JESSICA TROMBLEY “and her son John Doe (infant),” have filed a damages claim against the County for $20,000. Ms. Trombley “unlawfully seized, arrested and imprisoned” her and little Doe “without probable cause.”
NOT EXACTLY. Ms. Trombley's place on the Holmes Ranch. Philo, was raided as half of a large-scale marijuana grow, the grow being located on Cameron Road near Elk, the Holmes Ranch address — 3400 Chardonnay Lane — allegedly the site where lots of cash was kept as the property functioned as a winery.
A READER WRITES: “Former 5th Dist. Supervisor Ted Galletti was ‘laid to rest’ December 11, 2014. No notice of a funeral or memorial was posted on the Elk post office door. Ted served on the Board of Supervisors with Jim Eddie, 3rd District, Al Barbero, 1st, Augie Avila, and John Cimilino, 4th, and Ernie Banker, 2nd, for two terms between 1971 and 1978. They were years of turmoil with issues including building codes, proposed offshore oil development, illegal subdivisions, and the General Plan lawsuit of 1978 which brought the County planning process to an abrupt stop when the County lost the suit to Warner Chabot who represented himself before Judge John Golden of Lake County, after all Mendocino County Superior Court judges recused themselves. At the state and federal level the then-Board was confronted with the impacts of Proposition 20 requiring coastal protection, 1972, Z'Berg-Nejedly Forest Practices Act, 1973, HR 200 which protected ocean resources at the federal level, and the Endangered Species Act.”
THE FORMER 5th District supervisor was modest to the end, so modest he seems to have requested no notice of his passing. I remember well the effort to unseat him on the false grounds that he was not only “pro-development” because, it was falsely and deliberately whispered, Galletti wanted to help an unnamed “developer” erect condos on Cameron Road and desired to build seaside villas on his own oceanside ranch south of Elk. Basically, the anti-Galletti forces were the up-from-hippie, conservative liberal blocs which have dominated the 5th District ever since.
BACK THEN, there was a great split between so-called hippies and so-called rednecks; Galletti, in living fact a tolerant, gentlemanly fellow, was vilified as hostile to the area's newcomers, which he was not. But that false perception became the political reality and Norman de Vall became supervisor, a pretty good supervisor judged by the woeful performances in office of his successors. I always enjoyed seeing Ted at the Point Arena-Boonville basketball games, and I'm sorry to see him go.
MOUTH OF THE NAVARRO. A photo of how it looked, from above, a couple days after it opened is on our website: https://www.theava.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/mouth.jpg The second time we returned, four days later, it had widened a little bit more. But my impression was it had made more progress cutting deeper rather than widening. Bruce Anderson replies: I noticed the mouth of the Navarro is quite narrow. The channel looked like it blasted through then darn near closed again, and will close again if we don't get another blaster.
THANKS TO THE CRUCIAL MENDOSPORTSPLUS we learned Sunday that the “mighty Navarro is dropping like a lead balloon — sand bars visible by the flotsam at Highway 1 bridge and around 'Potato Island.'“ Mike Kalantarian also reminds us that the first settlers, led by Captain Fletcher, found that the Navarro silted up at the mouth so rapidly because of the rock ledge running just beneath the surface at that spot. The Cap'n suggested blasting the rock to keep the mouth permanently open but it was never done. At the moment, the mouth is open but running fast and not so deep through a narrow channel that will silt up very quickly. But it is open, which means steelhead have been able to get upstream to spawn.
LOOKS LIKE the recent rains have taken another bite out of the embankment next to the Lambert Lane bridge near downtown Boonville. County road crews have put a temporary cover over the slide so it’s hard to tell how much of the fall away is new. The temporary covering is certainly new. A couple of young pedestrians told the AVA they barely cared, it's been this way for a while, just more rain and more slippage. Ho-hum. There's a stop sign before going on to the newly one-lane/one-way bridge because about half of the southeast lane has now fallen away, apparently the lane restriction and stop sign are not new.
KPIX, CHANNEL 5 out of Frisco is running a four-part series called Green Rush on guess what? Mostly set in Humboldt County, the marijuana documentary hits hard on the recent stampede by outsiders to cash in on the magic and still illegal weed. There are side excursions into the latest wrinkles in the trade a
LOOKS LIKE COMPLETION OF BOONVILLE INTERNATIONAL'S runway widening and resurfacing project will be delayed until the rains stop. The repaving is complete but minor flaws in the surface still require attention. Several weeks of dry weather will then be required for the repainted stripes to dry. “It’s usable,” said Airport Manager Kirk Wilder last week. “But it’s not finished.”
AV HIGH ALUM DANNY ANGULO is back in the Valley after graduating from Sacramento State. The proud grad is organizing a series of three day-trips to Northern California colleges for graduating seniors and other ambitious scholars to take a look at Sacramento State, UC Berkeley and Santa Rosa JC. The trips are scheduled for the next month or two and are planned to accommodate upwards of 18 kids in two school vans per trip. Participants will pay $25 each for expenses and the Teen Center will use its accumulated reserves for other costs (primarily the vans). Angulo’s tours have been enthusiastically received by everyone involved.
ON SALE at our very own Anderson Valley Mercantile is the brilliant wood work of Jim Gibson, a long-time Boonvillian. I found Jim's unique wooden spoons so irresistible I bought one for my wife to beat me with. Perfect as stocking stuffers. Got all my Christmas shopping done right here at home, and how sweet it is to not only avoid the urban mobs, but to find so many locally made products on offer.
THE HEALTH CENTER BOARD met last week in circumstances of restored functioning of the non-psychotic type we saw during the summer months, the highlight for us being a breakthrough new local board tactic — The Trustee Stare Back. Ask a question and the trustees look on as if nothing has been said; they simply gaze blankly, eerily out at the audience like a small herd of disinterested ruminants.
IF YOU CAME IN TOO LATE to have enjoyed the managerial weirdness of the past few months, Dr. Mark Apfel is reinstated as Chief Medical Officer (his title is sometimes “acting chief medical officer;); David Gorchoff abruptly resigned as Chief Medical Officer (no reason given); Logan McGhan has returned to active duty after his weird termination by Shannon Spiller; who in turn “is no longer employed” by the AVHC; Cindy Arbanovela and Jessica McIninch are back on duty; and an active recruitment for a new executive director has been undertaken by a special search committee headed by Jolly Bill Sterling.
GENE HERR COMMENTS that she would like to see the Health Center managed this way: “ Complete, publicly reported financial data including annual budget with annotated line items from the chart of accounts, monthly budget to actual reports, last year's audit report, and monthly reports from the Chief Financial Officer; and #2. Board adoption of a policy of conformance with California's open meeting and open records acts.”
THE MENDOCINO COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION, Paul Tichinin proprietor, is mandated to ensure that poor children are being instructed in safe conditions. The following represents his findings:
FACILITIES CONDITION REVIEW - “GOOD” RATINGS
• Point Arena High School: 98%
• Nokomis Elementary: 97%
• Arena Union Elementary: 97%
• Dana Gray Elementary: 96%
• Laytonville Elementary: 95%
• Grace Hudson Elementary: 95%
• Round Valley Elementary: 95%
• Oak Manor Elementary: 94%
• Eagle Peak Middle School: 92%
• Willits High School: 92%
SCHOOLS WITH A “FAIR” RATING:
• Anderson Valley Elementary: 89%
• Baechtel Grove School: 84%
• Pomolita Middle School: 80%
• Blosser Lane Elementary: 79%
• Calpella Elementary: 78%
This year's full report on county schools related to the Williams settlement is available via the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors website at http://bit.ly/1J4D35k.
WINTER SOLSTICE, the longest night of the year, was Sunday, December 21. It so happens the new moon was on the same date, so Sunday night was not only long, it was also very dark. Because the moon and sun will be aligned on that date, we will also see some of the most extreme tides of the year on December 21, 22, and 23. These are sometimes called King Tides, and some people are starting to observe these extreme high tides to get a preview of how the rise in sea level might look. One such group is the California King Tides Project (california.kingtides.net), who asked people to participate by taking pictures of the high tides, the highest of which at Noyo were: 9:37am Dec 21; 10:20am Dec 22; and 11:06am Dec 23.
The Health Center Boss Job Opening Posted — Notice that Anderson Valley Health Center is seeking a new permanent executive director is being posted on the websites of various state and national community health organizations such as the Medical Group Management Association. The Notice refers interested people to AVHC’s own website where information about the job, the Health Center, and Anderson Valley as well as application instructions can be found. To find the material on the AVHC website, click on Jobs in the darker green strip at the very top of the home page. Anyone local who is interested in the position should consult the website and go from there.
Sincerely, Bill Sterling Chairman, Search Committee
LAST WEEK Jean Duvigneaud told us that he didn’t think “Trashmover” was the right Boontling word for a big storm. He thought it was “Logroller.” So we looked it up. Duvigneaud is correct. “Trashmover” is defined as, “A fairly heavy winter storm.” And “Loglifter” (not “Logroller”) is defined as, “An unusually heavy rainstorm.” So what we had was a “trashmover” that had been predicted to be a “loglifter.”
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