700 tomatoes, 9,000 peppers, 6,000 cabbage broccoli and cauliflower, an acre of melons, almost an acre of squash and a variety of other vegetables. We worked together to grow, harvest, and distribute a mountain of food. We sold to Hyvee and other grocery stores, restaurants, farmers markets, and distribution companies. I worked well over 100 hours a week that summer. It was very difficult and in the end an early frost severely damaged our crops and our income. We didn’t make much money that summer, but I learned precisely what I was capable of.

In January of 2005, at the age of twenty and not knowing a single person in California, I made the move to Arcata where I attended Humboldt State University, studying Horticulture. That spring I started another truck farm. I leased ground from a Portuguese farmer named Manuel Morrias, both in an area known as the “bottoms” in Arcata and also 7 miles inland in the Mad River Valley near the town of Blue Lake. I again sold my produce to grocery stores and restaurants, and at the Arcata Farmers Market which is attended by as many as 6,000 people on an average Saturday in the summer and fall.

During the first year I lived in California I noticed a very relaxed attitude towards marijuana and learned that since 1996 the plant had been legalized for medicinal use and was being widely prescribed, grown and used for medical use. I had suffered for years from migraines and chronic back pains, (medically documented) and had struggled to find relief so I saw a doctor there and he prescribed me medical cannabis and gave me a permit to grow it. Being a farmer and growing so much already it seemed perfectly natural to grow a few pot plants and that is exactly what I did.

I bought two dozen plants over the counter from a licensed marijuana dispensary in Ukiah and planted them that spring. I This was my entry into the world of marijuana in Northern California. A great deal of the marijuana I grew over the next several years did stay in California and, to the best of my ability, was in used in accordance with the law there. However, over time a lot of it did leave the state, winding up in South Dakota and elsewhere. It was a lapse in judgment on my part and I regret it deeply. I never meant to hurt anyone and I can say with one hundred percent honesty that I never ever used guns or violence associated with my crime and I never intended to.

Slowly but surely marijuana growing became so laissez faire that I made exceptions to only growing for state legal medical purposes, and sold marijuana to people who ultimately took out of the state. I became complacent in my distribution of the pot and don’t think I even realized how serious of an offense I was committing. I am now deeply sorry and I wish I had taken much greater care with my actions.

At this point many of the details of my early involvement are hazy, due to the passage of time and, quite frankly, because we were smoking a fair amount of pot at the time. I recall that in the late summer of 2005 I met John (Jonathan) Linton, who approached me while I was on a tractor cultivating a field of broccoli. He was looking to rent an open room in the house. John moved in to a studio unit attached to the farmhouse I lived in. He was attending HSU and we quickly became friends. John came to figure in my story as it relates to marijuana cultivation and distribution.

But late that August the tragic hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans and surrounding communities. I heard of the devastation and of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced in the aftermath. Shortly there-­‐after my friend Woody from down the street told me he was working with an organization called Pastors for Peace to collect, transport and distribute truckloads of aid to the south and they needed another person. At first I resigned I couldn’t go due to my work and responsibilities on the farm but when I went to bed that night I couldn’t sleep thinking about all the people who lost their homes and loved ones. I found someone to take care of most of my responsibilities and Jonathan volunteered to move irrigation pipe as needed to support the cause.

We canned 300 quarts of pickles from the farm and packed hundreds of pounds of potatoes and onions. We then headed to San Francisco where we picked up donated medical supplies, clothes and bottled water and headed to the south. Around the first week in September we rendezvoused in Jackson, Mississippi with about a dozen other box trucks and school buses from around the country. I spent the next few weeks unloading and organizing aid in various communities in the muggy south.

A month later I returned home to California and resumed work on the farm. The squash was ripe and so was the marijuana. I harvested and trimmed the cannabis in the evenings after work on the farm. Jonathon saw me working on drying and trimming the pot and offered to help. For a couple of weeks we trimmed the pot in the evenings. There is plenty of time to get to know someone’s story when you are sitting around trimming. Jonathon told me a lot about himself in those early evenings sitting around manicuring the pot. He was Canadian but had lived most of his life in Michigan, as his dad worked in the auto industry there. He informed me that Michigan also had legal medical marijuana but due to the climate there it was harder to produce.

Our harvest had been good and we had more than we needed. I realized that marijuana produced in Northern California was actually in demand elsewhere. So when Jonathon offered to take the marijuana to Michigan and sell it to some people that he knew in the medical marijuana industry there, I agreed to take him up on the offer and sometime that fall he took the pot. We planned to meet up on his way back from Michigan while I was visiting my family in South Dakota. We met as planned, but he informed me that one of his friends who he had given half the pot to, about six or seven pounds, had refused to pay him for the pot, saying that he gave it to some people on credit and they failed to pay him. I never fully believed John but he was my friend and there was no way to know for sure.

The money I did receive I used the following year to buy potting soil, nutrients, bamboo stakes and things necessary to grow marijuana.There are some crops like lettuce and broccoli that can be grown almost year round so I continued to work part time on the farm that winter. In addition I sold thousands of pounds of winter squash that I had harvested in the fall and stored in one of Manuel Morrias’s barns, and I started doing freelance construction. People in California are often taken aback by the Mid-Western work ethic and I found more work than I could ever do.

In the spring of 2006 while visiting a friend’s farm out in the Mattole river watershed I noticed a property for sale. It took considerable effort but I was able to borrow almost 95% of the money I needed to buy forty acres of raw land near Ettersberg. The place was trashed and had been for years. The main entrance and building site literally looked like a burned down junkyard. It was perfect.

My intention from day one was to clean the place up, improve it and sell it. That first summer I worked out there on the weekends cleaning the place up and cutting firewood. I planted twenty pot plants. The law in Humboldt County at that time, as I understood it, permitted me to grow up to 99 plants with just my 215 medical cannabis recommendation alone, so felt like what I was doing was ok under California law.

Because I was not there every day, however, the plants became water stressed late in the season and while the quality of the marijuana was excellent the yield was less than expected. To the best of my memory my yield was somewhere around 12 or 15 pounds of marijuana. I also planted marijuana plants in my backyard and, randomly, around the ranch where I was living. These plants yielded additional pounds. This time I did not give the cannabis to Jonathon. I stored most of it for quite a while, getting a little out here and there as I needed it. I shared the pot freely with my friends most of whom had their 215 cards and occasionally I sold a bit here and there to help pay for expenses.

Sometime in 2007 I started dating Sh[redacted]. She soon moved in to the cabin where I was living and we took care of each other. She often helped with a variety of the work including tending the marijuana. Sh[redacted], like many people in CA, also had a 215 medicinal cannabis recommendation.

By this point a few people in CA had approached me wanting access to medical marijuana. A number of people requested that we grow for them, and a man with Multiple Sclerosis who lived near Santa Ana asked me to grow for his medical collective. I was shown a stack of paperwork including remarks about growing medicinal pot from his attorney, a number of pieces of legislation pertaining to 215 laws and a stack of over 200 medical cannabis recommendations which made up the members of the collective. I agreed to grow for the collective and I was given a legal document and a binder of the 215s that I was to leave at the garden. So that year I built a greenhouse and planted 40 or 50 plants.

I continued to work doing construction and selling many truckloads of Madrone fire wood and on weekends I worked on the property cleaning up junk and caring for the garden. I had set the garden up on drip irrigation and the harvest went well that year. I think we harvested somewhere around 40 lbs. Then my brother Sean collapsed in a stairwell in SDSU that year from internal bleeding and was diagnosed with a serious auto-­‐immune disease known as Crones Disease. He was in rough shape for a while, but after six months or so the intensity of the initial flare up lessened. Still he remained in considerable discomfort and he told me that marijuana gave him relief. I researched the matter online and found a plethora of information regarding the medicinal benefits of cannabis for people with Crones Disease.

Over the years my brother visited me frequently and on one such visit he saw a licensed California medical doctor who prescribed him pot. When he came to visit me I provided him with marijuana on many occasions. He was very grateful and I even witnessed how the marijuana provided him with relief.

In March of 2008 I found a house on two acres that I wanted to rehab on Fickle Hill Road near Arcata CA. This was right before the real-estate crash hit hard and lending regulations tightened up. I was able to get a Freddie Mac/ Fanny Mae loan for 100 percent financing. Sh[redacted] and I moved in to the house on fickle hill and began to improve it. We replaced the roof, fixed the deck and did some painting. We also set up six 600 watt HID lights to start the marijuana plants destined for the outdoors.

We did not grow any marijuana to maturation at the Fickle Hill residence that year. The garage was used simply to start the plants that were needed for the greenhouse on a property near Ettersberg, sometimes referred to King’s Peak.

I continued improving the Ettersberg property throughout the Spring of 2008 and started the construction of a modest home and workshop there. I again planted the greenhouse with marijuana, as I had done the previous year. Many years have since passed and I don’t remember the specifics, but I think that harvest was slightly more than the previous year. By then I had become the sole supplier of marijuana to a number of seriously ill people, including a women by the name of Teresa Sims [No relation to the LoCO editor.]

When I had started providing her with marijuana, she had just been diagnosed with bladder cancer for the 2nd time. I knew Teresa from the bank and she was also a member of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) I ran where people paid me $500 to $700 in advance for a year’s share in my farm’s vegetables. I in-turn provided them with a box of fresh veggies every week for the entire season of the farm. One day she approached me at the farmstand to ask if I knew anyone who could help her get medical marijuana. At that time she had been through chemo and needed relief. She had been prescribed marijuana by a California medical doctor and had her 215 license, however because she was a public figure who not only worked at a bank but also headed rotary and organized with CASA (court appointed special advocate), she did not want people to see her going in one of the many collective medical marijuana pot dispensaries in our area.

I found situations like this to be very common, where sick people get desperate so they try marijuana, something they maybe would not have tried otherwise, and find relief. Because marijuana is looked down on by some they want to keep it on the down low. For this reason I provided marijuana directly to a number of people often along with fresh fruits and vegetables and other goods I produced on the farm. Another example was my friend Gorge Keltner. He was 79 when I started providing medicine for him and his wife Shirley. He and his wife both had cancer and he told me that they both truthfully received relief from marijuana, but for most of his life it was something he considered immoral and downright bad. Gorge and Shirley have both since passed away. After my arrest in January of 2013 I told Gorge I could no longer supply him with marijuana. He suffered and I continued to pay him frequent visits and was with him the night he passed away this last June at the age of 84.

In the spring of 2009, Sh[redacted] discovered what she always referred to as her dream place, 82 acres of land with over a hundred and fifty mature established fruit trees, a very modest home, and a barn near the town of Petrolia. The place is often referred to as the Conklin Creek property. With help from Sh[redacted]’s mother this property was aquired, with the understanding that it was Sh[redacted]’s special place. I agreed to help her build a greenhouse for the purpose of growing marijuana and also to help manage the orchards and the vineyard and to finish the house and more fully develop the property. I was attending school at Humboldt State University, so I was only able to help out here and there. Sh[redacted] was living full time at Conklin Creek during the spring, summer and fall. During our relationship we considered ourselves partners in life and in everything else we were involved in, including the marijuana grows.

After the fall harvest season in 2009 Sh[redacted] moved back from the Conklin creek property to live with me at the Fickle Hill residence. In January of 2010 I started a crop of marijuana in the garage at Fickle Hill and shortly thereafter built two small greenhouses in the side yard. We planted the greenhouses but were completely unable to produce any amount of usable marijuana because the costal climate near Arcata is unsuitable for growing marijuana outside. The cold wet nights caused all of the marijuana to rot in the green houses and we subsequently stopped growing marijuana in the greenhouses there and utilized them entirely for vegetable and cut flower production from that moment forward.

Sometime in 2009 we started growing flowering marijuana inside a portion of the garage at the Fickle Hill residence. Growing marijuana indoors allows the ability to precisely control the growing environment so the quality is often unsurpassed. The cannabis we harvested from the garage that first time was exceptionally good and I decided to add a couple more lights and do it again. We would use the garage in late winter to start plants for Conklin creek and then we would flower a crop before the summer heat made growing in a garage impossible.

In summary the garage at Fickle Hill was used mostly to start plants for Conklin Creek, however we did grow a number of crops to harvest. In total my guess would be somewhere around 10 or 15 lbs a year, for two years.

In 2009 and 2010 California saw a huge crash in the price of marijuana due to unprecedented production statewide. Everywhere people who grew pot were deciding to grow more. We were no exception. We made an addition to one of the greenhouses at Conklin Creek and planted more plants in 2010. We continued to distribute the marijuana in California and people who needed pot continued to come to us. Humboldt is kind of a marijuana hub and frequently people from medical dispensaries in the highly populated areas in and around San Francisco and LA will come to Humboldt to procure the pot they need for their dispensaries. The local coffee shops are all networking places for these people and if I ever had more cannabis than we needed I would simply go spend an afternoon at one of half dozen coffee shops and meet whoever was in town that day.

Around this same time Jonathan Grant Linton lived with me off and on. He moved around a lot and would just show up one day and be gone the next. He liked to travel… Canada, Mexico, Columbia, South Dakota…You name it. I don’t recall the specifics but I sold him marijuana a number of times over the years. We were friends. Ultimately I worried that he was being reckless and it became apparent to me that he had started abusing hard drugs. I cut off all business with him sometime around 2009 but continued to be his friend and spent time with him whenever he was in town. We enjoyed hiking in the Redwood Forest and exploring the Northern Coast together. A good while after I had cut off all dealings with him in regards to marijuana he was bragging to me about how well he was doing with his marijuana business. He told me he had set up a sold network in the Midwest in both South Dakota and in Minnesota primarily with people in Minneapolis and Mankato. He attributed much of his success to what he referred to as “incredibly cheap dank weed” which he was getting out of Trinity County. He maintained one residence in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and one residence in Arcata, California near Humboldt State University. He made frequent trips to California to purchase marijuana all the way up until the time of his arrest. I rarely saw the people he purchased the pot from but if I visited him at his house in Arcata he almost inevitably showed me the pot he was buying and I witnessed larger quantities of marijuana in the house on a number of occasions.

In 2011 I met a friend of a friend at BBQ in Arcata. The tall wiry brown haired man introduced himself as Dan Carlon from South Dakota. He had been living in the area for a couple years and he told me about working on several different pot farms in the area. This sort of thing is a common, everyday occurrence on the West Coast. In fact the marijuana industry is so prominent that while driving on our highways you see billboard after billboard advertising grow nutrients. There seems to be a garden store on every other corner and if you turn on the radio you are sure to be bombarded with radio adds selling every trimming and growing gismo and gadget on the planet. Dan had friends in Colorado and we talked for a while about the medical marijuana industry that was thriving there. Sometime later Dan called me and wanted to meet up at his place for a cup of tea. He asked me if I would be willing to sell him four pounds of marijuana. I agreed. He told me he intended to take the marijuana back to South Dakota. I told him I didn’t want to know about that, that I sold “medical marijuana.” I gave him the pot anyway knowing full well he would likely leave the state with it. I guess I wanted to pretend ignorance is bliss. It turns out ignorance is not bliss, it’s just plain ignorant. I later gave Dan an additional 4 lbs. or so on credit. We didn’t talk about what he was going to do with it and I pretended like it was any other medical pot transaction. He never paid me for the marijuana.

In recalling these things I am not trying to avoid responsibility for my involvement in unlawful pot distribution, or to shift the blame to Jonathan or Dan, or anyone else. Nor am I singling them out because they later cooperated with the government and gave statements implicating me and others. The fact is that I knew what we were doing, and am fully responsible for the actions I took.

Others close to me, most notably my brother Sean, became involved, growing pot in California for distribution in South Dakota. Jamar Adams, also from South Dakota, had California grows for distribution elsewhere, includingop South Dakota. Of course I knew other individuals who got involved in pot growing in Northern California, since this activity was so prevalent and so seemingly “normal. ” But I am trying to concentrate this statement on my offense conduct, neither protecting nor unnecessarily implicating people who were not directly involved in it.

In the spring Sh[redacted] and I separated. She had an affair with To[redacted] two and a half weeks before our wedding was set to happen and that settled that. We started the delicate process of untangling a life that had been as cooperative as any marriage. We had to divide numerous personal possessions as well a number of assets. She insisted on keeping the farm in Petrolia, “it was always her dream” she told me and she, “would continue living there.” I was to keep Fickle Hill and I moved on to a construction-based work load in Arcata. I bought a place at 1171 old Arcata Rd. in Arcata. The place, like most of my projects, was nothing short of trashed. I removed more than twenty thousand pounds of scrap iron and even more refuse. I fixed up the main farmhouse using piles of old growth redwood which I recycled from deconstructing old barns. When that was finished I gutted an old building on the same property and transformed it into another beautiful home which is now known as 1149 Old Arcata Rd.

Sometime in the middle of the renovation Sh[redacted] called me and told me she and To[redacted] were going to move and sell the place. It seemed to me like a bad time to sell because real estate values were still down from the crash. I figured that waiting a year or two and fixing a few key things could really make the property worth more. But she and To[redacted] wanted to move on and at some point I agreed to buy out her share of the equity in the Conklin Creek property. I started to do this but did not complete the process before she and To[redacted] moved out. They promptly bought a place in Happy Camp to grow weed and moved there to tend the garden.

I continued to acquire rundown properties in Arcata for cents on the dollar, fix them up and rent them out.

One day in July of 2012 I received a phone call from my brother Sean and he told me that law enforcement had been to his property on Lighthouse Road and he was pretty freaked out. He told me it was the worst day of his life. I was doing construction in Arcata that day and I made arrangements to make the two hour drive to Petrolia and pick him up. My sister Jenna and I went to pick him up and we arrived after dark. We talked for quite a while and then started the drive back to Arcata where he planned to find a lawyer the following day. I dropped them both off at my sister’s house on Groetzman around 2:30am and went to bed. We didn’t know it at the time but he had already been indicted on federal drug charges and had a warrant out for his arrest.

My brother was arrested the following sunrise at my sister’s house when police served a search warrant for the residence in connection with her boyfriend Jaymar Adams. I called Sh[redacted]that day and told her what had happened to my brother. She showed up to the coast the next day and told me her and To[redacted] were very scared. She said they cut down every marijuana plant on the property and “cleaned the place out.”

Since the time of my arrest I have had absolutely nothing to do with marijuana, medical or otherwise. In the year and a half since my brothers arrest I personally rebuilt 4 houses and fully gutted and remodeled 11 studio units in Arcata. On top of that I raise cattle, manage a ranch, and sell at the prestigious Arcata farmers market on the town square all day every Saturday. My sisters live in the area and I love them deeply. I enjoy spending time with them when ever time allows. I work hard and put my heart in to whatever I do.

I made a huge mistake and I will not make it again. When my case is adjudicated in what ever fashion it is, I vow to continue to do my very best to make food and shelter for my community and provide for the needs of the people. I will respect the laws of the United States America.

LUNCH WITH DEAD DOG

by Bruce McEwen

As of March 18th, the County of Mendocino has taken in $2,618,806.41 in dope fines. The idea is to trade drug cash for misdemeanors and probation. This way, the thinking goes, local taxpayers are not only spared the huge expense of running the pot brigades through the court system, the County of Mendocino makes a few bucks by fining growers, then marking them down as misdemeanor offenders and putting them on probation. If they do it again, penalties are much more severe. The DA's strategy here is unique in the state and, so far as we know, unique in the country.

11470.2 is the section of the California Health & Safety Code which states, in essence, that the DA has a right to demand restitution for the cost of making expen­sive busts — not to mention the overwhelming burden of pursuing the bustees through the courts. That's the legal foundation to which the DA's cash for misdemeanors program is pegged.

But a group of local citizens — who for now insist on anonymity — insist that the DA’s program is morally wrong, patently unfair, and highly illegal. The goal of these anons is to get District Attorney David Eyster and Sheriff Tom Allman arrested, prosecuted and even pillo­ried on the courthouse lawn. The anons think rich mari­juana growers are getting off scot-free, while “the poor hippies” are taking it in the shorts.

At least one of the departments the pot loot is dis­persed to agrees that the marijuana booty is tainted, and holds the money in a special account against the day DA Eyster and Sheriff Allman come to grief, and the money must be accounted for.

The anonymous group is highly motivated — zeal­ous, even — but none of them want to risk their own government jobs by speaking out publicly against the DA and the Sheriff.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that one of the anons agreed to step out of obscurity. This was Christopher Brennan, a rancher and government trapper from Lay­tonville, a vivid character who, in modern therapy lingo, could be described as “a polarizing figure.”

“I’m doing this as a private citizen,” Mr. Brennan insisted. “My job has nothing to do with it.”

“Okay, fine. Bring your files and meet me for lunch at Romi’s Brews and Barbecue on Perkins Street in Ukiah.”

As I waited, I asked my waitress, Megan Morales, a former Laytonville Rodeo Queen, if she knew Chris Brennan.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “He shot my friend’s dog. They have a name for him in Laytonville… something about all the dogs he shoots… I don’t remember just what it is, but he shoots a lot of dogs.”

As a government trapper, that would be part of Bren­nan's job, shooting dogs that get after livestock. Feral dogs are a big problem in the more anarchic sectors of vast Mendocino County, especially in the outlaw neigh­borhoods north and east of Laytonville. Pot growers bring in pitbulls to guard their gardens then abandon the animals after they bring in the crop. Brennan isn't shooting household pets, but he is widely known as Dead Dog Brennan. And he has plenty of critics.

I asked Matt Hilton, a Romi’s regular who works for Mendocino County Search & Rescue, if he knew Chris Brennan.

“Oh, yeah, I know him. All too well. He tried to take over the Hunter Safety course I was teaching. I had to ask him to leave.”

Brennan, to be sure, is a strong-willed individual.

I asked another frequent customer at Romi’s, Craig Bartow, a Willits stock farmer and Ukiah vineyard man­ager, about Brennan.

“Oh, you mean Dead Dog! Dead Dog Brennan, they call him, a real piece of work. He has some coyote snares on my grandma’s place and she’s getting tired of him ‘losing’ all her keys to the gate.”

“What I do for a living doesn’t make me very popu­lar,” Brennan concedes.

Brennan begged out of our first meeting, saying he had to take his kids on a pig hunt that day.

“I want to raise my kids as rednecks,” he explained over the phone. “That’s what got me involved in this whole thing. My wife left me for a pot grower, and I don’t want my kids around that kind of thing.”

When the new boyfriend, Erin Gamble, got off with a misdemeanor under the 11470.2 program, Brennan joined the anonymous group of critics of the DA's strat­egy, and made up his mind he’d be the one to come out in the open.

Brennan told me about unhappy encounters with DA Eyster and Sheriff Allman.

“Tom Allman called me up one night and said, ‘How dare you call me corrupt?’ I just laughed, and I’ve been escorted out of the DA’s office at gunpoint!”

When we met for lunch, we had the counter to our­selves, and it wasn’t long before Brennan had every inch of it covered with paperwork.

“Now, this is our main case, right here,” he said, showing me copies of the Kyle Stornetta file. “You are not going to believe what happened to this guy — have you heard of Stornetta?”

“Yes. I wrote an article on him, last year.”

“No. But look what this guy got away with…”

“I know what happened to Stornetta.”

“The guy had 18 steelhead trout in his freezer.”

“Yes, and he served 45 days in jail for poaching and was heavily fined, not to mention $500 in restitution to the Fish & Game.”

“He’s our main guy. We’ll have the transcript from the Ten Mile Court pretty soon; our lawyer’s working on it.”

“Who’s your lawyer?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“That’s okay, Chris, I can guess.”

“Huh?”

“Well, Chris, I can speculate with moderate accuracy, that most of your group is made up of disgruntled law enforcement officers; and we all know who ran against Eyster on an uncompromisingly pro-law enforcement platform, don’t we?”

“Iceman — not Eyster. I call him Iceman,” Brennan said, changing the subject.

My speculations about who the anonymous group con­sisted of were enhanced, if not corroborated, by the names on the police reports and search warrants Brennan had with him. These things can be tricky for anyone but a defendant to get hold of — but of course the officers themselves would have access to their own reports and warrants.

Brennan showed me some more of the files on grow­ers who had had their charges reduced to misdemeanors through the 11470.2 program, many of whom I was familiar with.

“Chris, I know most of these cases — show me some more of the ‘poor hippies’ who got screwed over because they didn’t have the money to pay.”

“Here’s a great one you probably never heard about,” he said, producing a file on Kim LaValle. “Just look at this!”

“Chris, I sat through Ms. LaValle’s trial and wrote about it in the paper — did you read my story?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter. She was poor, couldn’t afford to pay the Iceman, so she got the book thrown at her for a measly eight pounds!”

I pointed out that her lawyer’s fees alone would have come to perhaps as much as ten times the amount of the 11470.2 restitution fee Kim LaValle was offered. Bren­nan seemed not to hear.

“I’m surprised,” I added, “that you didn’t at least bother to read my articles on Stornetta and LaValle. Show me another one of these ‘poor hippies’ who got screwed.”

Brennan swallowed hard and dug out the file on Cody Bass. I licked the barbecue sauce off my fingers and thumbed through it. It appeared that Mr. Bass and some other throwback counter-culturalists were popped back when Meredith Lintott was DA. In those days, everybody the cops could round up — trimmers and all — were charged with felonies for cultivation and posses­sion for sale. The trimmers were assigned public defend­ers but Bass hired E.D. Lerman, who got him what was considered a pretty good deal at the time; he would lose his weed and weapons, pay his fines, go on probation and do some community service.

But Bass apparently decided to blow off the commu­nity service, and instead filed suit (on February 8^th, 2010) against the county and, specifically, Peter Hoyle, legen­dary nemesis of NorCal stoners, for seizing and destroying his several hundred plants. Bass put his Hoyle Experience (aka, the marijuana value) at $1,200,000.

In the meantime, a warrant was issued for Bass because he hadn’t done his community service, which put him in violation of his probation. When the officers came to pick him up they found he had another large grow going. This time, with Tony Serra representing him, Bass claimed his new bust was in retaliation for Bass's lawsuit.

But Deputy DA Katherine Houston established that she wasn’t even aware of the civil suit being filed, and only learned about it when Serra filed his motion to dis­miss on the grounds of a vindictive prosecution. At this point (August 2011) DA Eyster stepped in and took over the case. Brennan’s paperwork ended there, so I don’t know what eventually happened to the “poor hippy” Cody Lee Bass.

But it became obvious to me that Brennan and the anon group were not as concerned with the fate of poor hippies as they professed. To my mind, the poor hippies were the trimmers, and they were certainly getting a much better shake (sic) under Eyster than they ever had previously. The anonymous group, I strongly suspected, was made up of the task force officers who resented seeing their catches get off the hook by writing a check, then going right back out to start another grow cycle. The cop's ire is understandable. But the courts and the prisons are full and the Governor is under a federal man­date to thin out the “incarcerated community.”

Brennan must have noticed I was losing interest, because he then pulled out his masterpiece, the case that inspired much of his fervor, the case against the man who'd run off with his wife, Erin Gamble. This case had everything, Brennan assured me — water diversion, pot for sale, a vial of liquid LSD, pages of blotter acid, and sandwich bags full of ecstasy. Big wads of mystery cash, too. But lunchtime was over and I had to go. I took the box of materials and told Dead Dog I would go through them.

DD's parting shot was aimed at Sheriff Allman. He sneered at a recent Fred Sternkopf cartoon in the AVA whose caption read, “Beware pot growing water thieves, Sheriff Allman is coming after you!”

Brennan said it was a joke.

When I examined the file on Lover Boy Gamble I noted that he had been fined for his water theft and that the LSD and ecstasy had been found at Gamble’s brother’s residence. Brennan had already told me several times that his chief interest in the 11470.2 program was fueled by his desire to get full custody of his children. A police search of his ex’s residence turned up nothing, not even the pot for which she has a Prop 215 card. So she was let go. Gamble paid his water diversion fine, his 11470.2 restitution, forfeited his weed, a hefty stack of US currency, a vehicle, and was put on probation, just like any everyone else, “poor hippy” or otherwise.

POLICE CALLS AS OF SUNDAY MORNING

CHIRPING NOISE -- Caller in the 700 block of East Gobbi Street reported at 4:10 a.m. Tuesday hearing a "loud chirping noise" inside. An officer responded and determined the noise was coming from a carbon monoxide detector that needed to be reset.

SHOPLIFTER -- Caller at Safeway on South State Street reported at 5:07 a.m. Tuesday that a man with a goatee wearing a black trench coat who was a known shoplifter had just left. An officer responded but the man was gone.

GRAFFITI -- Caller at the Ukiah Skate Park reported at 7:07 a.m. Tuesday finding graffiti in the bathroom. An officer responded and took a report.

PEOPLE CAMPING AND DRINKING -- Caller in the 300 block of South School Street reported at 7:24 a.m. Tuesday that a couple was camping and drinking alcohol. An officer responded but did not observe any crime.

WIFE HARMING HERSELF -- Caller in the 1100 block of Mulberry Street reported at 8:31 a.m. Tuesday that his wife had been harming herself and requested help, then hung up. The wife then called and stated that she was not harming herself.

PROWLER -- Caller in the 1000 block of Helen Avenue reported at 9:55 a.m. Tuesday that a young man was at his shed and had taken something, described him as bald, wearing gold earrings and carrying a duffel bag. An ofifcer responded but no prosecution was desired.

TRANSIENTS -- Caller in the 1200 block of Airport Park Boulevard reported at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday that about six transients were refusing to leave and their dogs were fighting. An officer responded and the group left upon request. At 10:41 a.m., a caller reported that six transients with four dogs were smoking drugs. An officer responded and the group left.

GROUP IN CREEK -- Caller in the 700 block of Sidnie Court reported at 11:31 p.m. Tuesday hearing several people in the creek and having an ongoing issue with people being loud and starting fires. An officer responded and counseled the group.

DINE AND DASH -- Caller at Denny's restaurant on Pomeroy Avenue reported at 12:12 a.m. Wednesday that a group left without paying for their meal. An officer responded but did not find them.

MAN PEEING -- Caller at Yokayo Elementary School reported at 12:33 p.m. Friday that a man had his pants down and was peeing in front of the school. An officer responded but the man was gone.

PEOPLE IN CULVERT -- Caller in the 1000 block of Cunningham Street reported at 12:33 p.m. Friday that people were under the culvert. An officer responded and the group left upon request.

MAN PEEING -- Caller in the 1000 block of North State Street reported at 2:44 p.m. Friday that a man peeing near the building. An officer responded but the man was gone.

BURGLARY -- Caller in the 500 block of Oak Park Avenue reported at 9:19 p.m. Friday that a house had been burglarized. An officer took a report.

DUI ARREST -- An officer stopped a vehicle at the corner of South Dora and East Perkins streets and arrested Joseph E. E. Getts, 25, of Potter Valley, on suspicion of driving under the influence.

HIT AND RUN -- Caller at the corner of Jones and McPeak streets reported at 7:14 a.m. Monday a hit and run had just occurred, that a white utility truck hit a white Toyota truck and damaged a tree. An officer responded and took a report.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE -- Citizen reported at 8:18 a.m. Monday that a young couple had been fighting over the weekend. An officer responded and arrested Rodolfo Lupian, 18, of Ukiah, on suspicion of domestic violence.

MAN SPIT ON WINDOW -- Caller in the 100 block of North Orchard Avenue reported at 12:02 p.m. Monday that a man with long dreadlocks had just spit on the window and left. An officer responded and the man left the area upon request.

MAN YELLING OBSCENITIES -- Caller at the corner of South Orchard Avenue and Plum Street reported at 1:18 p.m. Monday that a man was yelling obscenities and being threatening. An officer responded and arrested a 42-year-old man for being drunk in public.

SHOPLIFTER -- Caller in the 200 block of North Orchard Avenue reported at 2:10 p.m. Monday that a shoplift had occurred. An officer responded and a man was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, and a 31 year-old Lucerne woman was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance.

SHOPLIFTER -- An officer responded to Walmart on Airport Park Boulevard at 2:15 p.m. Monday and arrested a 22-year-old Ukiah woman for theft. She was cited and released.

ASSAULT -- Caller in the 500 block of East Perkins Street reported at 5:21 p.m. Monday that a teen client assaulted her in a vehicle. An officer responded and arrested the teen for assault. She was booked into juvenile hall.

DINE AND DASH -- Caller in the 1200 block of Airport Park Boulevard reported at 6 p.m. Monday that two women had taken a purse and left without paying for their meal.

CAR VANDALIZED -- Caller in the 1200 block of Airport Park Boulevard reported at 7:23 p.m. Monday that a car had been vandalized. An officer responded and took a report.

TRANSIENTS SETTING UP CAMP -- Caller in the 200 block of South Orchard Avenue reported at 7:33 p.m. Monday that two transients were setting up camp for the night. An officer responded and cited and released at least one on a county warrant.

TRANSIENTS SETTING UP CAMP -- Caller in the 100 block of South Orchard Avenue reported at 10:53 p.m. Monday that two transients were camping nearby. An officer responded and the pair left upon request.

DUI ARREST -- An officer stopped a vehicle in the 700 block of East Gobbi Street at 4:10 a.m. Tuesday and arrested Bobby Hill, 25, of Ukiah, on suspicion of driving under the influence and driving without a license. He was cited and released.

DOG IN THE RAIN -- Caller in the 400 block of South Dora Street reported at 1:42 p.m. Wednesday that a dog was out in the rain without food or shelter. An officer responded and reported that the dog was fine.

SUSPICIOUS PERSON -- An officer contacted a suspicious person in the 600 block of South Orchard Avenue at 2:07 p.m. Wednesday and arrested a 52-year-old person for being under the influence of a controlled substance.

SHOPLIFTER -- An officer responded to Kohl's on North Orchard Avenue at 3:21 p.m. and arrested a 29-year-old woman for theft. She was cited and released.

MOUNTAIN LION SPOTTED -- Caller in the 1100 block of West Standley Street reported at 5:46 p.m. Wednesday seeing a mountain lion past the bridge that went into someone's yard.

WOMAN SPITTING -- Caller in the 100 block of Talmage Road reported at 5:49 p.m. Wednesday that a woman was spitting at customers and making threats. An officer responded and arrested a 29-year-old woman for a city code violation.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE -- An officer responded to the 800 block of Cindee Drive at 2:38 p.m. Thursday for a reported argument and arrested Miguel L. Gonzalez, 37, on suspicion of domestic violence, and Amber Ricetti, age unknown, also on suspicion of domestic violence.

PROWLER -- Caller in the 700 block of East Gobbi Street reported at 3:45 p.m. Thursday that a woman opened mailboxes and tried to break into a locked gate across the street. An officer responded but she was gone.

SHOPLIFTER -- An officer responded to Walmart on Airport Park Boulevard at 6:09 p.m. Thursday and arrested a man for theft. He was cited and released.

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

DEATH -- Officers responded to North Franklin Street and the railroad tracks at 9:46 a.m. Wednesday to take a report of a death.

FLASHLIGHT SHINED ON WOMAN -- Caller in the 500 block of Walnut Street reported at 12:28 p.m. Wednesday that she has a restraining order against her ex and the previous night as she was getting ready for bed she saw a flashlight being pointed at her from a couple of houses down and she wanted the incident documented.