Letters (Feb 11, 2015)

• Wrong from the Git-Go
• Please, Please, Mr. Grape…
• For the Chimp
• Another Satisfied Customer
• Act Responsibly: Vaccinate
• US Postal Service Miracle
• Fup
• Too Much for Too Little
• Les Measleserables
• Strange Lights

WRONG FROM THE GIT-GO

Dear Editor,

Point Arena Unified Superintendent Cross has put in her resignation and I believe some of the board members should go with her. 

At the January Board Meeting, President Ron Miles thought he put to rest the matter of combining the expenses from the high school and grade school into one big pot and paying all of the expense out of this pot by presented a memorandum from Loren Soukup from the School of College Legal Services.

This memorandum was wrong from the "get go" for the following reasons:

It was presented to the board in a closed session meeting and then presented to the public following the meeting.  Since this item was discussed in open session many times this memo could hardly be classified a "closed door item".  Violation of Brown Act Law.

The memorandum is dated January 13, 2015 (the meeting was held on January 14th) and, therefore, was not within the 72 hour time frame to present an item to board members or the public to sufficiently go over this document.  Violation of Brown Act Law.

This memo goes on to give details of the 2004 Resolution ("Joining the Budget") except for one very important pertinent piece of information.  On the waiver #7 it clearly states "see copy of Resolution 03-102 attached."  This Resolution clearly states the following: "It is Further Resolved That, the districts shall meet the requirements of Education Code 3511 (d) including but not limited to, the adoption of resolutions authorizing the specific transfers and the publication of general fund income and expenses of each (meaning the high school and the  elementary school) district.

It is obvious that Cross, the Board and Soukup have tried very hard to twist this Resolution into doing something that it was not designed to do.  Never, ever did Resolution 03-102 designed to pay expenses out of one pot like they would like to do.

Cross took on the role of superintendent/high school principal because she assured the board and members of the community she could change the students grade levels within a year.  In January they hire a new high school principal.  Perhaps, she was able to achieve her goal in five months.  Time will tell but I would bet my money on the opposite.

Respectfully,

Suzanne Rush

Manchester

PLEASE, PLEASE, MR. GRAPE…

Dear neighbors,

To: Anderson Valley Wine Growers Association, P.O. Box 63, Philo CA 95466.

October 17, 2014

This letter is to officially ask those of you who farm at night to cease creating noise that keeps your neighbors, including schoolchildren and other farmers, awake between the hours of 10 PM and 7 AM. We request that you cease all of these activities as they are a detriment to public health and are causing extreme anxiety, anger and frustration to hundreds of residents of Anderson Valley. Please respond to this letter with your intentions on these matters so that we may know how to best work together for the good of the valley.

Sincerely,

The Anderson Valley Residents Association,

P.O. Box 802, Boonville CA 95415

Copies: The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Hamburg, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, the Ukiah Daily Journal

(Received by AVA on February 6, 2015.)

FOR THE CHIMP

Letter to the Editor,

There are now 12 candidates and one chimpanzee who want to run for president on the Republican ticket. After careful consideration I have rejected all 12 candidates in favor of the chimpanzee who will do the least amount of damage. When asked about its position on the issues, the chimp replied, "missionary position."

Ralph Bostrom

Willits

ANOTHER SATISFIED CUSTOMER

Editor,

Please renew my subscription. I will continue to do so until I can no longer read! I love Bruce McEwen's column on the deliciously sordid details of the wheels of justice in Mendoland. I just wish someone would have similar skills and courage to shine a light on the denizens lurking under Humboldt County’s Hall of Justice.

Keep up the good work.

John Forsythe

Arcata

ACT RESPONSIBLY: VACCINATE

Editor,

Parents do not have the right to act irresponsibly. Anything irresponsible parents do that harms children can and will be used against them in the court of public opinion. Children have the right to immunization.

If parents cannot afford to immunize their children, vaccinations will be provided at public expense without cost to them. Do you understand your parental and societal responsibility? Good, now take your kid to the doctor.

Tad Chase

San Mateo

US POSTAL SERVICE MIRACLE

Editor,

My copy of the February 4, 2015 edition of the AVA arrived at my home in the mail, TODAY. What amazing service that was. Don't know how it happened, but maybe there is hope.

Allan Stanbridge

Burlingame

FUP

Editor,

Two quick things: I finally got a copy of FUP. WOW! Have you read any other Jim Dodge? Is it all this good? Should I get the others? (I'm semi- retired on a budget) And re your comments on revolution, do you know Ambrose Bierce's definition of revolution? "A trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering." Thanks, and kudos on finding the amazing Flynn Washburne.

Jim Lowe

Elizaville, New York

TOO MUCH FOR TOO LITTLE

Editor,

A note to the board members of KZYX. (Written email reply requested from each board member.)

Marco here. One thing that struck me during the Fort Bragg MCPB board meeting was how board members and their friends in the crowd so clearly felt that it's ridiculous to even consider restructuring to be able to pay airpeople. But consider: KZYX is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to retain superfluous bureaucrats who are /not/ talented people sitting at a microphone connected to a transmitter. And paying nothing to those who are. John Coate is getting $60,000 per year —that's half a million dollars ($500,000) in a little over eight years — and what is he working on now? A web jukebox so a few people can click to hear shows on demand. Gimcracks and gewgaws that have nothing to do with radio. And the result is the station has to limp along on old, unreliable equipment that frequently fails utterly. Think of how much equipment could simply be bought new and replaced on a regular schedule, like changing the oil in your car, if you weren't paying just John Coate quite so much, if you were instead paying him by the hour for the few basic tasks that are actually required of a radio station manager, that KNYO's manager, say, performs in an afternoon per month. And then there's David Steffen— KZYX's "Business Support Coordinator"? Why would a non-profit community radio station need a business support coordinator, whatever that is, and pay him $40,000 a year, yet? And Mary Aigner the program director — what is she doing that's worth whatever you're paying her? If that's also $40,000 a year, then divide that by $50 and you get 800 (eight hundred) yearly memberships diverted to go just to Mary— for what, exactly, compared to someone preparing all during the week, every week, to do a live show the best he or she can and then doing it. Why should management be paid so exorbitantly merely to show up, and airpeople who show up and in addition do radio not be paid at all?

If you really want to further dilute your radio mission in a web startup adventure, beyond just having a website with the show and events schedule on it, then why do you even need the broadcast license? A scarce educational-band radio broadcast license to blanket the county should be held by people dedicated to doing radio. And radio is cheap. At ten cents per kilowatt-hour and figuring in waste heat your 1,000-watt main transmitter costs only about $5 a day to operate. Your two 30-watt translator stations together cost less than fifty cents a day. I think you've forgotten this, if you ever knew it. Your entire operation— the main transmitter, the STLs, the translator stations, tower fees, music publisher fees, power and water, phones, internet service, all the studios, engineering service and pay for airpeople— can be well-maintained for about a third of the money you're burning now in counterproductive busy-work. You might never have to do more than one egregiously unlistenable pledge week per year ever again, let alone three or four. The first step to making KZYX a real community radio station for Mendocino County is to cut the fat at the top.

And I'd be on about this even if my show were on KZYX. It's not. I want to ask Stuart Campbell a few questions now. Stuart, is your show worthwhile and interesting and an asset to the station? Are you good at it, and are you proud of the show? Now, try to put yourself in my shoes. Imagine you weren't on the board of directors, that you brought your show as a finished proven product to KZYX, and you waited and waited —waited for years— and when you asked what progress was being made to put your show on the schedule you got no answer at all. And when you wrote to the manager, he told you /he/ wasn't the program director. And when you asked, "What do I have to do to get my show on KZYX?" the manager said, "I guess you have to convince Mary." And when you stopped by the station to talk about it you were treated as though you were an unwanted intrusion and told to use the telephone next time. What would you do then? Go to the board of directors? They'd tell you they have no control over who's on the air and who's not. Then what would you do? Really — it's a Kafka story you have set up there, Stuart, and it's been that way since the beginning.

I waited a long time to speak up. Much longer than I think any of you would have. The situation has got to change. And you have to change it, because if not you, who? And if not now, when? And if not at all, why not?

I want and deserve a written reply from each board member. I'll read the replies on my show on KNYO in Fort Bragg, whose entire yearly budget — for everything — is about a fifth of just what you're paying your general manager.

Marco McClean

Mendocino

memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

LES MEASLESERABLES

Dear Editor:

The blame for the outbreak of measles in California lies with the Legislature passing the personal beliefs exemption legislation and the Governor who signed the bill. This legislation was based on quack medicine and has allowed irresponsible parents to play Russian roulette not only with their children but other people's children. The Legislature and Governor Brown have to eliminate this exemption as well the religious beliefs exemption. In addition the legislation should make it clear that the immunization requirement applies to children who attend public and private schools as will as children who are home schooled. Parents who violate the law would be subject to criminal charges.

In peace,

Jim Updegraff

Sacramento,

Ed note: This one snuck up on me. Until last week, when I talked with the local school boss, I had no idea the unvaccinated could be admitted to public schools. Right here in AV we have about a dozen unvaccinated kids at the elementary school, all children of the, ahem, counterculturally credulous class. I have a dim memory of childhood chums being confined, by law, to their homes when they had measles, mumps so on. Your letter is right on the money, Jim.

STRANGE LIGHTS

Dear Editor,

In the letters to the editor last week, there was a P.S. about strange lights on Thursday night. I actually saw something really strange that Thursday during the day but felt a bit weird about sharing it. When I was walking up to the clinic, there was this strange light moving across the sky and since I had my phone handy, I took a picture (see attached). A friend told me he saw something too, so we would just like to know if the government was doing something up there or what? It didn't look like an airplane, though. Was it a drone?

I called the number given in the letter to the editor (895 3362) and I got a call back that it would be investigated, so I'm still waiting. Are there others who have seen weird things moving across the sky? We don't want to feel like we're the only ones seeing strange things.

Just wondering,

John Kendall

Rancho Navarro