Mendocino County Today: Monday, Feb 23, 2015

• Suzzette's Exit
• Frick F***ed
• Stonewall Ricard
• Water/Sewer Possibilities
• CSD Seats
• Farm Report
• Gun Laws
• Hitchhiker Tales
• Alien Activity
• KZYX Numbers
• Courthouse Commandments
• Black Thoughts
• Catch of the Day
• California Genocide
• Ukiah Observatory
• Whistleblower Show
• Shipping Costs
• O'Neill Mayhem

NOT THAT SHE'S talking about why she left, but Suzzette Cook, the smart and energetic young editor briefly in charge of news for the twin ad sales sheets known as the Fort Bragg Advocate and Mendocino Beacon, wanted to energize the papers with some real reporting, but Ms. Cook's up-tempo ambitions seemed to scare the bejeezus out of the prim dowagers who've run the two papers for many years, resulting in an inevitable “personality clash.” Even if she'd survived, a steady diet of Coast politics — an enervating mush of oppressively pious liberalism only occasionally leavened by overtly psychotic public events — probably would have caused her to eventually run for the door. All that as the mother corporation sells off everything while paying staff the usual corporo-pittance. The talented Ms. Cook is well outtahere.

PRESSER FROM MENDO DA DAVID EYSTER

"Ukiah, Feb 22. — Attempting to take advantage of changes to California sentencing laws, in particular Proposition 36, state prison inmate Jason Michael Frick, age 40, formerly of McKinleyville, filed a petition on Nov. 3, 2014 challenging his 25 years-to-life prison sentence imposed in Mendocino County, a sentence which he is currently serving at Susanville. 
A seven-time Striker and Humboldt County fugitive at the time of his local arrest, Frick was convicted in 2011 of using a shotgun and pipe bombs to hold off SWAT who had surrounded his Brooktrails hideout.
Frick argued in recent court papers that the changes in law made by the voters in Nov. 2012 mandated that he now serve no more than six years because his latest crimes were neither serious nor violent.
Legal arguments were heard by the Court on December 18 last year, and the matter was submitted for decision. Thereafter, by written decision filed Feb. 3, 2015, Frick's effort to have his life sentence modified was denied. 
In brief, the Court held that Frick had personally used a firearm in his crime, a fact proven by the prosecution and a fact that made Frick ineligible for the relief he sought. 
District Attorney David Eyster filed the opposition brief and argued at the December hearing. DA Eyster was also the trial attorney who originally prosecuted Frick in 2011. Frick was represented by the Public Defender's Office in 2011 and during recent proceedings."

THE AV COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT is preparing to make another attempt to remove Glen Ricard’s appalling eyesore on the south end of Boonville. CSD Board Chair Valerie Hanelt has an appointment to see Dave Jensen, the County’s Director of Environmental Health, to explain that Ricard's rambling, dilapidated and abandoned-for-years streetfront structure is not only unsightly but constitutes a major health and safety hazard on Boonville's main street.

CSD TRUSTEE Neil Darling pointed out that he had discovered that the CSD has eminent domain authority to convert the property to a legitimate public purpose, acknowledging that pursuing that angle would be difficult and probably would be opposed by Ricard.

LOCALS have for years complained about Ricard’s haughty dismissal of all reasonable attempts to get the arrogant Coast rentier to either sell or abate his derelict property. We’re aware of at least three fair offers by locals to buy the property and convert it to practical purposes, all of which didn’t so much as elicit a response from the boorish Ricard and his wife, the latter a former resident of the Anderson Valley.

THE RICARDS — he's 75 she's 58 — live in the petite bourgeoisie splendor of Little River and operate an upscale clothing store called Circa in a building the couple owns in Mendocino, a community aggressively hostile to architectural eyesores no matter how well maintained. The Ricards own several Mendocino properties.

PAST ATTEMPTS at getting the County to take action against the Ricards' rambling, oft-vandalized pile of kindling at Haehl and Highway 128, have been met with claims that the Ricard building “isn’t bad enough” to be declared a public nuisance as long as it’s “secure” — i.e., no broken or missing doors or windows and a fence in the back of it to discourage squatters.

RICARD does replace or board up the building's frequently broken windows, but no part of the decayed edifice has been upgraded or occupied in many years. The building is an obvious fire hazard, but the Valley's fire department has no authority to force Ricard to correct it unless they “implement the state fire code.” The state fire code strategy has met with resistance from other local businesses that don’t think such authority is necessary because, except for Ricard, local businesses have voluntarily cooperated in correcting fire hazards. Ricard, incidentally, has for years been engaged in a legal battle with the Little River Homeowner's Association over a drainage issue which he claims negatively impacts his property. It doesn't seem to occur to the Little River mini-magnate that his Boonville slum negatively impacts all of Boonville and undoubtedly prompts travelers to wonder why a town otherwise so nicely kept tolerates such an obvious affront to all known health and safety standards.

THE CSD'S Ms. Hanelt thinks that the County's department of Environmental Health might be more amenable to doing something about the Ricard property than the Building department has been. The CSD Board has unanimously put the Ricard building problem on next month’s agenda.

* * *

ON APRIL 18, 2012, the Community Services District Board voted 5-0 to send this letter to slum meister Glen Ricard of Little River:

“Dear Mr. Ricard,

This community and this Board believe that your abandoned and rundown building is a blight on the town of Boonville and a threat to the health and safety of the neighbors and neighboring properties. It also gives an initial bad impression of the town of Boonville to visitors approaching from the south which can affect local commerce. It is clear that your structure presents a fire danger because of the decrepit condition of the building, siding and internal collapse, and because transients can easily, and apparently have, broken in and entered the building in the past. Transients are known to occasionally start cooking fires which could easily get out of control. They are likely to conduct illegal drug activity in the building. We ask that you either:

1. Simply demolish the building because it appears that it has no economic value and the property would probably be worth more if the building were removed.

2. Refurbish and remodel the building for beneficial occupancy (as apparently preliminarily applied for several years ago).

Or 3. Sell the property to a willing buyer at a reasonable price.

Are you and/or your insurance carrier aware of the liabilities the building presents? We may be able to advise or assist you in arranging for the safe demolition or destruction of the building and removal of debris.

We encourage you to work with the local community to arrange for beneficial local occupancies that would become the basis for the construction of a new or remodeled building that would then provide income to you, while providing additional residential or commercial space in Boonville. We would like the courtesy of a reply to these concerns and requests with an indication of what your plans are for the property.”

NO RESPONSE from Ricard.

HANELT also reported last week that she had met informally with a Sonoma County couple who are experts in small-scale water and sewer systems, and their associated financing, to see if a local water or sewer system could be developed for Boonville or Philo under the “latent” auspices of the CSD. Ms. Hanelt said last Wednesday that new technologies — including modern low-impact trenching, intermediate and distributed on-site filtration systems and internet based computer monitoring — have reduced the cost and operational requirements for such systems, making them viable for small districts. Ms. Hanelt is planning to schedule a meeting with the consultants and all interested parties at a Board meeting in the Spring to discuss the possibilities.

THREE CSD BOARD SEATS will be up for election in November — the seats now held by Hanelt, Darling and Fred Martin. Martin and Hanelt have both said they do not intend to apply for another term. Darling seems reluctant, but has not yet decided. Interested parties can contact CSD General Manager Joy Andrews at the CSD office (895-2075) or districtmgr.avcsd@gmail.com for more information.

BOONVILLE'S THRIVING PETIT TETON FARM REPORTS: We're into full on gorgeous spring — the peaches and plums are draped in blossoms and the birdies and bees (we're overjoyed to have some) are going crazy. We've had half the rain we used to get, oh, four or five years ago, but that's an improvement over the past three years even though it's come in two storms, 6-7 inches in a day. About seven years ago we remember our cover crops being so high and thick that we had to hack a path into the rows. One didn't have to bend to pick crops since they grew so tall. No more. The favas are flowering and they're only about two feet tall. The drought continues, the Sierra remains essentially snow-less and we've bought 30 bales of alfalfa to feed our yaks in preparation for a long very hot summer. We know some of you in the East have the opposite problem and we wish there were a way to exchange some springtime for some rain or snow. Have a good year and keep ploughing. — Nikki Auschnitt and Steve Kreig

BAIT & HOOK

Dear Editor:

A sometimes Fort Bragg homeless young man had his driver and recreational fishing licenses suspended, because he was behind on court ordered child support payments, and now cannot easily work without a driver's license.

This unfortunate chap alleges that coastal Mendocino law enforcement, engages in selective ticketing for open container (ethyl alcohol) drinking violations in the general area of the City of Fort Bragg.

He maintains a limited exception in California coastal fishing regulations allowing him to fish for himself at what are called Public Piers, which meet certain conditional requirements, and that there is one in Fort Bragg, although I didn't catch the location.

He actively has to refute law enforcement allegation that a fishing license is required there, and informs them of the tricky law. http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/faq.asp

His open container ticket was issued while he had an opened beer next to him while seated along with his rolled up sleeping bag, but was not on it nor had been sleeping there, and that others with open containers but no bedding were not cited.

Later he found out that grocers and other stores which sell booze in Fort Bragg, apparently maintain a list of alleged culprits who have been fined for alcohol open container violations.

His claim is that the retail store establishments as a matter of defacto policy, refuse to sell alcohol beverages to those on an open container infraction list within Fort Bragg city limits.

The outlets appear to reserve their constitutional right to refuse service or sales to anyone of their choosing, perhaps even if alleged selective ticketing by law enforcement unconstitutionally targets the less fortunate via a bias created violation list of persecuted class members.

Situation may be to benefit the visual character of the local well heeled tourist dollar merchant economy, a perhaps cruel weapon against the homeless in Fort Bragg, depending on one's viewpoint of recreational alcohol consumption.

The above information was described in conversation two days ago, with a hitchhiker traveling from his ambulatory recovering Mom in Ukiah, to a weekend of sunny weather panhandling in Yuba City, with his found again birth defect challenged girl friend.

Eric Sunswheat, Potter Valley

SET YOUR PHASERS TO STUNNED

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Lb3kFwJRQ

A READER WRITES:

from the 2010 U.S. Census:

• Philo, 349
• Ukiah, 16,075
• Mendocino, 894
• Ft Bragg, 7,273
• Boonville, 1,035
• Hopland, 756
• Willits, 4,888

Total for Mendo County, 87,841

In 2010, it was estimated that 1/3 of the county's economy was based on marijuana cultivation. Yet, KZYX has no shows focusing solely on the marijuana industry. William Courtney, MD, who lives in Willits, I think, and who I know for certain has his medical practice in Mendocino, and who is a national expect on marijuana juicing, had to go all the way to KMUD in Redway to do his show. Redway, when KZYX has studios in both Willits and Mendocino. Also, until this year, KZYX did no reporting on the Emerald Cup. Christina Aanestad was essentially fired by John Coate for her insisting on editorial control of her own stories, which included a feature on the Emerald Cup. It never made the airwaves. Coate pushed Aanestad out. The feature story was killed.

Here's something else we can glean from the 2010 census data. Yet, the two locations for KZYX's three studios — Philo and Mendocino — have the lowest listening population.

Another thing — when station managements says they have 2,300 members, I think that's being generous and optimistic. I'll tell you why. There are only 1700+ "likes" on the Facebook page for the station. I'd say that's closer to membership totals. During this drive, many calls were "Add ons," meaning they gave a second time during this pledge.

What could Marco, Dennis, or Doug do with this information? Or the AVA?

Again, to put things in perspective, 1,700 members is less than 1 % of the total County population.

* * *

JOHN SAKOWICZ ADDS: So I did the math. KZYX's 1,700 Facebook "likes" — the actual number KZYX members? — is 1.9% of Mendocino County's population of 88,000. It's not the "less than than 1%" that my friend originally calculated.

But here's the rub: Let's not forget that KZYX's signal is heard in more than just Mendocino County. The signal is heard in west Lake County (to Nice and Lucerne), south Humboldt County (to Whitehorn and maybe Garberville), and north Sonoma County (to Cloverdale). Thus, some of those 1,700 Facebook "likes" are from those areas in other counties.

The population of that four-county region probably puts KZYX's potential listening audience at something closer to 125,000 — something bigger than Mendocino County's population of 88,000.

Bottom line? KZYX's Facebook 1,700 "likes" is 1.4% of its actual broadcast area. My 1.9% calculation is more generous and less meaningful.

Either way, for KZYX to make the claim that it is "public" radio, it needs to attract more of the public. So think about it. Something's wrong when only 1.4% of the people in your potential audience like you — like you enough to become members with a $50 membership or like you enough to click the "like" feature on your Facebook page.

God, I have 2,100 friends on Facebook, and I'm nobody.

AND NOW A WORD FROM OL' LINER NOTES

Editor:

Re: KZYX Board candidate McKenty's reply and candidate O'Brien's silence.

Doug, regarding your incident in Studio A, during which you did, or did not, make the right moves: as a programmer myself, I read your apology (Feb. 18). But according to your account, you did nothing incorrectly, so why apologize? How could that win trust? The apology then disappears in justifications about your "feelings about station policy," and "had the Board listened to me when they had the chance...." Huh?

Nonetheless, let's look at just one of the "larger issues" you mention: KZYX has lost "too many good programmers for minor violations." Well then, if the violations are minor, management is either onerous and unjust (some would say utterly corrupt) or, maybe, the half-dozen lost over 25 years have done something dumb and won't come off it.

I am in agreement with the point of disapproval Mr. McKenty expresses in the following statement: "I would like to let voters know that I have no affiliation with Mr. Sakowicz other than that I have spoken with him at length in order to understand the frustrations that led him to file a complaint. I made it clear to him at the time, and am now making it clear to you, that I never advocated for his complaint to the FCC. It put the station’s very existence at risk."

KZYX Board candidate Dennis O'Brien, endorsed by John Sakowicz in the January 14 AVA, has not replied to the same voter's challenge, so I'll repeat it. Should Mr. Sakowicz, himself a Board trustee, have written to the FCC as he did, demanding refusal to renew the station license?

Gordon Black

PS; Toward full disclosure and transparency, would Mr. O'Brien please acknowledge his position and interests as treasurer of KMEC FM. Has he not been pressing for cooperative or combined operations with KZYX&Z?

CATCH OF THE DAY, Feb 22, 2015

KENNETH BENNETT, Willits. Probation revocation.

KEVIN BETTS, Willits. Under infuence of controlled substance, probation revocation.

CHELSEA CARRERA, Ukiah. DUI.

JOSE CARRERA, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation.

LISA CESANO, Ukiah. DUI-Drugs.

JOSE ESCARENO, Covelo. Attempted murder.

ENRIQUE GARCIA, Hopland. DUI, probation revocation.

JOSE HERNANDEZ, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

OMAR HERNANDEZ, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

JANET KNIGHT, Redwood Valley. Driving without a license, resisting arrest.

MARC LUCAS, Ukiah. Battery of emergency services worker, possession of controlled substance, driving on suspended license.

JOSE MEJIA, Covelo. Possession of drugs while armed.

PABLO MORA, Ukiah. Battery of peace officer, probation revocation.

JOSE REYES, Ukiah. DUI.

BITTER MEMORIES AT ROUND VALLEY

"One day a white man came into the Valley riding a horse. He went to the central camp of the Yuki tribe.... The Indians were amazed at seeing their first white man and horse, and being naturally friendly people gathered round to see what had arrived in their midst. They were not long in learning this strange creature had the power of a `Devil' for he pointed a stick at them and a big noise and smoke came out of it and an Indian died with a hole in his chest. Devils were to be disposed of, and this one was no exception. No one knows what disposition was made of his body, but he had committed his last murder."

— A Yuki legend of the first white man in Round Valley

* * *

The first inhabitants of Round Valley in the northeastern corner of Mendocino County called themselves Ukomno'm — Valley People. They built villages at places called Red Ground, Wide Hill, Cool Water, Short Creek, and Tule Point. They traded and married with other tribes who spoke the same language.

They lived by hunting, fishing and gathering. Deer, quail, salmon and trout were popular. Acorns from several species of oaks were ground with a mortar and pestle to provide soup, mush and bread. Tales of famine, which are common among other native people, were rare among the Yuki.

The name Yuki actually comes from the Nomlaki people who lived on the other side of large mountains. When the first non-Indian explorers came west through the Sacramento Valley they asked the Nomlaki "who lived beyond the mountains?" The Nomlaki answered "Yuki" which in their Wintu language means "enemy" or "thief."

In May 1854, Frank Asbill and others were traveling through the Coast Range looking for a route from Petaluma to Weaverville, a route that could be used to ship supplies to the gold miners who were now flooding the state. On May 15, while gathering up his horses, Frank Asbill spotted beautiful Round Valley. He gathered up his men and rode into Round Valley where he proceeded to kill 40 Yuki Indians.

A bronze plaque has been placed by the state of California to mark the spot where Frank Asbill "discovered" Round Valley. It doesn't mention the massacre that happened later that day. The plaque, spotted with bullet holes, was stolen several years ago. It was eventually recovered from the Alameda County Flea Market, where it was being sold as junk.

Genocide In The Golden State

As European Americans invaded Round Valley a genocidal war of extermination was underway against the Native Peoples of California. The first governor of California, after the U.S. government seized California from Mexico in the War of 1848, called for a "war of extermination" against the Indians and said that their complete destruction was "the inevitable destiny of the race."

In 1848 gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill and white Americans started flooding into California. Within three years more than 200,000 spilled across the Sierras in a frantic rush to reach the gold fields. Even the remote portions of the state became overrun with non-Indians seeking to log timber, ranch and farm. This disrupted the Indians' food supply. Logging mills, for example, kept salmon from going upstream, and ranchers fenced in land where Indians had gathered food for hundreds of years.

In 1850 California passed the "Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians." This act allowed any white settler to force any Indian found to be without means of support to work for him. Since Indians could not testify against white people in court, almost any Indian could be seized as a virtual slave under this law. Many settlers didn't even bother with the law and purchased Indian children outright. Many fortunes were made off the sale of Indian women and children. An editorial in the Marysville Appeal illustrates this practice: "But it is from these mountain tribes that white settlers draw their supplies of kidnapping children, educated as servants, and women for purposes of labor and lust...there are parties in the northern portion of the state whose sole occupation has been to steal young children and squaws ...and dispose of them at handsome prices to the settlers who...willingly pay $50 or $60 for a young Digger to cook or wait upon them, or $100 for a likely young girl."

In order to clear the way for white settlement, the U.S. Senate in 1853 authorized three commissioners to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes in California. Eighteen treaties were negotiated with the California Indians. The Indians negotiated in good faith and bartered away millions of acres of land in exchange for the U.S. government's promise of protection and lands with adequate water and game to sustain them and their way of life. These lands would have contained about 7.5 million acres, or 7.5 percent of the land area of California. The Indians began moving to their new lands only to find out that the Senate had refused to ratify their treaties.

At the same time as they rejected the treaties, the Senate appointed Edward Beale to be in charge of Indian policy in California. Beale quickly developed a new plan for dealing with California's Indians. His plan was to have a "system of military posts" on government-owned reservations. Each of these reservations would put into place a "system of discipline and instruction." Beale wrote that the cost of the troops would be "borne by the surplus produce of Indian labor." No treaties were to be negotiated with the Indians, instead they would be "invited to assemble within these reserves."

The reservations that Beale proposed and which were established in California were different in important respects from reservations that had been set up in other parts of the country. These California reservations were to be on U.S. government land and there was no recognition of any land ownership rights on the part of the Indians. Also, the Indians were not even granted nominal rights to control their own affairs. They were to be directly under the control of U.S. troops. The California reservations could more accurately be called concentration camps.

In 1856 Nome Cult Farm, which later became the Round Valley Reservation, was set up in Round Valley. The government thought that Round Valley's isolated location and geography made it an ideal place to put thousands of Indians. Although the whole Valley was initially claimed by the government, settlers in the area quickly claimed the best land, tore down fences and let their cattle graze on the land set aside for the reservation. Indians who worked on the reservation received only six ears of corn to eat per day. Indians at Round Valley were used as private labor for the agents in charge of the reservation.

Indians on the reservations were hired out to settlers to work as pack animals. A settler reported that in 1857: "About 300 died on the reservation from the effects of packing them through the mountains in the snow and mud...They were worked naked with the exception of deer skins around their shoulders...They usually packed 50 pounds if they were able..."

The reservations were supposed to protect the Indians from slave-raiders. However, Indian women and children on Nome Cult Farm were in more danger of being kidnapped into slavery because they were now concentrated together, which made it easier and more convenient for the slavers. An employee of Nome Cult Farm who arrived on the reservation in 1858 stated, "In coming to the valley, on the first occasion, I met a man with four Indian boys taking them off, and the third time I came on the trail, I met a man taking off a girl."

River Rangers

Many powerful forces around the state openly called for the extermination of the Indians. The Yreka Herald stated its position clearly: "Now that general hostilities against the Indians have commenced we hope that the government will render such aid as will enable the citizens of the north to carry on a war of extermination until the last redskin of these tribes has been killed. Extermination is no longer a question of time — the time has arrived, the work has commenced, and let the first man that says treaty or peace be regarded as a traitor." Other papers voiced similar sentiments.

One employee at Nome Cult Farm described the extent of the actions against the Indians of the area, "In 1856, the first expedition by the whites against the Indians was made and they have continued ever since..there were so many of these expeditions that I cannot recollect the number; the result being that we would kill, on an average, 50 or 60 Indians on a trip and take some prisoners, which we always took to the reserve; frequently we would have to turn out two or three times a week."

Public policy clearly supported the genocide of the Indians. A California law in 1851 gave settlers the right to organize vigilante groups and hunt down Indians and permitted them to submit claims to the state for their expenses. In 1851 and 1852 the state legislature authorized claims totaling over $1 million.

Municipal governments offered bounties for Indian scalps. Shasta City in 1855 offered $5.00 for every Indian head presented at city headquarters. One resident wrote about how he remembers seeing men bringing mules to town, each laden with eight to twelve Indian heads. A community near Marysville in 1859 paid bounties "for every scalp or some other satisfactory evidence" that an Indian had been killed.

One militia which operated in Mendocino County was the Eel River Rangers. This militia was formed after a horse belonging to Serranus Clifton Hastings was killed, allegedly by starving Indians, in April 1859. Hastings was a wealthy rancher, the first Chief Justice of California's Supreme Court, and had been elected attorney general in 1851. He petitioned his friend, Governor Weller, of the need to organize a company to drive the Indians out of Mendocino County.

The company was organized under the command of Captain Walter Jarboe. Jarboe's orders to his men were to "kill all the bucks they could find and take the women and children prisoner, and if they caught sight of an Indian, never lose him as long as they could follow his track." In reality, the company spared few of the Indians, killing women and children. Unarmed Indians looking for food were surrounded and shot.

A Lieutenant described a typical raid: "We...traveled in the night until we saw the fire of an Indian Rancheria which we surrounded when day was breaking and waited until near sun up before we attacked and killed 20, consisting of bucks, squaws and children, and also took two squaws and one child prisoner; those killed were all killed in about three minutes...we found in this rancheria no sign of depredation having been committed by these Indians."

In a report to Governor Weller, Jarboe describes his actions during the first three weeks of December, 1859, during which time he burned Indians alive in their huts and in four separate encounters shot 7, 32 and 10.

The Eel River Rangers were disbanded in January 1860. In his final report Jarboe estimated that in less than five months he fought the Indians "23 times, killed 283 warriors, the number of wounded was not known, took 292 prisoners, sent them to the reservation." On April 12, 1860 the state legislature approved $9,347.39 for "payment of the indebtedness incurred by the expedition against the Indians in the County of Mendocino organized under the command of Captain W. S. Jarboe in 1859." California Governor Weller wrote a letter to Jarboe congratulating him for doing "all that was anticipated" and giving his "sincere thanks for the manner in which it [the campaign] was conducted."

There were many, many other massacres carried out during these bloody years. Some of the more well known are the Clear Lake Massacre, Blood Run Creek Massacre, and the Massacre at Bloody Rock.

The Indians that survived the massacres were driven by horse-riding whites with bullwhips from their villages to Nome Cult, a passage remembered as "The Death March." A Pomo elder described his grandmother's story in the Albion Monitor newspaper, "They herded them like cattle, like animals. Old people couldn't make it, couldn't keep up and died on the road. [When I was a boy] they talked about it, they would talk about what happened on the road and they would cry, go all to pieces. It was misery, it was hardship. It was death."

One account of the Death March was told to a Pomo woman by her great-grandfather: An old woman, unable to keep the pace, begged to be buried there on the trailside, her favorite basket at her side. Another elder remembered that mothers killed their own babies rather than see them die a slow death on the March.

This is how seven peoples, the Konkow Maidu; Little Lake and other Pomo people; Nomlaki; Cahto; Wailaki; Pit River; and Yuki have come to live together in Round Valley.

Resistance

One of the myths about the Native People of Mendocino County is that they did not organize resistance to the genocide that was being conducted against them. The battles were almost always unequal, with the whites having vastly superior weapons and the Indians were never able to unite as a group against them. These are some examples of the resistance from the book Genocide and Vendetta:

During the first year of Nome Cult Farm, the Yuki Indians rebelled. The head of the reservation wrote: "some of the Nome Cult Indians twice surrounded our quarters, threatening our lives and killing some stock. In resisting them we were forced to kill many of them which stopped their proceedings."

On December 9, 1859 a band of Yuki gathered in Long Valley and challenged some of Jarboe's men. When the Indians were attacked, they filled the air with a continuous stream of arrows and war cries. They tried to kill all of the whites. They were unsuccessful against the guns of the whites and all of the Indians were either killed or wounded. Several of Jarboe's men were injured.

In 1861 a band of Wailaki succeeded in obtaining rifles and becoming proficient in their use. They became known as the "Gun Indians." In September of 1861 these Wailaki attacked the settlers in Round Valley, killing a large number of horses and cattle. In retaliation the settlers attacked a Wailaki village at Horse Canyon, killing 240 Wailaki, including many women and children. This massacre became known as the Blood Run Creek massacre because so many Indians were killed that the creek became red with the blood of the victims.

Further north in Humboldt County there was widespread resistance. One of the most active was Chief Lassik's band, which succeeded in driving the settlers out of their territory in southeastern and southwestern Humboldt County. Chief Lassik and his band were captured in 1862, but were able to escape from the Smith River Reservation. After escaping, he headed south along the Klamath River and "stirred up discontent and revengeful feelings." Although Chief Lassik was finally caught and killed in 1863, for over one year he was able to carry on a campaign of resistance against the settlers.

Prior to contact with non-Indians it is estimated that there were about 310,000 American Indians living in the state of California. The deadly mission system imposed by Spanish colonialists and missionaries had taken the lives of tens of thousands of Indians. But the mission system did not reach into many areas and remote valleys like Round Valley. As California fell under U.S. domination, in a relatively short period of time from 1830 to 1890, the Native population of California declined from approximately 245,000 to 16,000. During the worst decade, between 1845 and 1855, the rate of decline was incredible. In less than 10 years the Indian population fell from 150,000 to approximately 50,000. One historian wrote that what the government did to the California Indians was "as close to genocide as any tribal people had faced or would face on the North American continent."

Theft Of The Land 
& Destruction Of The Culture

In the years after the most brutal killing ended, the American society concentrated on stealing away the little land that was put aside for the Indians on the reservations and destroying their culture. Through various forms of theft and fraud white settlers took control of most of the valley land throughout the 1870s and 1880s. White ranchers became rich fattening their cattle illegally on Indian land and selling it at inflated prices to the Indians. A visitor to the valley described what would happen when someone complained about the settlers stealing the land: "If a witness against them could be neither coaxed nor terrified into silence, he got a bullet and the local magistrate made a perfunctory investigation."

When Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887, which provided for allotment of reservation land to individual Indians, it became clear that about 60 percent of the reservation lands had been lost to the white settlers. Whereas there were supposedly 102,118 acres prior to allotment, only 42,163 acres were actually allotted. The land was dispersed in a checkerboard fashion to make it impossible for Native People to combine their small parcels.

Many Indian people lost most of their land in later years through various types of fraud, through non-payment of taxes, or they were forced to sell it because white settlers ran them off their own property.

There were also systematic efforts to destroy the culture and history of the Native Peoples. Ministers were brought in to run the reservation and "civilize the savages." One minister instituted a pass system — all Indians had to have a signed pass to leave the reservation. Native People found off the reservation without a pass were brought back by the military. A congressman who visited Round Valley in 1874 found that the minister in charge whipped the Indians, that the Indians were poorly fed and forced to work for very little in return. He concluded that the reservation system was little better than slavery.

Youth were forced to attend reservation schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Children were prohibited from wearing Indian clothing or speaking their native language. Those who were caught breaking the rules were severely beaten.

Jim Crow In Mendocino

Jim Crow segregation was the rule in Mendocino County up until the 1960s. A middle-aged Round Valley resident remembered the days of segregation. "We couldn't go in restaurants, we couldn't go in barbershops, we couldn't buy alcoholic beverages. I suppose we could vote and our men could go off to war, but we couldn't go into the court or have witnesses testify on your behalf. We weren't allowed to have government jobs until the 1960s."

The shocking and bloody history of the Round Valley Indian Reservation and Mendocino County are events that continue to be felt in the lives of the Native People in Round Valley. "I believe that what we are dealing with in Bear Lincoln's case has its roots firmly in the past," says Phil DeJong, one of Bear Lincoln's attorneys. "We need to confront the issue of how the white community deals with the Round Valley Indian people and other Native American Indian communities in the area. We can't heal the past unless we address the present."

Sources for this article include:

Genocide and Vendetta: The Round Valley Wars of Northern California by Lynwood Carranco and Estle Beard. University of Oklahoma Press, 1981.

Indians of California: The Changing Image by James Rawls. University of Oklahoma Press, 1984.

Testimony of attorney Lester J. Marston (testimony from a motion in Bear Lincoln's trial)

— Revolutionary Worker #917, July 27, 1997
http://revcom.us/a/v19/910-19/917/rndvaly.htm

UKIAH LATITUDE OBSERVATORY: IT IS NOT WHAT YOU MAY THINK

With the support of the Friends of the Observatory and the City of Ukiah, Martin Bradley (featured in the November 5, 2014 AVA “Mendocino Talking”.) is spearheading a “pop-up museum” exhibit featuring the original telescope from Ukiah Latitude Observatory.

It was just returned from a government warehouse where it had been gathering dust for the last thirty three years.

“This observatory wasn’t put in Mendocino County to explore distant galaxies, planets and the moon. It was was a very hybrid observatory, one of only five in the world to gather information for an international study 1899 to 1982.”

The astronomical telescope was used as a precision surveying instrument to measure the exact time a set of predetermined stars crossed the north-south celestial meridian over a course of a year.

“That doesn’t diminish the roll Ukiah Latitude Observatory played in astronomy and geodesy; it adds to it.” Bradley said.

To celebrate the return, Bradley extended an invitation to Dana J. Caccamise, NOAA/National Geodetic Survey’s (NGS) Pacific Southwest Region Geodetic Advisor. “I figured the least the National Geodetic Survey could offer was an explanation of what they were doing in Ukiah for 83 years before they absconded with our telescope!”

Dana Caccamise II is going to give a talk at the Ukiah Civic Center Council Chamber’s Thursday Night (2/26). “I like the guy. It’s funny, I think he was asking ‘WTF’ when he received the invitation.” Martin added.

On Saturday, the pop-up museum will have an opening exhibit at the restored Ukiah Observatory, 432 Observatory Avenue. It will be open every Friday and Saturday from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

* * *

“The National Geodetic Survey sent Dana Caccamise to The California Spatial Reference Center (CSRC), located at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University California San Diego. UCSD is hosting his position and holds a Research Associate position in the SIO’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) department.”

NSA WHISTLEBLOWERS BILL BINNEY AND KIRK WIEBE ON KMEC RADIO, Monday, February 23, at 1pm

NSA whistleblowers Bill Binney and Kirk Weibe join hosts John Sakowicz and Sid Cooperrider on your community radio station, KMEC, on Monday. We'll talk about a breaking story -- how the NSA is spying on our cell phones.

KMEC Radio is heard at 105.1 FM in Ukiah, CA.

We also stream live from the web to a worldwide audience at www.kmecradio.org

Our shows are archived and available for podcasts.

Shows may be videotaped for Youtube. Shows may also be available for distribution at Radio4All.

BACKGROUND

NSA Whistleblowers on Breaking Story: Spying on Billions of Cell Phones

The Intercept is reporting: "American and British spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

"The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world's cellular communications, including both voice and data.

"The company targeted by the intelligence agencies, Gemalto, is a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands that makes the chips used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards. Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world. The company operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. One of its three global headquarters is in Austin, Texas and it has a large factory in Pennsylvania.

"In all, Gemalto produces some 2 billion SIM cards a year. Its motto is: Security to be Free.'

"With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider's network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

"As part of the covert operations against Gemalto, spies from GCHQ -- with support from the NSA -- mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries. ... "Leading privacy advocates and security experts say that the theft of encryption keys from major wireless network providers is tantamount to a thief obtaining the master ring of a building superintendent who holds the keys to every apartment."

WILLIAM BINNEY

Binney is a former high-level National Security Agency intelligence official who, after his 2001 retirement after 30 years, blew the whistle on NSA surveillance programs. His outspoken criticism of the NSA during the George W. Bush administration made him the subject of FBI investigations that included a raid on his home in 2007. Even before Edward Snowden's NSA whistleblowing, Binney publicly revealed that NSA had access to telecommunications companies' domestic and international billing records, and that since 9/11 the agency has intercepted some 15 to 20 trillion communications. Snowden has said: "I have tremendous respect for Binney, who did everything he could according to the rules."

J. KIRK WIEBE

Wiebe is a retired National Security Agency whistleblower who worked at the agency for 36 years. Wiebe's colleague William Binney developed the ThinThread information processing system that, arguably, could have detected and prevented the 9/11 terrorist attacks. NSA officials, though, ignored the program in favor of Trailblazer, a program that ended in total failure with costs of billions of dollars. Wiebe and Binney blew the whistle internally on Trailblazer, but to no avail.

BINNEY AND WEIBE TOGETHER AT THE NSA

William (Bill) Binney is a former NSA crypto-mathematician, and J. Kirk Wiebe is a former NSA senior analyst who was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award, NSA's second highest distinction. They both worked in the agency's Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (SARC), and served in the NSA for decades. As Technical Director of the World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, Binney mentored some 6000 technical analysts that eavesdropped on foreign nations, collecting private phone calls and emails for NSA databases. However, with the expansion of the Internet during the 1990s and the explosion of communications that went with it, it quickly became clear that NSA could not keep up with, and effectively analyze, all the new data available. Working in the SARC, Binney and Wiebe both realized this was a dangerous vulnerability for NSA and the country.

In response, Binney and his team (of which Wiebe was a member), created a program -- ThinThread -- that could effectively isolate and streamline data in the new Information Age. More importantly, it could filter out all types of irrelevant data, thus eliminating the need to forward and store large amounts of information for subsequent analysis. To ensure the privacy rights of American citizens were adequately protected, Binney and his team installed an "anonymizing" feature to ensure Fourth Amendment protections for the communications of U.S. citizens.

NOBODY'S PERFECT

For all the suave shellac of Eugene O'Neill's public image and the scrupulous reserve with which he handled his international fame — O'Neill is the only American playwright to win the Nobel Prize (1936) — he was an unrepentant, mean drunk. His attitude to women swung between idealization and demonization. He was a wife beater, and on a bender he was capable of extraordinary mayhem. He fed the manuscript of Agnes Boulton's novel into the fire, tore up unique family photographs, smashed the cherished Thomas Eakins portrait of her father. Accused at knife-point by Monterey of flirting with his secretary, he held a loaded gun to her head before choking her and finally knocking her unconscious with a punch to the chin.

— John Lahr