Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Feb 28, 2015

• Frost Advisory
• Carmel's Friend
• Video Arraignments
• Ortner Willits?
• EMT Rewards
• Seen Jeff?
• Catch o'the Day
• Waltzing
• Finding Mercuryville
• DUI Checkpoint
• Meth Dealer
• Foodshed News
• Police Reports
• Hit & Runner
• Memories
• Gaza
• Hotel Testimonial
• Wrong Location
• I Could
• Stehr Cool
• Shocking Revelations

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN EUREKA has issued a frost advisory, in effect from midnight tonight [Saturday] to 9 am Sunday.

• Low temperatures...mid 30s.
• Locations include valley and coastal locations with the exception of areas less than a half mile from the coast. Locations include Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville, Fortuna, Boonville, Willits and Ukiah.
• For a detailed view of the hazard area, visit http://www.weather.gov/eureka/hazards

WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR NORTHWEST CALIFORNIA: "Rain and snow showers will persist. Snow levels will be around 3500 to 4000 ft. Snowfall amounts of up to two inches are possible in the heaviest showers. There is also a slight chance for thunderstorms."

ACCORDING to a recent summary of Mendocino County Contracts on the General Services website, Ms. Victoria ‘Vicki’ Mizel was first hired by the County in 2012 for “insurance review” services. The versatile Ms. Mizel was hired again in 2012/2013 and paid $25k for consultations related to the consolidation of the County's perennially chaotic Health and Human Services Administration. That consolidation, by the way, was supposed to have been carried out and completed a decade prior.

MIZEL was then hired to consult on unspecified Library management affairs as a “Systems Optimization Consultant.” (According to the minutes of a Round Valley Library Friends meeting.)

WE CAN'T find mention of the Library-related contract on the County website.

WE UNDERSTAND that Ms. Mizel has lately been hired again for about $50k worth of services, but can find no record of it on the County’s website.

MIZEL'S “Linked-In” profile says she is a San Diego-based employee of Mendocino County. She describes herself as “Health Policy Consultant/Professional Development/Coach & Mentor." Under “previous employment” she lists: “Independent contractor for Mendocino County.”

COUNTY CEO, Carmel Angelo, when we contacted her by e-mail (see below), says, “if you read prior library reports...” we'd know what Ms. Mizel did for the County in the County's attempt to discredit the Grand Jury's complaint on the County’s Library funding of the Library Director. Again, though, there's no mention of Ms. Mizel on line or on the County's website in regard to the library/grand jury dispute. So it's not likely that we would have “read prior library reports.”

THE UPSHOT? Ms. Mizel is a long-time personal friend of County CEO, Carmel Angelo. Ms. Angelo enjoys discretionary spending of up to $50,000 annually. Ms. Angelo promptly responded to our inquiries reprinted below:

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Dear Ms. Angelo:

I understand you've hired Ms. Mizel to do consulting work worth approximately $80,000 for Mendocino County. I further understand that she is a personal friend of yours.

Please clarify.

Thank you,

Bruce Anderson, AVA, Boonville

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Mr. Anderson, Good afternoon. I have not hired Ms. Mizel. I am not sure where you received this information.

Thank you, Carmel Angelo

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Ms. Angelo:

Thank you for your prompt reply, and please pardon what may seem like an impertinence, but does Ms. Mizel do any paid work of any kind for Mendocino County?

Thank you,

Bruce Anderson, AVA

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Mr. Anderson, I have many colleagues and friends from twelve years in San Diego County government. Ms. Mizel is one of them. I hope I answered your questions now.

Thank you. Carmel Angelo

You are welcome to ask any questions you would like. If you read prior Library reports, you will see Ms. Mizel did work for this county, specifically for the library. To my knowledge, Ms. Mizel no longer has a contract with Mendocino County. If you would like, I could have staff check the contract database for current contracts.

ONE OF THE ITEMS in the 1994 $100k Management Audit of the Sheriff’s Department (back when Jim Tuso was Sheriff) by San Francsico based Harvey Rose Consulting, was Item 6: “Too much time and money is spent on prisoner transportation — use video arraignment at the jail.”

THAT WAS 20 YEARS AGO. Sheriff Tuso considered the audit an affront to his department and refused to consider any of the audit’s proposals. Mr. Rose admitted as much in the introduction to his report: “The Sheriff did not welcome this management audit. Throughout the study, the Sheriff limited our access to records and staff. At the conclusion of the study, the Sheriff chose to respond to the Board of Supervisors regarding the draft report, instead of directly responding to the audit team, as is the normal professional practice. These actions, and comments made by the Sheriff at the exit conference and in his written response, illustrate his adversarial posture during the study.”

GOOD OLD MENDO. We do things our way up here, prevailing standards in the outside world notwithstanding.

TUSO subsequently met with an ad hoc committee of then-supervisors Frank McMichael (a former LA Cop) and then-5th District supervisor, Charles Peterson. They issued their own report saying that Sheriff Tuso had no plans to implement any of Mr. Rose’s recommendations, even the sensible ones like video arraignments which would significantly reduce the costly and inefficient shuttling of prisoners from the jail to the courthouse and back every court day. Their majesties of the Superior Court also resisted jailhouse arraignments, which they undoubtedly viewed as inconvenient to themselves.

SO IT WAS WITH INTEREST that we noticed the following item on next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors Consent Calendar:

“Item 4(s), March 3, 2015 Board of Supervisors meeting: Approval to Add a Capital Improvement Project Within Budget Unit 1710 for the Installation of Data and Power Lines with Conduit for Video Conferencing in the Mendocino County Jail. The Sheriff’s Office has two proposed video projects that will achieve operational efficiencies: Expansion of the court video arraignment and creation of inmate video visitation system. Both require modification to the Jail facility by installing conduit, electrical and data lines (Cat6E). The video project for the Courts will lessen the number of inmates transported. This will reduce staff hours, wear and tear on vehicles and increase public safety. Whereas, the inmate video visitation will greatly reduce staff time moving inmates to and from the visiting area. The funding of these projects will have no impact on the General Fund. The funding for the Court video project will be requested through the Community Corrections Partnership. Funding for the video visiting project will be a partnership between the Inmate Welfare Fund and the Sheriff’s Office telephone contractor Legacy Inmate Communications.

“RECOMMENDED ACTION/MOTION: Approve the addition of a capital improvement project within budget unit 1710 for the installation of data and power lines with conduit for video conferencing in the Mendocino County Jail. Further, direct staff to obtain bids for the project and return to the Board of Supervisors with an appropriations transfer request at a later date.”

IT ONLY TOOK 20 YEARS! Pretty good, by Mendo standards. In 20 more years we might get a residential County Farm!

WHAT WILL HAPPEN to the old Howard Memorial Hospital in Willits? (Update from County CEO Carmel Angelo’s report for the March 3, 2015 Board of Supervisors meeting):

“With the move of Howard Memorial Hospital into their brand new facility quickly becoming a reality, there has been much speculation regarding what the vacated space might be used for. For approximately two years now, Health and Human Services Director, Stacey Cryer and I have been engaged in conversations with Margie Handley, President of the Howard Memorial Hospital's Foundation Board. The Foundation owns the building and is interested in the possibility of a sale or lease, under the right circumstances. The Foundation hopes to find a potential buyer or lessee who will utilize the building to serve a community need. The conversation naturally shifted to mental health and the community desire to have some type of local inpatient services available. The facility may have some potential for this use. There are many factors that would need to be taken into consideration to implement this type of project. The intention would not be for the County to either directly provide the services or be the purchaser of the facility. Conversations continue and have revolved around what we see as prospective ideas for the use of this property and to facilitate additional discussions with prospective providers of mental health services through 24 hour care facilities.”

“THE INTENTION would not be for the County to either directly provide the services or be the purchaser of the facility…”

HMMM. Do we smell another big Ortner Management Group Mental Health contract upgrade? Ortner's guy in Mendo, Mental Health Director Tom Pinizzotto is conveniently well-placed to add Willits to Ortner's lucrative Mendo empire.

WHY I BECAME AN AMBULANCE DRIVER/EMT

by Antoinette von Grone

I never overly applied myself in school, which resulted in some mediocre finals and had the astounding consequence that I could not study biology, the only science that held any interest for me. Fortunately I had some artistic talent combined with a good amount of creativity, and successfully embarked on the long path of becoming an artist.

The upshot of this development was that other than learning French in my mid twenties I never challenged my brain much, and comfortably settled into the notion that the right side of my brain ruled my destiny while the left side needn’t be bothered.

After moving to the valley 10 years ago, my husband Thom told me that he wanted to volunteer either with the Fire Department or as driver for the ambulance. He explained to me that living in such a small community came with a civic duty to engage with it on some level.

Wow, what a brand new idea in my universe. I had spent the majority of my life living in places where the government paid for such services and so I did not waste much time thinking about them.

I supported Thom’s decision but still did not connect them to my personal life. After all I was a woman just turned 50 without enough physical strength to run fire hoses up and down our steep terrain. And as to driving the ambulance, heck, I was not a racecar driver.

So the day came along when I ran into the late Bruce Longstreet (then manager of the ambulance) at a party. We talked about Thom’s upcoming training and then he surprised me by saying: “And what about you?” “Ah…. I don’t drive fast” “Well that’s not what we want anyway, we need drivers who drive safe. You never have to exceed your comfort zone and once you have a patient on board we need you to drive very, very carefully.”

I guess this small conversation was a point in my life where it took one of those unexpected turns. I just did not know that yet when I agreed to become an ambulance driver.

David Severn was my driving mentor and before long I did my first shift. I remember crystal clear where I was on that first run when that feeling of being deeply alive came over me and I thought: “It took 50 years to get here!” It was at mile marker 10 on Hwy 253.

My initial concern that I would not be able to take the sight of blood proved wrong because as an official part of EMS you take on a professional attitude that provides a barrier between your private feelings and the task at hand. So for the next 2 years I enthusiastically drove, showed up to help on many scenes as an extra hand to get more exposure and witnessed the mysterious actions of the EMTs.

My enthusiasm went so far as to jump out of the bathtub and leave my husband there to go to someone’s aid. Well I learned quickly that that was not a genius move and that it was important to balance my home life more delicately.

Then the biannual EMT class was offered and while I thought that my memory capacity was not great enough to become one (remember my slumbering left side of the brain) I thought I could be a much better driver and help to the EMTs if I actually understood what they were doing. So I signed up.

To my surprise I was hooked from the very first day onward and developed a drive to excel I had NEVER had before. Wow, learning was fun and medicine was a new universe! A different world opened itself to a very hungry left side, I had starved it for way too long.

Along with all this excitement came a number of wonderful bonuses:

To help and experience how much comfort you can bring to people in emergency settings, sometimes simply by holding a hand and being gentle and calm.

To meet and appreciate my co-volunteers who come from all kinds of different backgrounds but have in common the commitment to this community. I think of them as my brethren, a true brotherhood.

To acquire the ability to stay calm in difficult circumstances.

To live more consciously and experience the poignant beauty of life in the face of emergency.

To see the CalStar helicopter fly straight into the full moon one night (that was amazing).

And last but not least to feel the adrenaline rush that still comes with every call I respond to.

So here is the point where I have to admit that I have become an Emergency Services junky. I listen to the EMS radio during the day, which covers all of Mendocino County. It is as if listening to the pulse of a community. I go online and read articles about EMS, go to all trainings I am in town for, because we don’t get that many calls so there is not enough repetition. And I have to also acknowledge that if I don’t keep at it my now 60 year old brain forgets too much. The insights into people’s lives are more than interesting. And while traversing the multiple layers of society in this valley my overall “medical” assessment comes always to this conclusion: when we are sick and in need of help, we are all the same.

******

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!” — Goethe

$10,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION ABOUT MISSING MAN JEFF JOSEPH

by Kym Kemp

An enlarged version of the reward poster can be found here. At that site, clicking on each photo within the poster will enlarge the section further.

Family members have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to Jeff Joseph, a former marijuana collective owner who went missing in the Weitchpec area last June. Friends and family have had no word from him nor has his green 1998 Toyota Rav4 been found. Several of his siblings believe that he may have met with foul play. The reward, as seen on the poster above, is contingent on the arrest and conviction of the people responsible for his disappearance.

Joseph’s family believe he came to Humboldt County in order to do a marijuana deal and to check on a property he was leasing in the area. According to investigator Jeff Kaplan of K&K Confidential, there has been no new hard evidence of why Joseph disappeared, but there have been a number of leads from some people in the Weitchpec area.

However, neither the investigator nor law enforcement have discovered any hard evidence of Joseph’s actual whereabouts. Detective Todd Fulton of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s said that the property Joseph leased was searched last year but there was no evidence of him having been there, nor had the neighbors seen him in the area at the time of his disappearance. In addition, after the first of this year when the majority of leaves had dropped from the trees, the California Highway Patrol, at Fulton’s request, did a flyover of the area in their helicopter and looked around for Joseph’s car along the Klamath River between Cappell and Weitchpec. It was not located. Fulton said that the area is very rough and it is possible that the vehicle was there but not observed.

Kaplan, who was hired by the family to help track down leads, says that cell phone information indicates that Joseph, or at least his phone, was in the area on June 21. Several people who might have seen or spoken to him while he was here have failed to respond to numerous attempts to communicate with them, Kaplan said

In an effort to get those people to contact the investigator or police, Joseph’s family have turned to the media for help. One individual is Robert Chris Hunter. Kaplan believes Hunter may have met with Joseph. He is currently wanted by the Trinity County Sheriff’s Department — see photo from his wanted poster on the right — and efforts to contact him have been fruitless.

Two other people who lived/worked this past year on the property that Jeff Joseph leased near Weitchpec are also important to speak to, said the investigator. One is Eliot Storms. Joseph’s family describes him as having been a friend and business partner of the missing man for over seven years. The other, Ben Rogers, was someone Joseph knew in Louisiana as well as here in Humboldt. A family member says neither have responded at all to multiple attempts to communicate with them.

Detective Fulton said that he had not been in contact with Storms or Rogers yet, though he did hope to speak with them. Hunter, he said, was one of Joseph’s numerous contacts across the country, and contacting all of them without a specific reason to believe they know something is time-consuming.

Anyone with information may contact Detective Todd Fulton of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 268-3646 or Private Investigator Jeff Kaplan at (925) 890-0695. Detective Fulton said that even anonymous information may be helpful.

(Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Feb 27, 2015

SENAIDA AGUILAR, Lodi/Ukiah. DUI-Alcohol&Drug, probation revocation.

DYLAN DONOVAN, Point Arena. Burglary, receipt of stolen property.

PAULINE DUNGAN, Ukiah. Assault on police officer.

SANDRA GONZALEZ, Hopland. DUI.

CAMERON HAMMOND, Ukiah. Driving with suspended license, mandatory supervision violation.

KORTNY MANGIONE, Lucerne/Ukiah. Domestic assault.

TIMOTHY MCCOSKER, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance, trespassing, probation revocation.

BRYCE MITCHELL, Laytonville. Drunk in public.

BENJAMIN PERRY, Lakeport/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

RAYMOND STEEL, Sacramento/Ukiah. Misdemeanor warrant.

NATHAN STEFFEN, Willits. DUI, false impersonation, possession of pot for sale.

DANIEL TAYLOR, Ukiah. Under influence of controlled substance, probation revocation.

DAVID ZEGLINSKI, Ukiah. Vehicle theft, court order violation, stalking.

WALTZING AT THE APPLE HALL

Dear Editor,

I want to thank all the people that took part in the Waltz Project. It was thrilling to see the looks on their faces as they gained confidence in the steps. Improvement really blossomed on the last night of practice as we dipped and twirled on the dance floor at the Anderson Valley Solar Grange. How fortunate we are to have such a fine building available for community events. Can’t thank the Grange enough.

Everyone should keep practicing at home. Listen for that 1-2-3 beat on KZYX because you can hear some waltz music on Humble Pie, Lunch on the Back Porch and the Audible Feast. I even heard a waltz on the Tree House last Thursday night.

Keep your toes ready for the weekend of the Wildflower Show and Goat Fest on April 25th because that is when Dean Titus and Susan Clark will put on the big dance featuring some waltzes in the Apple Hall.

Happy Trails,

Judy Basehore, Philo

THE ROAD TO MERCURYVILLE…

by Katy Tahja

Mercuryville? Where the heck is Mercuryville? Discovering a roadside sign for this long gone town led me on a whole new history mystery exploration of quicksilver mining in Sonoma County.

The adventure started simply enough. My husband and I were on our way home from Sonoma County, having finished chores there early, when we decided to take a side trip on the way home. Not a very long one, only 30 miles; how long can that take? More than two hours it turned out, but boy was it fun if you like nature and history.

The Geysers Road runs from Healdsburg and Geyserville to Cloverdale. It must be 35 years since we’d driven it… so we took it. Winding up the ridges east of the Alexander Valley there are stunning views from frequent turn-outs where you can see for miles in every direction. The hillsides are covered in vineyards and the road is in good condition as you climb up around Geyser Peak. All the way to the geothermal energy development in the Sulphur Creek canyon the road is good, because that's where the traffic is going. But start on to Cloverdale from the Geysers and the signs read twisty one lane road and 15 m.p.h. and they MEAN it.

Seeing mining ruins all over the place, I knew I’d hit my history books when I got home but in the mean time the weather was lovely, wildflowers were blooming, and we had a bobcat running down the road in front of us for awhile. We passed one pickup in the next hour of driving and marveled that we could be in a part of Sonoma County so empty of people. It was lovely but it was slow. It’s amazing there is still a road there given the lack of traffic. The end of the road is at Preston just north of Cloverdale.

Ever-curious historian that I am I got home, dragged out my reference books and looked up the Geysers. First, the Geysers are a misnomer, they’re mostly fumaroles and cracks in the ground emitting mineral laden steam. Yes, there are hot springs, but all locked away by today’s power companies. But from the 1850’s into the 1930’s they were a tourist destination for U.S. Presidents, common folks, and Wappo Indians who had used the medicinal waters for centuries. Early tourism materials proclaimed the geysers “The Chemical Lab of the Almighty.” A huge resort hotel hosted the public arriving in stage coach from Knight’s Valley to the southeast and Geyserville/Cloverdale to the west. I’m sure the road from Cloverdale we drove out on was the old stagecoach route and that is why it posted a 15 m.p.h. limit.

By the 1920’s the first geothermal steam generation plant to produce electricity was in place. Some clever folks figured out all that steam blasting out of the earth had to be good for something other than attracting tourists, and by the 1960’s PG &E was buying up countryside, including the old resort. Today there are 20 plants producing 1,000 megawatts of energy. The City of Santa Rosa’s treated wastewater is pumped up 30 miles from the city and re-injected into the ground to make more steam. There is a visitor center for the Geysers in Middletown, but not a single signboard at the Geysers themselves, only a locked gate.

The mining ruins we saw were from the cinnabar mines and retort furnaces used to turn the mineral into Mercury or Quicksilver. Coming up from Alexander Valley we saw a sign for Mercuryville Population 2, the Half Mile high City at 2,600’. Time now for a quick science lesson from a non-scientist journalist.

Cinnabar, from which Quicksilver and Mercury is produced, is only found in areas of recent volcanic activity and, therefore, is relatively scarce. It has the unique property of amalgamating with gold or silver, then it can be reduced by vaporizing in a retort to a condensed material that can be moved in a 76 pound giant cylinder flask. Gold and silver miners needed it and Sonoma County could produce it if the price was right.

Yes, in the 1870’s and later, thousands of miners were scattered through this remote area as the price for Mercury fluctuated. Mercury was essential to gold and silver mining operations, and when it was selling for $1.60 a unit everyone was making money since it only cost 35 cents a unit to distill. When the price dropped to 50 cents a unit the mines folded. The miners who found it in the 1870’s failed because they were ignorant of the rather complicated process of reducing the ore. They needed to construct roads to erect furnaces, procure labor, find timbers for mine shafts going hundreds of feet under ground and find capitalists willing to finance operations for little profit. Even something as simple as bricks were a problem. In country not conducive to wet weather travel where are you going to find 100,000 bricks for a 20 ton furnace construction project in the middle of winter?

The little towns like Mercuryville, and bigger ones like Pine Flat, were hamlets that came and vanished quickly. Mercuryville had a few houses, a post office and a dry goods store when miners were around. The miners were largely Chinese and Mexican as white folks had learned how deadly Mercury poisoning could be. White folks were the bosses. In 1874, the very best year of production, 1,700 flasks, with a total value of $179,000, left the Geysers area. By 1876 the price for Mercury declined, due to a decrease in demand and increased international supplies. The mines started vanishing. Some of the biggest mines survived into the 1930’s and through World War II but the ore was not rich enough. Remains of mining operations are visible along the road from the Geysers north if you take time to stop and keep looking.

The trip from Cloverdale to Geyserville on the Geysers Road makes a great drive even if you don’t care about cinnabar mining. You can read accounts about Clark Foss, a stagecoach driving legend, who could drive down a 1,600’ drop in elevation in two miles, on a road with 35 turns, to take you to the Geysers Resort. You can twist along the road and look at the same scenery U.S. Grant, Richard Henry Dana, H.S. Crocker, Mark Hopkins, J. Pierpoint Morgan and William Randolph Hearst saw more than a century ago. An excellent book to learn more about this history is “Quicksilver Mining in Sonoma County” by Joe Pelanconi.

FROM the weekly crime report of San Francisco's Richmond District Station: "Undercover officers saw a suspect who was on probation for burglary. As a condition of his probation, the suspect is required to submit to warrantless search by police officers. The officers searched him and found 7.6 grams of methamphetamine, two scales (both with methamphetamine residue on them) and 22 small empty baggies (typically used to package individual amounts for sale). He was booked at County Jail.

CAPTAIN’S NOTE: Although recently passed Proposition 47 made possession of methamphetamine for personal use a misdemeanor, possession with the intent to sell is still a felony. In this case, the intent to sell was established by the quantity of drugs, the presence of packaging materials, the presence of scales and the absence of paraphernalia used to smoke or inject the methamphetamine."

AV FOODSHED NEWS

Beginning in March there will be a new face at the computer that generates Foodshed communication. Valerie Adair will begin editing our newsletter with the April edition, but she will be easing into the updates in March. Our email address remains the same, as does the functioning of your communication with us. Please utilize your ability to get the word out, through us, about any local food/rural living skill/sustainability issue that concerns you. Just send your message any time to AVFoodshed@gmail.com.

We also have an Info List of folks who wish to be reminded near the end of the month to send in their notices of upcoming events. To be included in that list for future publications, please reply to this letter. We also welcome pertinent editorials, information such as gardening ideas & recipes, or any rural living skill knowledge that our readers would like to share.

AV Foodshed is in its eleventh year of promoting and supporting local food in Mendocino County. Please join our efforts.

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The Boonville Winter Market will be in its usual place Sat Feb 28 in front of the Boonville General Store, 10-12:30, rain or shine. Last week we enjoyed live entertainment while people shopped for local produce and seeds, wild mushrooms and a variety of yummy prepared food products.

For this week we have:

Diaspora Seeds - a variety of local seeds

Petit Teton - with the usual, if its not too rainy

Yorkville Olive Ranch - olive oil in both the 375ml and 750ml bottles

AV Community Farm - Kale, Cabbage, Turnips, Chard, dried fruit and veggies, hot sauce, pesto, pastured eggs, and USDA cert. meat: Lamb, Pork, Beef, and Soup Chickens

WildeAcre Farm - herbs, sauerkraut, honey vanilla yogurt, creme fraiche, water kefir, almond chia muffins

Maybe mushrooms and more

And hopefully more music

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Please note: The AV Grange Pancake Breakfast will be the 3rd Sunday this month instead of the 2nd. More on that next week.

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Our March 3rd Sunday Potluck event will be Sun Mar 15 at the Grange and will be entitled "More Crops per Drop." More details next week on that as well.

ON FRIDAY February 20th at about 2:10 PM Ukiah Police responded to the 400 block of South Oak Street for an intoxicated driver. Officers contacted 56 year old Terri Floyd, of Ukiah, seated in her parked vehicle and who was obviously intoxicated.

Several witnesses contacted the officers and relayed they had seen Floyd drive and park her vehicle, and had removed the keys from the car after realizing she was driving intoxicated.

Floyd was arrested for DUI and for driving with a suspended driver’s license.

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ON SATURDAY February 21st at about 10:00 AM Ukiah Police responded to the Alex Thomas Plaza, in the 300 block of South School Street, for a subject swinging a chain near children. Officers contacted 55 year old Pablo Benitez Mora, who was eating food. As officers were talking with Mora to determine what had occurred, Mora suddenly threw his plate of food at the officers striking the officer in the legs. Mora began walking away and was arrested for battery on a police officer.

Mora was on probation for resisting arrest and was also charged with violating that probation.

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ON SATURDAY February 21st at about 10:05 AM Ukiah Police responded to a residence on Lorraine Street for a prowler.

Officers learned the resident noticed 38 year old David Chavez-Ruiz approximately 30 feet up one of the trees in the backyard, and detained him once he climbed down.

It appeared Chavez-Ruiz could have been attempting to peer into a neighboring window. Chavez-Ruiz was arrested for prowling.

FROM THE MENDOCINO COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY:
 GULITY VERDICT 2 COUNTS HIT & RUN, BUT DEFENDANT WENT 'ON THE RUN'
 — The following is from the Mendocino County District Attorney posted @ 5:18 pm Friday:

"UKIAH, Feb. 26. -- Jury Trial Result: A jury returned from its deliberations late this afternoon with guilty verdicts against Moises Villegas, 28, of Ukiah. 
Villegas was found guilty of two separate counts of misdemeanor hit-and-run driving, two separate counts of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and a single count of driving while unlicensed.
 Villegas failed to show up to court for the second two days of his four-day trial so a bench warrant was issued for his arrest after the verdicts were returned and entered in the record. Formal sentencing will take place after Villegas is taken into custody. 
The prosecutor who presented the People's evidence at trial was Deputy District Attorney Nicholas Sympson. The investigating law enforcement agency was the California Highway Patrol.
 The trial was held in Dept. E of the Superior Court before the Honorable Richard Henderson."

WHY are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It's not as if we had a choice.

— Hilary Mantel

MEMO OF THE WEEK

My name is Rusty Faust and I was the manager at the Old Coast Hotel for the Carines for the last year it was open ... I was also the one who attempted the crowdfunding initiative to help get it open again (which raised a little more than $400, enough for advertising ... sad) after working for more than a year with the West company on a business plan. I know a thing or three about that place. There are 15 guest rooms as it stood, not 12 - 6 upstairs in the main building (no handicap access, inadequate fire escapes) and 9 out around the courtyard ... 4 of those upstairs ... and only ONE of the lower units is handicap accessible with four others that could be converted (except two of those may be taken for office space on the Oak Street side). As it stands, there would be NO privacy in the main part of the building ... it is all one large open space! Putting up partitions in that space would not provide anything but a visual barrier. The full liquor license and one of the largest and best equipped kitchens on the coast would continue to be wasted. We cannot afford to lose ANY more hotels ... our town sells out frequently with nowhere to accommodate all the visitors that want to come. I know we could have used those 15 rooms last weekend! People in general are not opposed to helping the homeless ... that is the thing I hear over and over ... but everyone that I have talked to are with you and I - the Old Coast Hotel is the wrong venue!

Good luck!

Rusty Faust, Fort Bragg

WRONG LOCATION

Dear Editor,

I am a small business owner; my business is across the street from the Old Coast Hotel. I do not want the Hotel to be used as a service center for homeless/mental health clients. Councilmen Peters canvassed all the businesses within three blocks of the hotel and no one wanted the use of the hotel to be changed.

There are 3121 voters registered in the city limits, 1854 voted in the last city council election. We presented a petition with 1220 signatures that we gathered in a week to city council and asked that they vote down this location for this project. City Council ignored us.

Why isn’t City Council representing the business owners in our community? I understand that this site is also inappropriate because it is such a busy public corner in town. Doesn’t this violate the privacy rights of mental health clients? Parking is already difficult on this block. This will only make it worse as I understand that they have 18 staff people and 50 clients a day who go there for services.

Why is City Council representing the interests of the Board of Directors of the Hospitality Center when 8 of the 11 are wealthy people who live in Mendocino, Little River, Albion and Elk. Why are they ignoring the business owners and making a decision that will damage the growth of tourism?

I really hope that City Council votes again and the Hospitality Center Board realizes they need to find another place for this project.

Sincerely,

Jean Stubenrauch

Fort Bragg

‘I COULD WRITE A BOOK ABOUT YOU’

Well, I know you like a brother.

And I know you as well.

There's some things we could talk about,

some things we'd never tell.

A few things in particular, an episode or two.

I could write a book about you.

 

(Now listen to this.)

Big Betty wore a lot of make-up. Didn't she sweat a lot?

The Maybelline ran like a river whenever she got hot.

Last time I saw Betty, as best as I can recall,

you were ridin' her piggyback down that motel hall.

 

(Hey, wait a minute! That ain't true.)

That's not the way I remember it.

You're lying like a rug on the floor.

The only Betty that I can remember,

I remember was yours.

 

(Sure!)

And since you brought up the subject,

let's talk about your taste in art.

The windows and walls and the ceilings and floors

you mighta got a little too dark.

And there's a motel out in Fresno

where neither one of us can go back.

You had a thing about yellow and green

so you painted the whole room black.

 

That ain't the way I remember it.

Seems like I had a little help.

You weren't along just for the ride.

You hit a few strokes yourself.

 

(Yeah!)

Well, I know you like a brother.

And I know you as well.

There's some things we could talk about,

some things we'd never tell.

A few things in particular, an episode or two.

I could write a book about you.

(But you don't have to worry. I ain't gonna do it, Waylon.)

(I hope not!)

I could write a book about you.

— Waylon Jennings

HOW COOL IS THAT?

Going to Green Tortoise hostel in SF March 1st...

Please know that I will exit the Piedmont House hostel in Berkeley end of the month, and have booked a shared room at the Green Tortoise hostel in San Francisco (two blocks from City Lights bookstore, Kerouac Alley, and Vesuvio's) on March 1st, for a minimum of ten days. I am still motivated to return to Washington D.C. and finally realize the "beltway action", and continue to ask others if they wish to be a part of it. I am now able to finance this much relevant and needed action! Obviously, the climate destabilization themed play, which was co-written by D.C. Occupy participants, is now more relevant than ever; and add to this whatever else we can cram onto a flat bed truck creatively...webstreaming as we go 'round the belly of the beast. I mean, how cool is that?

Talk to me, Craig Louis Stehr

Craig Louis Stehr

Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com

Blog: http://craiglstehr.blogspot.com

Snail mail: P.O. Box 809, Berkeley, CA 94701-0809

SHOCKING!

ON MONDAY, February 23, at KMEC Radio, your community radio station, NSA whistleblower, Bill Binney, warned that the NSA not only spies on U.S. citizens, but uses that information to "control" U.S. citizens. It can "set up" Americans. By way of example, Bill Binney suggests that Eliot Spitzer was set up.

Bill Binney explains how this is done. Binney talks about how "parallel construction" and "planned perjury programs" at the FBI, CIA, and NSA are used to set up innocent people who are viewed as troublemakers. We also talk about the secret court system know as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA).

That admission about controlling and setting up U.S. citizens is found at approximately 32 minutes into the tape of our show with Binney and runs for about 20 minutes.

Shocking!

You've got to listen.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3tG_yJIrW0

Bill Binney was recently featured along with Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Jacob Appelbaum in "Citizenfour" which won the 2015 Oscar for Best Feature Documentary.

Our cohost for this show was Sid Cooperrider. Sid will be joining the show. On Monday, Sid and I also interviewed Bill Binney's former colleague at the NSA, Kirk Wiebe. He was another whistleblower. The raw audio of our show with Kirk is being edited now and will be posted to Tubetube soon.

We're looking to schedule Tom Drake.

KMEC Radio is located at the Mendocino Environmental Center on 106 West Stanley Street, in Ukiah, CA 95482. We air at 105.1 FM. Our shows stream live from the web at www.kmecradio.org

Please consider supporting KMEC Radio and the Mendocino Environmental Center by becoming a member.