Mendocino County Today: Monday, Jan 26, 2015

• KZYX Corrupt
• Dull Radio
• CalTrans Logo
• Lot-split Request
• Anticipating Legalization
• Manbeater Epidemic
• Cashfire
• Belle Starr
• Subdivision Prohibition
• Neighborhood Gentrification
• Permaculture Fair
• Old POs
• Catch of the Day
• AVHC Website
• Republican Congress
• All About MLK
• Hare Creek Agenda

KZYX PROGRAMMER AND STATION FLACK GORDON BLACK posting on the Mendocino Listserve, referring to an earlier post by Marco McLean in which McClean described KZYX as “corrupt”:

“Marco, maybe they'll offer you airtime if you call them utterly corrupt. — Gordon Black”

MARCO McLEAN RESPONDED:

Whether I speak up or not, [Program Director] Mary Aigner has no intention of ever slotting my show into KZYX, when in fact I'm exactly the sort of airperson who belongs on public radio in Mendocino County, and my show is better and more valuable and more educational than most of what's on KZYX. And you know that, Gordon.

I waited years after making my show available to Mary and jumping through all the ridiculous hoops before I uttered a peep about her incompetence. She never took a single step in the direction of putting my show on the schedule. If you're concerned about rudeness, John and Mary are the ones with their foot on your neck. I'm the one pointing out that their foot is on your neck.

When I went to KMFB in 1997 and talked to Bob Woelfel, I was on the air within a week. When I went to KNYO in November, 2012 and talked to Bob Young, I was on the air even faster. I contacted Mary in January of 2012, went to meet her in late February. Three years have passed. She never returned email. She telephoned me once, out of the blue, all chipper, to tell me that she was thinking about me and I should call her when all the craziness of the current pledge time was over. That's it. I stopped at the station on 128 on my way home from Juanita's house twice; once I met and spoke with John and was treated like a bug, like I had no business bothering them there, like I was some kind of undesirable intrusion. Others have told me they received the same treatment and worse.

For the whole nearly 15 years I had my show on KMFB, when someone wrote to me I read their work on the air. When people called I stopped reading and put them instantly on the air. When people dropped by the station unannounced and knocked, I'd let them in and put them on the air, whether they brought musical instruments or not. When I'm at KNYO and someone knocks I let them in and put them on the air. When I ran a weekly teevee show on the public access channel in Fort Bragg, I set it up so anyone who wanted to do a segment could just show up at my house and do whatever they wanted to. And then eat spaghetti.

When I had my newspaper, it didn't matter to me how anyone felt or spoke or wrote about me — it just wasn't a consideration; they were welcome. Christ, I let Bill Kovanda have two whole poetry pages every issue and I don't even like poetry. If Mary Aigner or John Coate had wanted a regular column in my paper, they wouldn't even have had to ask. They'd send or call in the work and I'd see that it got published as written or as spoken into the telephone answering machine. And as long as I wasn't paying the writers, I was not paid. That's what not corrupt looks like.

The only chance I or anyone like me will ever have to use KZYX properly — specifically to do our shows there, our way — is to switch out the childish school-clique, desperately secretive, oppressive, opaque management. I don't expect that will happen, so I'm not holding my breath, and there's no point in sucking up to people by keeping quiet about how bad they are. I won't be intimidated into silence any longer about KZYX the way so many others allow themselves to be. It's a public so-called community radio station, badly managed, kept afloat by tax money, in the educational band, and the airpeople are not paid at all, and the managers pay themselves a lot of money to run the place as their personal fiefdom. Corrupt is the precise word to describe them.

HERE's the great Ed Abbey writing to his public radio station. What Abbey said here in 1982 applies almost precisely to KZYX, 2015.

Dear Manager:

Although I am contributing, once again, another $100 to KUAT, I would like to say that I and many of my friends are increasingly disappointed with the quality of KUAT-FM programming.

All that recorded classical music is fine, of course, and we expect that it should always fill the bulk of your radio time. And All Things Considered is certainly the best of all radio news programs.

Furthermore: your local newscasts are dull and flat, no better than newspaper stories. With all the interesting and exciting things going on in Arizona, why no representation of wider and diverse points of view? Why no debates, serious, full-time prime-time debates on such issues as smelter pollution (did you people even bother to interview the Greenpeace activists?), urban expansion into the desert, ground water pollution, misdirected police activity (e.g., coke busts instead of murder investigations), the gasoline tax hike, our Chamber of Commerce growth-for-the-sake-of-growth religion, creationism vs. evolution (there was a good debate on that subject only two weeks ago at UofA; did you bother to record and broadcast it? No), and many many other serious and important issues.

Last week we had Tim O’Brien on campus reading from his next novel — a delightful and bawdy comedy. Why didn’t you tape and broadcast that? Does anyone at KUAT even know who Tim O’Brien is? Why no live dramatic shows? Why no book, film, drama, or even concert reviews?

Why is KUAT so dull, unimaginative, and timid? One gets the impression that the station is run by a bunch of fuddy-duddy old D.A.R. teacup-holding spinsters. Awake!

Edward Abbey — Oracle

A SIMPLE LOT SPLIT

by Mark Scaramella

You might think that an ordinary lot split proposal in Yorkville wouldn't require too much in the way of furrowed brows from our Board of Supervisors, but this is Mendocino County and nothing is as simple as it seems. This is the story of one family with 144 rural acres who desire only that they make legal their desire to house dad and his three sons — three homes on 144 acres. One would think that purely on family values grounds the Mark family's request would sail on through Mendocino County's obfuscating process…

The Agenda Item Description for the January, 20, 2015 Board of Supervisors meeting is appended below.

Board Chair Brown kicked off the lot split request by asking newly seated Supervisor Tom Woodhouse and Supervisor Dan Gjerde if they had listened to the tape of the prior board meeting in December when Mr. Mark’s lot-split proposal had been considered but tabled because Gjerde was absent and Woodhouse was not on the Board of Supervisors at the time.

Woodhouse said he was in the audience at the time and had studied the proposal and was familiar with it. (The 3rd District supervisor is off to a conscientious start.)

Gjerde: “I would like to ask County Counsel if I’m required to listen to the tape of the earlier meeting.”

County Counsel Doug Losak: “Because this is an administrative — or this is a legislative action and not a quasi-judicial — you are not required to actually listen to the tape. They can make decisions without that.”

Brown: “What you are telling me is legally we need to go back through the public hearing process in its entirety?”

Losak: “No, that's not — they can make a decision. They can vote on the matter without having, you know, being present at the original hearing.”

Supervisor John McCowen: “Madam chair, [referring to Losak] I believe that's contrary to statements he made at the original hearing.”

Losak: “It is, Supervisor McCowen. You are correct. I've researched the matter a little further and found out that there is a distinction between quasi-judicial and administrative hearing matters and the distinction is simply that they do not have to — here for administrative matters, they do not have to be present to be able to vote on it. Just be familiar with the item.”

* * *

Brown: “County Counsel, since we are going through this process we need to go to staff? Because the regular hearing process, I think we closed the public hearing at the last meeting. So you need to tell me what the legal procedure is.”

Losak: “I just want to be sure… The legal — the hearing, the public hearing was closed at the last meeting and looking at the board agenda, what I'm saying is that the chair opened the public hearing. And I'm trying to recall if the actual public hearing was closed after the last one [turns to Planning staff]. It was. Okay. So at that point you can simply go to staff and the board and address the item and ask that. The procedure is if it was, if the public, the public hearing was closed you can proceed from there.”

Planner John Speka: “Correction: In the agenda summary we do reflect that at the last meeting the board decided to hold the — to keep the public hearing open.”

Losak: “Okay. Thank you.”

Brown: “So the public hearing was left open. Okay.”

Staffer John Speka described the proposal and the several prior meetings to consider it as it wended its way past both the Planning Commission and the Supervisors. The application for just the rezone was first submitted in 2012!

The Planning Commission recommended approval of the project in March of 2014 based on a “mitigated negative declaration.” There was also a question about whether a “Joint Management Agreement” should be applied to the project. Apparently the property owner, Mr. John Mark, gave the County reason to think that subdivision would ensue if the property was rezoned to allow a couple of smaller parcels, which is why a Joint Management Agreement was considered. “However that's [the Joint Management Agreement] not been requested at this point,” planner John Speka said.

Supervisor McCowen pointed out that although the Planning Commission had voted 4-3 to approve the application, planning staff had originally denied it.

Planner Speka said that they had denied it because of the possible need for a Joint Management Agreement to keep the original parcel and its parts in ag preserve under the Williamson Act (which provides a tax break for promising to keep land in ag status) being in place prior to any consideration of subdivision. “Without a Joint Management Agreement being required prior to the contract rezone we felt that it was not appropriate.”

Then there was some back and forth about whether the management agreement needed to be in place prior to the rezoning or later when Mr. Mark actually proposes to subdivide. (At present Mr. Mark only wants to rezone, the first step toward subdivision.) “The purpose of the management agreement would be to make sure that the land retains ag preserve status,” added Mr. Speka.

Maven Mark, one of applicant John Mark’s three sons, owns part of the land. He explained that at present with only one legal parcel they can only build two residences on the 144 acres. They hope to build one more residence by making the zoning change and later subdividing. Mr. Mark explained that they only need a split for two parcels so they can build a total of three houses.

Planning staff pointed out that there is a provision in state law that allows for smaller parcels to remain in ag preserve, but it requires a Joint Management Agreement.

Supervisor McCowen balked. “The applicant has made it clear from the beginning that his fundamental interest was being able to subdivide the property. Smaller units, more houses. The odds that it goes out of ag production increase in my opinion. We have established that we have no ability to keep the property in ag production or in ag preserve.”

Speka: “If he did not keep it in ag preserve, once he was under a Joint Management Agreement contract there would be a rollout phase.”

McCowen: “It is more protective of preserving the ag resource to preserve the larger parcel for what is clearly marginal land most suitable for rangeland. There are small sections of the property that could support some vineyard development but the real interest here is subdivision, not ag production. Because every acre that could be planted to grapes now could be done.”

Woodhouse said he supported the lot split because he supports letting responsible landowners make changes they feel are necessary. Gjerde said he supported the lot split because he believed that they really did mean to maintain the ag status of the property after the split.

McCowen leafed through some letters which he said were from four neighbors who were opposed to the change. “They prefer to uphold the rural ag character of the neighborhood. Mr. Marks obviously wants to join the trend towards smaller and smaller parcels, drive out ag, make it harder for the ag producers to stay in business. That's going to be the long-term result of this. It was approved by the Planning Commission on a 4-3 three vote following a three-year campaign of lobbying. This board has been lobbied and we have set the road mark for how you bust the General Plan. So I will not support it.”

Chair Brown cited her credentials as a rancher and farmer and former representative of the local Farm Bureau and her efforts to preserve agriculture. She also pointed out that she was aware of other individuals with similar proposals regarding their children who were denied by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. “I hate to see the breaking up of our grazing land, so I will be in agreement with Supervisor McCowen’s position.”

The board voted 3-2 to approve Mr. Mark’s rezone, McCowen and Brown dissenting.

* * *

Agenda Item Description for the January, 20, 2015 Board of Supervisors meeting:

“On March 14, 1997, the Board of Supervisors denied General Plan Amendment and Rezone #GP 1-90/R 1-90 and #GP 12-90/R 27-90 to change the designation of the subject parcel to Remote Residential-40 acre minimum/Upland Residential-40 acre minimum (RMR-40/UR-40) and approved an Agricultural Preserve, #A 7-96. The item was originally set to be heard on December 2, 2014, but was continued to December 16 in order to provide the Board with additional information. On December 16, 2014, the Board of Supervisors (Supervisor Gjerde absent) held a public hearing on the request, opting to have the hearing remain open and continued to January 20, 2015, in order that the absent board member and potential tie-breaking vote be provided an opportunity to participate.

“Summary Of Request: The property owner requests that the Board of Supervisors amend the General Plan Land Use Classification of a 144 acre parcel in the Yorkville area from Rangeland-160 acre minimum (RL-160) to Agriculture-40 acre minimum (AG-40) and adopt by Ordinance a Rezone of this parcel from RL-160 to AG-40. The parcel is located at 32301 Highway 128, Yorkville (AP# 049- 370-63) and is subject to an Agricultural Preserve contract. On March 20, 2014, staff recommended the Planning Commission approve a contract rezoning with the land use amendment to require a Williamson Act Joint Management Agreement (JMA) if the property is subdivided in the future. This was based at least partly on the property owner’s early indication that a subdivision would eventually be sought following the amendment to have the property divided among heirs. The Planning Commission recommended, on a 4-3 vote (the split involving the requirement of the noted JMA), that the Board of Supervisors approve General Plan Amendment #GP 1-2011 and Rezoning #R 1-2011 to grant the request without the contract rezoning. Their [Planning Commission] recommendation is based on finding that the project would not have any significant environmental impacts, the changed land use designation would be compatible with surrounding land uses, that the zone change would be consistent with the new land use classification, and that the contract rezoning is not necessary as uniform application of the County’s existing subdivision regulations will require a JMA if the property is subdivided in the future.”

WE’RE NUMBER ONE! (Or we want to be when pot is legalized…)

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/news/ci_27388694/can-mendocino-county-compete-if-marijuana-goes-legal

ADD TO THE LONG LIST of things we didn't know: the law requiring that police arrest the aggressor in domestic violence calls. And it's up to the police to determine who the aggressor is. Someone must go to jail. The cops have no discretion. It's been taken from them by most state legislatures, including California's. If the police are called by either party to a domestic drama turned violent, they've got to determine who was the primary combatant, even if neither party shows evidence of injury, or an injury a three-year-old would call an “owie.” Normally, it's obvious who's at fault; if the police don't arrest that person they and their department are liable.

IN MENDOCINO COUNTY, the mandatory arrest dictate means a lot more women are getting hauled off to jail than ever before while males, those traditional lions of hearth and home, continue to get arrested at about the same rate they always have. These calls, as any cop will tell you, are consistently the most dangerous to the cop as one or both combatants turn on the policeman who's got the necessary job of separating them. Sadder yet is the fact that a lot of DV calls are placed by a frightened child.

WITH MORE WOMEN than ever getting popped for DV, we have the almost daily appearance in the booking log of angelic-looking young women and improbable-looking matrons arrested for assaulting their significant other. You look at these photos and think to yourself, “What kind of so-called man would call the cops on this lady?”

BUT, as investigation reveals, it's often the woman who has placed the call, but when the cops sort out who did what to whom, it will turn out that it was the lady who not only started it, she followed it up with a push, a shove, a slap or, as has happened right here in peace-loving Mendo, a fork to the scrotum, a frontal assault with a machete, a container of urine poured over a young man immobilized in a body cast.

THE COPS HAVE NO DISCRETION. They get that DV call and they've got to arrest someone. Used to be, police could handle it on the spot by simply telling lover boy to take a walk until he cooled off. Only if weapons were in play, or it appeared that the war would resume the instant the cops were out the door, did someone go to jail.

LIKE MOST OF US, police have zero respect for a man who calls the cops because his wife or girlfriend has popped him one, or threw the phone at him.

OF COURSE it's still men who do most of the physical damage to women much smaller, much weaker than them. And there seem to be more of these oafs than ever in relationships with women isolated one way or another from the fathers, brothers, uncles or male friends who might protect them from the domestic coward they find themselves with.

BELLE STARR

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone

Since old Oklahoma's sandhills you did roam?

Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying your reins

Or singlefooting somewhere below?

 

Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair

Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist

Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt

Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore.

 

Cole Younger was your first and the father of your girl

And the name that you picked for your daughter was Pearl
Cole robbed a bank and he drawed the life line

But I heard he was pardoned after Twenty Years time.

 

Your Cherokee lover, Blue Duck was his name

He loved you in the sand hills before your great fame

I heard he stopped a bullet in Eighteen Eighty Five

And your Blue Duck's no longer alive.

 

You took Jim Reed to your warm wedding bed

And from out of your love was born the boy, Ed

A pal killed Jim Reed by the dark of the moon

And your son Ed was blowed down in a drunken saloon.

 

Then there was Bob Younger you loved him well

He rode with the James boys out down the long trail

They caught him in Minnesota along with the gang

He died down in jail in the cell or the chain.

 

You loved Mister William Clarke Quantrill

And his Civil War guerrillas in the Missouri hills

He hit Lawrence Kansas and fought them still

And when he rode out Two Hundred lay killed.

 

They say could have, they whisper you might

Have loved Frank James on a couple of nights

He fought the Midland Railroad almost to death

Then in Nineteen Fifteen Frank drawed his last breath.

 

They say it could be, they say maybe so,

That you loved Jesse James that desperado,

Jesse got married, had a wife and a son,

Was shot down at home by the Ford brothers guns.

 

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, your time's getting late,

But how is Jim Younger, did you hear his fate?

He was jailed and then pardoned for all he had done,

And he blowed his own brains out in Nineteen and One.

 

Eight men they say combed that black waving hair

Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist

Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt

Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore.

 

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where have you gone

Since old Oklahoma's sand hills you did roam?

Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying your reins

Or singlefooting somewhere below?

--Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

MENDO PROHIBITED FROM APPROVING LAND SUBDIVISIONS IN UKIAH VALLEY

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/news/ci_27383594/mendocino-county-prohibited-from-approving-land-subdivisions-within

COMMENT OF THE DAY

Nothing cleans up a forlorn hood like some good old fashioned gentrification. But you have to start somewhere. Go rent out a cheap building and turn it into a coffee house with comfy chairs, live music, poetry recitals. Recruit a Pilates instructor, New-Age book store, Re-birthing center to join in the cause and start having Friday night art walks once a month. Soon enough an aromatherapy shop will pop up along with an acupuncture clinic, Alexander Technique practitioner and who knows, maybe even a Colonic Irrigation Therapy Institute. You’ll know you hit the big time when the sports bar franchises start buying up the place and raising rents. No more gang bangers and no more of the founding artists/shop owners who will soon be priced out of the hood too. The Friday night art walk will have been transformed into the snotty yuppie drunk brigade stumbling out of sports bars and sushi dens. They’re just no winning these days.

GRAFTING REMINDER...

Mendocino Permaculture 32nd Annual Winter Abundance Fair will be held on Saturday, January 31, from 9 am to 4 pm, rain or shine, at the Fairgrounds in Boonville. Free admission and classes on fruit tree & vine propagation, variety selection, and seed saving for all kinds of plants. Free scions and seeds--over 500 varieties. Please bring seeds, labeled scions, cuttings, and plants to share. Tree rootstocks, lunch and beverages will be sold. More info at 463-8672, 895-3897, or at www.mendocinolocalfood.org.

RESEARCH RAPTURE OVER 114 POST OFFICES

Research Rapture? It’s what happens when a history mystery is handed to your historian correspondent and time and resources allow hours of delving into facts and figures. I was given a typewritten list of 114 post offices that once existed in Mendocino County and set off to find out when and where they existed. It wasn’t easy. It was the places I’d never heard of that intrigued me.

I bless the postal history fanatics that put up everything they know on the internet. It’s how I found the dates to go with the place names. Here’s what I learned about about post offices in the history of our county. Having a mail delivery route or hosting a post office in a building you owned many years ago was a way to get steady money from the government so there were P.O.’s all over the place

Today in the county we have 17 post offices (P.O.), but it took old maps, a gazetteer, and the internet to find the place locations for the rest. And for some P.O. locations on the list I found nothing. Even with 40 years of driving hundreds of miles on the back roads of Mendocino County some places remain a mystery. Where was Heran located when it had a post office in 1861? Persevere had postal service in 1903, as did Rockaway in 1896, but where were those places?

Railroad construction put pockets of people together for a while in small settlements. These places existed, then vanished, as train tracks extended into new territory. In the very northwestern corner of the county the rail line built from Bear Harbor to Andersonia (Piercy) promoted post offices in Scottsville (1899), French (1897), Kenny, Moody and Andersonia. Built along a rail line that seldom saw activity they all vanished. Any time a shipping center developed on the coast and enough folks settled around it there was justification for a P.O. Conway’s Landing (1870) had their services consolidated to Fish Rock eventually. Before Cleone existed it was called Kanuck in 1883 and had a post office. Hardy, or Hardyville was five miles north of Westport, Miller became Bridgeport, and Signal Port’s 1888 post office became part of Pt. Arena’s postal system.

A place called Jeram fascinated me. It was a Catholic Slovenian colony that mined copper and coal near Eden Valley and they had a P.O. Two Rivers P.O. in 1912 became Dos Rios along the Northwestern Pacific Railroad tracks. Poonkinny, in the same area, had a P.O. from 1896-1900. Farley was on the tracks five miles northeast of Longvale and Bentley’s P.O. was four miles north of Spy Rock in 1939. Was Monroe on the south fork of Mule Creek 11 miles south of Piercy what we now call Hale’s Grove? And five miles northeast of Hale’s Grove on the south fork of the Eel River was Tolson, which was a postal location in 1906. What was going on that justified creation of P.O. in such remote locations?

In previous research I’d discovered Salsig, also called Manzanita, 10 miles southeast of Greenwood/Elk where a train track split and a post office existed there. Fairbanks was four miles east of Boonville and had a P.O. from 1893 to 1910. Ornbaun got mail from 1897 to 1926 until Yorkville took over it’s postal service. Whitehall’s P.O. was four miles northwest of Hermitage, found 6 miles southeast of Yorkville, and Comfort’s P.O. sited 11 miles west of Boonville, had a P.O. in 1902.

From 1883 to 1887 Tilly, nine miles west of Cahto (which itself was three miles southwest of Laytonville) supported a P.O. Weltmer was out by Sherwood Valley near Willits and established a P.O. in 1908 and survived three years. Woodman was a Northwestern Pacific Railroad stop on the Eel River big enough to score a P.O. in 1922.

Union Lumber Company of Fort Bragg was probably responsible for a P.O. called ULCO 17 miles east of town. Also out that way was Hemlock P.O. on Highway 20. Gracy’s was 16 miles east of Fort Bragg on the train tracks and was also the place name for Old Camp Seven, or Harold’s. From 1896 to 1908 300 people lived there and had a P.O. Orr’s Hot Springs had P.O.’s two different times, from 1889 to 1911, then again 1915 to 1933, out on Comptche Ukiah Road.

Arthur was three miles south of Ukiah with a P.O. from 1903-1905 before Ukiah took over. Capehorn’s 1894 P.O. consolidated into Potter Valley. Tomkiah’s P.O. lasted two years, 1872-1874 and was also known as Glenmark. Redwine’s P.O.was five miles northeast of Cummings on a stagecoach route.

If place names and post offices interest you, go to Wikipedia and look up Mendocino County. That resource lists 120 “un-incorporated places” and 60 “former settlements”. To find out where places named Echo, Moiya, Hardscratch or Bucknell were the reader can go exploring on-line themselves, but I can tell you those places in Mendocino County did NOT have post offices. That honor belonged to those other 114 settlements.

— Katy Tahja

ED NOTE: The late Joe Scaramella told me that Point Arena's mail, circa 1915, arrived overland on horseback via Cazadero. When the mailman approached town he sounded his approach by bugle, and the townspeople bustled out to greet him and get their news of the great beyond.

CATCH OF THE DAY, January 25, 2015

SUSAN CLIMA, Covelo. Misdemeanor hit&run.

LEWIS DISHMAN, Ukiah. Parole violation.

SEAN FLINTON, Ukiah. Public begging.

JAVIER GARCIA, Willits. Drunk in public, false ID.

NINA GOODSON, Ukiah. Grand theft.

NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ, East Palo Alto/Ukiah. Unspecified misdemeanor offense.

EDWARD JOHNSON, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

KEVIN LITZIN, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JOAQUIN MARTINEZ, Redwood Valley. Possession of pot while driving, DUI, misdemeanor hit&run, throwing substances at vehicle.

GREGORY OTT, Ukiah. Drunk in public, parole violation.

LUIS RAMIREZ, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MANUEL RODRIGUEZ, Covelo. Criminal threats of death or great bodily injury, witness intimdation.

ROBERT SALES, Willits. Possession of more than an ounce of pot.

THE USUAL MENDO SEARCH FOR EXCELLENCE NOW COMMENCES

The Annual Meeting of the Anderson Valley Health Center Board, Wednesday, Jan 28 2015, 5:30pm at the Boonville Fire House meeting room.

Anderson Valley Health Center January Update.

Per Heidi Knott Gundling, Board Secretary, the Annual Meeting will also include the selection of new directors for the 2015 board. Be sure to come.

Heidi says: "The agenda is on the website: http://www.avhc.org/

The Agenda is also posted below in a more traditional format I’m sorry to say that the recent financials are not yet posted as we are trying to clear which of the dozens of pages of current information should go up in which most understandable format. At the Wednesday meeting the board will approve the financial reports from November and December and they will be posted on Friday, Jan. 30. We will endeavor to have future financial reports approved and posted in a much more timely manner. Let me know if you have any website suggestions for improved information.

Many thanks to Heidi for her work on the website thus far. Check it all out, some important parts are updated, some not edited yet, but she and director Maxence Weyrich are working on it.

New biographical information on directors is welcome. After the selection of new directors and officers next week, that information will be updated. Promised for this January annual meeting (and welcome) would be the listing and qualifications of all Committee Members. A vital piece of information: “Are they patients of the AVHC?” should also be listed.

Some of the implied organizational structure of the clinic can be gleaned from reading the announcements of the Executive Director Search Committee — Mark Apfel, M.D., Eric Arbanovella, George Gaines, Maureen Hochberg, R.N., George Lee, M.D., Teresa Malfavon, Susan Smith, M.D., Bill Sterling. The new position description for the Executive Director for whom the recruiting is conducted may help you to understand the AVHC and perhaps to question “how it all will work.” Is the problematic relationship between E.D, Medical Officer, and the Board resolved satisfactorily? Are the lines of authority clearly established? Are supervisorial responsibilities understandable?

Discussion of the financials is still problematic, with some on the Board apparently thinking that the public is uninterested, or is unable to understand figures, especially budgets. The present colorful and meaningless collection of graphs and charts which serve as “financial reports” are insulting. A Corporation is required by law to publish an Annual Budget, and an Annual Audit Report. There is no reason they could not include links to those documents on line.

A budget states what directors of your organization say they plan to do, and how they plan to fund it. It also shows where and when things go wrong. Regular monthly review of budget-to-actual expenditures and revenue will show you how likely your board will be in succeeding in the programs they tell you they are undertaking. These should be discussed by the Finance Committee and posted monthly with the Financial Report of the Treasurer, or Financial Officer.

— Gene Herr

REPUBLICANS PREPARE TO TAKE CONTROL

"ALL ABOUT MONEY" returns to KMEC Radio, on Monday, January, 26, at 1 PM, Pacific Time, with a show that we're calling "Reclaiming Dr. Martin Luther King's Legacy". John Sakowicz's guest is organizer and activist, Cat Brooks.

KMEC Radio is heard in Ukiah at 105.1 FM. We also stream live from the web at www.kmecradio.org.

Our shows are archived.

CAT BROOKS

Brooks is an organizer with the ONYX Organizing Committee. With other groups, they are launching "96 hours of action as part of national call to 'Reclaim King’s Legacy.'" They are based in Oakland and San Francisco. Similar protests are planned in other cities. See from The Real News: " Baltimore Activists Participate in National Day of Action Against Police Brutality ." The group states: "We will join thousands around the country responding to a call from Ferguson Action to reclaim Dr. King’s legacy of militant direct action in opposition to economic violence as well as police violence and discrimination. This weekend’s events culminate in a Jobs and Economy March for the People on Monday, Jan. 19, beginning at 11 a.m. at Oscar Grant Plaza.

"Monday, we will connect the dots between police violence and economic violence with a march at 11 a.m. from Fruitvale Station, where Oscar Grant III was murdered by BART police, in solidarity with Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, Sanford, Salt Lake City, and countless others who too have lost young black men to police terror. ...

"The upcoming 96 hours of direct action across the Bay Area will highlight the unjust economic and political structures that King fought fiercely to defeat. Thousands will unify, regardless of skin color, religion, or creed, as we reclaim King’s legacy and act, in tandem, against police and economic violence; two primary tools of white supremacy. Actions will take place throughout the city, at BART stations, community meetings and street corners and come in the form of shut downs, guerrilla theater, teach-ins and concerts. Monday, we march through the neighborhoods where systematic and state sanctioned murder of black, brown, and poor people occur most."

The group notes quotes from Martin Luther King Jr: “Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.” (1963)

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” (1967)

See IPA news release " MLK vs. Obama ."

See from The Real News: " The Radicalization of Martin Luther King."

RITA CRANE, posting on the Mendocino County Listserve:

Hi All, Thanks kindly to Marie Jones for responding to my private message to her and promptly sending me the direct link to the Agenda for the Public Hearing re: Hare Creek this Wednesday, January 28th. It's apparently available on the City website but I couldn't find it.

Meeting Agenda: https://cityfortbragg.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=356837&GUID=F7E62E7C-4041-4073-B5DE-C95B9B35CF01

Take a look at the detailed list of the Planning Commission agenda items. Very helpful to see this all in one place. One can skim through all the attachments and get an overview.

An MND has been submitted instead of an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) to address all the issues that a project this size entails. Grading, wild lands, animals, visual impact, water use, water storage, carbon footprint, etc.

The Mitigated Negative Declaration appears to be a large part of the permit process that still is awaiting approval. Is that why a Public Hearing has been called? I'm not an expert, so that's what I'm seeing, anyway. Is that correct? Debra? Marie?

Hope this helps people feel prepared to express their ideas at the Public Hearing, or ask questions on the air, this Tuesday between 1 and 2 PM on Corporations and Democracy, hosted by Toni Rizzo. We are lucky that Marie Jones and Debra Lennox will be available to answer questions when Toni opens the lines to the listening audience.

All the best, Rita

These are the topics that Marie specifically mentioned would be open for discussion when she suggested we take a look at the Agenda a couple days ago, and familiarize ourselves with it to be better prepared when we arrived at the Hearing: Coastal Development Permit, Design Review Permit, Lot Line Adjustment, and Conditional Use Permit