Mendocino County Today: Friday, Mar 27, 2015

• Next Old Coast Hotel Hearing
• Ancient Redwoods Saved
• No Hwy 20 Dump
• Fire Ordinance Corrections
• Big Propane Tank
• Stop Water Dumping
• Racket Radio
• Photo Not Altered
• Catch of the Day
• High-tech Weaponry
• Illegitimate Wars
• Toxic Trash
• Plutocratic Political Party
• Fundraising Workshop
• Tidemand
• Don't Cry Out Loud
• Culture Notes
• Salmon Fishing Season

UKIAH JUDGE REFUSES TO RESTRAIN CITY OF FORT BRAGG BUT INDICATES THAT THE LAWSUIT MAY HAVE MERIT AND SETS HEARING ON MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

Superior Court Judge Richard Henderson concluded that the City of Fort Bragg has not sufficiently completed action on its approval of the federal HUD funds for purchase of the Old Coast Hotel and it would be premature to try restraining the City presently. He was told by the City Attorney that final grant approval is not yet even on the April 13 Council Agenda and the matter might not be heard then. So Henderson agreed with plaintiff Concerned Citizens of Fort Bragg and set a further hearing on a preliminary injunction for April 24, 2015 at 9:30 in Ukiah. He also cautioned the City about taking steps to accelerate approval before the hearing date, saying that, if that happened, he would expect CCFB attorney Rod Jones would be back before him for a restraining order.

It was at the Council’s January 12, 2015 meeting when it approved a resolution “approving use” of $1.2 million in federal and state funds for purchase of the Old Coast Hotel by the Mendocino Coast Hospitality House. While technically a “loan” to the nonprofit MCHH, the City intends to excuse the debt and let the organization keep the building outright.

At the hearing, however, City Attorney Samantha Zutler claimed that the City “has taken no action ‘approving’ this project,” despite the January resolution’s wording to the effect that the City “does hereby approve use of funding” of the 2015 Community Development Block Grant “for a project located at 101 North Franklin Street.” Staking out this position, she argued that CCFB has come to court prematurely in that the dispute does not meet legal “ripeness” standards. She also argued that there is no proof that members of CCFB are taxpayers in the City and thus have no “standing” to challenge any of the Council’s actions.

CCFB spokesperson Anne Marie Cesario attended the hearing accompanied by six or seven other members of the group. She noted that the judge expressed some interest in the issue whether the project even complies with the existing zoning laws and that he wanted further briefing in order to study that and other issues prior to the next hearing.

“I was impressed with his demeanor and his close attention to detail,” said Cesario about the judge’s decision. “Sure we would have liked to lock things up on this project with a TRO but he gave us the next best thing and some assurance that the City won’t try to skirt around legal requirements and race to a quick final decision.”

Another CCFB member Carolyn Petersen asked why the project was being moved so hastily and without opportunity for robust discussion and complete information.” To date, both the City and MCHC have refused to release information to the public about the nature and extent of the 20 alternative sites that MCHC found “unacceptable,” and what exactly was unacceptable about them, as well as who the “anonymous realtor” was that steered MCHC to the Hotel site.

CCFB presented Judge Henderson the declarations of six or seven mental health professionals who expressed serious doubts about the propriety of the OCH location, situated, as it is, on a very busy corner with only two off-site parking spaces and creating a kind of “fishbowl” for clients entering and leaving the facility. Most of these had been previously presented in letter form to the Council but CCFB believed that the comments were simply ignored.

CCFB’s Jones said that his client will press ahead vigorously with the lawsuit but spoke of how disappointing it is that the Council has allowed this matter to divide the local community and led to the lawsuit. “Our group consists of people who want to find a safe and sane way to provide mental health services, shelter and housing services. They want to work collaboratively with MCHC to address the needs of this population. But the energy has gotten badly sidetracked by this rather strange decision – accomplished on an amazing fast track for city government – and has produced polarization rather than a community pulling together.”

— Anne Marie Cesario or Carolyn Peterson @ for Concerned citizens of Fort Bragg

concernedcitizensoffb@outlook.com

HOME OF ANCIENT GIANTS SAFE FROM LOGGING & DEVELOPMENT

by Save the Redwoods League on March 24, 2015

Thousands of Save the Redwoods members like you pitched in to protect the Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods from logging and development, allowing the League to purchase the property by the March deadline!

Less than 1 mile from the Pacific Ocean and the popular vacation town of Mendocino, the property is a rare example of two forest types in one magnificent location: a pygmy forest and an ancient redwood forest. This land also features a tributary of the Big River, which runs to the ocean.

Protecting this forest has been a League priority since the 1990s, according to our science-based Master Plan for the Redwoods. When the property went up for sale in October 2014, the League launched a campaign to raise the $1.4 million purchase price.

“This property has captured the public’s imagination,” said Sam Hodder, League President and Chief Executive Officer. “The forest’s supporters love its strange, wonderful and rare pygmy forest and ancient redwood giants and its potential for trails so close to Mendocino. More than 4,600 members contributed to the campaign.”

Mendocino-area resident Susan Juhl made a generous donation to help the League buy this forest. “This property means so much to me because these beautiful old-growth redwoods are right in our backyard,” Juhl said. It’s fantastic to pass by the ocean and smell the sea air, and to travel a few minutes and be in the beautiful redwood forest. Having one right here is wonderful, special and very important.”

The League used Juhl’s gift and other donations to our Redwood Land Fund to buy the land and remove the immediate threat of development and logging.

Renée Pasquinelli, Senior Environmental Scientist with the area’s California State Parks district, said she was glad that League and members like you protected the property. “Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods is very important because it contains one of the very few remaining pockets of old-growth redwoods on the Mendocino Coast,” she said.

You can continue to make a difference by donating today to restore this forest and replenish the Redwood Land Fund so we can protect other forests in the future. With your help, we hope to open Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods to the public for recreation, including hiking, biking and kayaking.

Thousands of years of pounding surf, fluctuating sea levels and rising tectonic plates formed what’s called marine terraces on the 83-acre Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods, which is surrounded by the Big River Unit of Mendocino Headlands State Park.

Perched on an ancient dune, the topmost terrace is a plateau, the site of a dense pygmy forest of hemlock trees, bishop pine and Douglas fir, and dwarf flowering rhododendron, manzanita, azalea, Labrador tea and huckleberry. This is called a pygmy forest because the nutrient-deficient, acidic soil stunts the plants’ growth.

Just 50 feet away and down a steep slope to the lower marine terrace, a mixed-age redwood forest grows with its familiar floor of rusty redwood leaves and sword ferns. All could have been lost when plans were drawn up to log and develop this property. Many redwoods were tagged for harvesting here. The blue lines encircling these redwoods were a warning of what might have happened to these trees.

Farther down into the forest’s V-shaped canyons, more magic is revealed: Here rise 13 acres of giant ancient redwoods that survived logging because they were too difficult to reach using equipment that was available when loggers cut down the surrounding old-growth forest. As California State Parks explains about its nearby Jug Handle State Natural Reserve, while marine terraces formed along much of the California coast, erosion has rendered them indistinct except in rare places like this forest.

Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods offers rich habitat for wildlife, both rare and common. The old-growth and some of the second-growth redwood stands are perfect locations for imperiled northern spotted owls to hunt their favorite prey, the dusky-footed woodrat. The ancient redwoods also offer prime habitat for the endangered marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests on the platforms that old-growth branches provide.

Now that you’ve helped protect this forest, our immediate task is to repair two stream crossings. Past loggers piled up dirt to build roads across the canyons and streams. At the bottom of these crossings lie drainage pipes that threaten to fail during a big rain and dump catastrophic amounts of sediment into the Big River a half-mile away, burying the spawning and rearing habitat of endangered coho salmon and imperiled steelhead trout.

Such catastrophes harmed the Big River in the 1955 and 1964 floods, said forester Todd McMahon.

“Those two big storms and flood years did more damage to our streams than anything,” McMahon. “That coincided with the period of really intense logging. After World War II, the housing boom created a big demand for lumber. Tractor loggers built logging roads like those on Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods. Then huge storms washed sediment from those crossings into the river. Today, we still see the impacts of yesterday’s logging as erosion continues to move sediment into our streams and rivers.”

Big River is federally listed as impaired due to excessive sediment from past logging in the surrounding area.

Conserving and restoring Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods may contribute to the recovery of Big River, said Jon Hendrix, Senior Environmental Scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Not only is Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods a fine home for animals, it also would make a wondrous destination for people like you. If you like to hike and bike, the flat old logging roads would make it easy. It could be a destination for kayakers on the nearby Big River. Next door is the spectacular Mendocino Headlands State Park and its trails, rugged coastline and secluded beaches. Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods may make a great location for cabins or yurts.

Gifts from League members like you helped protect and expand nearby Mendocino Headlands, Van Damme and Jug Handle state parks for everyone to enjoy.

“Now we have the chance to restore this treasured place and open it to the public someday with your help,” Hodder said.

Please donate today through our secure website to the Redwood Land Fund.

(Courtesy, savetheredwoods.org)

NO COUNTY DUMP ON HIGHWAY 20

Dear MSWMA, City of Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, and California State Agencies,

I am concerned about significant impacts on the environment caused by the proposed solid waste transfer station approximately three miles east on Highway 20, near the city of Fort Bragg, CA.

The first is the fact that it would be located in the Noyo River watershed, near a major source of water for the City. Although the plan claims the site is fully self-contained, common sense and past experience make it plain that the inevitable spills and run-off from the facility will end up in the drinking water for a city of over 7,000 people. In addition, wells dug for use in spraying and cleaning the facility will affect wells and water tables for a significant number of households in the many homes "downstream" of the proposed facility. The 17-acre transfer station site is also too close to a soon to be built water supply reservoir for the city.

Another major impact on the environment is the destruction of rare and threatened pygmy forest habitat. This extremely rare and fragile ecosystem is unique to a very very small area of the Mendocino Coast. The destruction of 17 acres of prime pygmy forest has not been adequately evaluated in the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR).

As stated in a Feb. 28, 2014 letter by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: “given this project has the potential to remove acres of high quality habitat in a rare, threatened, and declining vegetation type, CDFW finds it is highly likely this project will result in significant impacts to Mendocino Pygmy Cypress Woodland.”

The forest swap, trading healthy second growth redwood/fir forests (to be subject to future logging) with Jackson State Forest for the pygmy land, is not a reasonable or honest trade or solution to the problem of the transfer station destroying undeveloped pygmy forest habitat in the first place. As proposed, the three-way land swap deal between the City/County, the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, and Russian Gulch State Park will open up Russian Gulch land that is currently used for recreation and education, located adjacent to a school (Caspar Creek Learning Community) to logging, noise, dust, and possibly the application of herbicides, all significant effects on the environment. In addition, the DEIR does not evaluate the quality of the pygmy forest land at the Caspar Landfill that will be used as the set-aside to mitigate for the loss of habitat at the proposed transfer station site.

The DEIR and project proponents have not adequately examined or explored alternatives to their proposal, including allowing Waste Management continue and proceed with solid waste transfer operations at their current location, until better solutions can be found.

The possibility of delaying this project until such a time as the waste can be transported by railroad, using existing tracks from Fort Bragg to Willits, has not been properly addressed or explored. Both ends of this rail line are in previously developed industrial areas of both Fort Bragg and Willits, including the presently unused and already polluted industrial land at the former Georgia Pacific mill site in Fort Bragg. These sites would better serve the use as solid waste transfer facilities, without the destruction of undeveloped forest habitat, and the significant threats to water supplies by the proposed plan.

Using existing railroad would also significantly reduce the traffic and road safety concerns caused by many large garbage trucks on Highway 20, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions - all significant effects on the environment that are not properly addressed in the DEIR.

The significant impacts on the environment caused by this project, and the possible alternatives, have not been adequately addressed in this DEIR, and I would suggest the denial of this project until they are.

Respectfully,

David Gurney, Fort Bragg

MALCOLM MACDONALD WRITES:

The otherwise fine Franklin Graham piece in the March 18th edition contains an error in the second full paragraph on page 12 (first column in print edition). In the "Where then does this lead?" paragraph Graham states that the Albion (should be Albion Littler River) Fire Protection District took up a proposed ordinance..." Ordinance should read as a “resolution.” Farther down in that paragraph Graham states that the Fire District “passed the ordinance unanimously at a meeting on March 14.” That statement, according to two members of the Albion Little River Fire board is not true, they have gone no further than the discussion stages; though Fire Chief Ted Williams has written a letter to the Board of Supes (published in yesterday’s Mendocino County Today).

WE'RE STILL LIGHT ON THE PARTICULARS, but Eel River Fuels wants Fort Bragg to permit a 30,000 gallon propane tank in the middle of town. A reader puts it this way: “The company makes it sound as though they are simply replacing an old tank; this is not the case, they are installing a 30,000 gallon bomb right in the middle of town. Why is this not being discussed with the people of our town? Why is this in motion to be approved while we have every other companies' storage tanks outside of town? This is a disaster waiting to happen. People of Fort Bragg, you have a chance to speak up and voice your opinions. Please show up and express your concerns about this topic.

They are attempting to install this 50-foot monstrosity right in the center of town.

Here is the meeting agenda :

https://cityfortbragg.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=369595&GUID=A8BDADF3-36A1-4749-ABD6-3A1B2D0AB480

This is a 30,000 propane tank exploding...

http://www.military.com/video/explosions/blast/30000-gallons-of-propane-explodes/1231135923001/

A NEIGHBOR of the proposed site puts it this way: “It’s a big deal in our area, an evacuation plan for a propane tank this large would be a one-mile radius. If this tank was to go that means a one-mile radius would be gone in Fort Bragg. Preschool, Residential Homes, Food Bank, Junior High most of town is in jeopardy and the city council doesn’t seem to realize how big of a risk this is to have in our town. That is why Suburban, Kemgas, Ferell Gas, and Amerigas all have their storage tanks OUTSIDE of town.”

LEE HOWARD, the most knowledgeable and candid inland Mendo water guy, writes: “More talk! No action — just another loss of 2500 acre-feet of water, with increasing outflows. Does anyone care how much we dump? The people of Redwood Valley could sure use any and all the water that is being dumped! Sonoma County will feel little pain from the water loss and will not want the flow reduced until after Memorial Day as was the case last year. With all of Governor Brown’s talk about, ‘This is a slow-moving disaster, and i'm giving it my best attention.’ I wonder? Is anyone listening? Waste not want not! Stop the dumping of Lake Mendocino now, not tomorrow. — Lee Howard, Ukiah”

FORGET IT, JAKE, IT'S KZYX.

(On being dismissed as a "hater" for speaking up at all.)

— by Marco McClean, Albion

* * *

By any measure my show has been both a short-term and long-term benefit to radio stations that carry it. When I was at KMFB, which was a countywide commercial station, my long-time advertisers, who I'd brought over from my print publications, were very happy to let me promote them as I pleased, placing their mentions on-the-fly next to material that suited their products and services and general flavor, and all together they were paying the station about $30 per hour of my show. That doesn't seem like much, and it's not, but look: $30 times 24 hours times 365 days equals $263,000, which is greater than what KMFB was pulling in per year at the time. My show was only on once a week, in the dead of night, and I was doing at least as well for the station as shows in the traditionally better attended radio hours could do. And most of what KMFB paid out to me was for electronics and other maintenance that needed to be done anyway, at $10/hour, and if I hadn't done those things a $150/hour engineer might have had to be called in, so I was good for the station in that way too. At noncommercial KNYO, where I've been since late 2012, the underwriters of just my Friday night show are paying for a sixth of the station's entire budget -- in a month that sixth will be coming back up to a fourth; KNYO's tiny transmitter covers only Fort Bragg; there's no reason to assume that level of support wouldn't scale up if I could get countywide on a general-coverage station again, and the only thing that's been blocking the door to that for the last three full years, since the latest time I tried to make my show available to KZYX, is a single person with both a mean pursed-lipped attitude and a puzzling large deal of undeserved power: Mary Aigner.

I keep reading where people chirp "what a great job the managers and board of KZYX are doing especially with the tremendous pressure they're under," and I can tell you that when owners and managers of an entirely elective creative endeavor feel under a great deal of pressure it's not because they're doing a superlative job; it's because they're doing a heckuva-job-Brownie, it's because they're the very wrong people for the job; they've risen to their level of uncomfortable incompetence and barricaded themselves there. I edited and typeset and laid out sheets by hand with wax and a light table I built myself; I sold and designed advertisement and dealt with hundreds of writers and then did most of the printing and distribution runs of the resulting newspapers for years, and that wasn't even my day job, and I didn't think of that as a great deal of pressure. Compared to any retail clerk's job, radio is easy. And cheap? A 2,000-watt transmitter costs about $10/day to electrify and maintain. That's coffee-and-doughnut money. Compared to any real work, steering a radio station to keep it out of the shrubs is as easy as falling asleep in a warm bath. When it's done the hard way, as witness KZYX, I can see how it would be hard, in the sense of crazy. Everything about the operation of KZYX has always been done in the most complicated, pompous pretzel of an expensive, vexing manner possible, where overcontrolling, uptight managers meddle in the airpeople's shows in a way that might as well have been designed to drive away clever, creative radio people and to retain mainly timid, genially-stoned-sounding people who will self-censor to the point of producing only bland mush, when they produce anything at all beyond merely pressing a button to play commercially recorded music and back-announcing the name of what just played. And I can't help but think: How can the board and managers and their close friends congratulate themselves on the great job they're doing when if it weren't for its annual six-figure government bailout grant KZYX would have failed and gone into receivership every year of its existence? The literally millions of dollars of grants that you, readers, paid to KZYX through your taxes over the years whether you were aware of that or not have always been more than enough to reasonably maintain and operate the station! There has never been a need for a single miserable unlistenable pledge drive. KZYX' ridiculously inflated annual budget is more than twenty times the budgets of stations like Fort Bragg's KNYO or Ukiah's KMEC. At KZYX about twice all the yearly membership money (counting 2000 members at $50 each) goes not to maintain or improve the station at all but is entirely diverted to pay people like Mary Aigner and John Coate and David Steffen to endlessly fail in excruciating slow motion like the flailing, falling rocket scene in Koyaanisqatsi. Through the action of a hand continuously slowing, ever slowing the projector control, the ship apparently can never entirely crash, but you can't call that flying.

As regards the constant threat of KZYX managers' punishing airpeople by banishment who might reveal problems management causes and who might call attention to management's behavior -- think of it this way: Is it okay here in the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free to snarkily criticize people in the highest circles of government and business and to point out where they're bad for us and where they're actively going wrong? Yes. Yes it is. Perfectly okay and to be encouraged as a patriotic act of civic duty. So why is it not okay to do the same when the people being exposed are the petty-official managers running a supposedly public radio station like KZYX entirely for their own benefit? And if the people under the thumb of those managers, the people actually doing radio, preparing and airing their own shows, accomplishing as best they can, under the circumstances, what the radio station is there to do, are willing to volunteer their own time and energy and talent, such as it is, to do radio, why are the managers never willing to similarly volunteer or even to take a pay cut in order to free up the little money necessary, out of the huge amount available, to properly maintain the on-air equipment so it doesn't frizz out and make farting noises and switch on and off like a crazy monkey? I'll tell you why I think it is: it's because they feel they're of a better class of being than the airpeople are, so why should they volunteer, they who are meant to ride in the rickshaws being pulled by the sort of people who volunteer, and who thank the volunteers for pulling by granting them the opportunity to keep pulling and to pull some more later.

I don't mind not being paid to do my weekly twenty-plus hours of preparation and then stay up all night doing my show on KNYO. The reason I don't mind it, even when I give up paying work for it, and when things have gone wrong in my life, which they do for everyone, is that the people who do the few but important official tasks to keep KNYO on the air are doing what they do because they also love radio and they also are not being paid. That's fair. I'm grateful the resource exists and I'm happy to do my part. But when the owners and managers of a half-million-dollar racket that's propped up by tax money are being paid quite well to have nice lives and even save a little for retirement, and all the people actually doing all the work of that enterprise are "volunteering", there are lots of historical terms for that kind of business or governmental system. Let a few of those terms bubble up to the surface of your own mind for a moment.

Dozens of even larger out-in-the-real-world organizations, charity groups and prosperity churches and for-profit colleges and disaster relief groups and Make-A-Wish groups and so on, are supported and by volunteers and even-below-minimum-wage workers, where the people in the corner-view offices maintain lives of stratospheric splendor by sucking most of the money out of the system for themselves. That's bad. KZYX is every bit as bad as that.

There's no reason to just accept as normal that the people sitting on county-spanning allocated radio frequencies -- that belong to the public, by the way, not to any corporation, not even Mendocino County Public Broadcasting -- get away with what they get away with year after year. From my admittedly selfish point of view, any radio station that refuses to schedule my show is a crappy radio station. That's my simple rule for how to tell whether a radio station is worthwhile or not. And if they won't schedule my show because the people in charge are afraid I'll say things like this on the air, and they're afraid I'll let others say what others feel the need to say on the air, whatever that might be, on whatever subject, then how is it rude when I point it out in print and describe them and their failings and their greed and their hypocrisy? KZYX has been kicking me and people like me in the teeth for over twenty-five years. That's hating. And I'm only very recently speaking up about it. And their and their unfortunate toadies' response is to whine amongst themselves in their private listserv --thanks, Tim Gregory, for exposing that -- that I'm the rude one, that I'm a "hater", that I'm "disingenuous" (in this case that means lying).

That very last part doesn't bug me too much. I remember a quote from an R.A. MacAvoy book: "No one is so offended at being called a liar as the habitual liar who has for once told the truth." I'm a story reader and writer and a story teller. And I'm not always -- but in this case I am -- telling a true story. And I'm telling it in public here and as just a small part of my show on tiny KNYO. No one can truly be who he or she is unfettered on the air at KZYX until something profound changes there, until the giant toads squatting on the station are removed from their position. Maybe it'll take moving the main office to Ukiah, or Fort Bragg, or Willits -- to a downtown place where people can just walk by and look in and even walk in and poke around and see what's what, a place that isn't so isolated and haunted and bunker-like as where it is now. Someplace with high ceilings, to draw the spirit up. There are lots of nice empty storefronts going for a song in downtown Fort Bragg. Certainly the entire existing management bloc at KZYX must be removed and replaced by people who will be happy and easy there and will share airtime and money and power more evenly, meaning an equal pay rate and a level playing field in every way for everyone from five-minute newsladies to automation-switch-flippers to fillers-out and mailers of official forms to musical scholars and aficionados to readers and babblers in the night.

I wonder what will be the result of having three of eight members on the MCPB board, after the election is called on Tuesday, who at least will consider making some real, needed changes and not just, you know, rearrange the deck chairs again and vanish incommunicado until the next meeting and call that "engaging with the members".

(In other news, I'll be reading my 9pm to approximately 3 or 4am Friday night show this week (2015-03-27) by live remote and not from the KNYO storefront, 325 N. Franklin Street, so if you were planning to come by and read your own work on the air or bring a musical instrument and show off or just talk about your project, you can do that next week (2015-04-03). If you do, please let me get set up and start the show before you arrive. I don't consider you an interruption. It's just better for me to get everything rolling first. And just walk in; you don't have to call and let me know you're coming.)

(And if you want your own show on KNYO, there are time slots free and ready for you to do whatever kind of show you have an idea to do. Contact Bob Young via http://knyo.org and he'll help you get started.)

Marco McClean

DEB'S FOOT IN MOUTH

Editor,

The article on the front page of the FB Advocate:

http://www.advocate-news.com/general-news/20150326/council-hears-hare-creek-appeals

* * *

My rebuttal:

According to Debra Lennox, a photo I submitted had "obviously been manipulated to exaggerate the filtered view in the distance. There is no way that the naked eye can see this view as represented.”

It's amusing that the architect for the Hare Creek Mall would accuse me of "manipulating" a photograph of the "filtered" ocean view that her shopping center would have blocked. I will state unequivocally that the photo she mentions was not altered in any way, other than to have the copy-shop print the color photograph in black and white, in order to save costs. What's seen in my photo is what the camera saw, period. Even if I knew how to manipulate photographs in ways she seems to imagine, I would never consider turning in such a photo as evidence on the public record in matter of civic importance. Such allegations made by Lennox are extremely serious.

On the other hand, the heavily doctored images of the "Hare Creek Center" - turned by Lennox and used by the Community Development Department to promote the project with a poorly prepared Mitigated Negative Declaration - are an extremely bad job of Photoshop indeed. The background photos were lifted from Google Maps, and the masked-in renderings of the Lennox-designed buildings were hopefully a lot uglier than the mall would have been in real life.

As for "There is no way that the naked eye can see this view as represented." - Lennox (and your reporter) should perhaps get away from their computer screens and out of their cars, to perhaps find the view in question. I'd be more than happy to take her or anyone else to the spot.

In the meantime, Ms. Lennox ought to be more careful about slandering members of the observant public with false allegations of photo manipulation.

— David Gurney

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 26, 2015

ZACHARIAH BARBER, Ukiah. Grand theft, dirk or dagger, possession of drug paraphernalia.

DEREK DAVIS, Covelo. Probation revocation.

ERAINA DAVIS, Covelo. Probation revocation.

MARCOS FERMIN, Ukiah. Shoplifting, petty theft, probation revocation.

SEAN FLINTON, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation.

DAYNA GUTIERREZ, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Possession of and under influence of controlled substance, fake ID.

JOHN HOLLOWAY, Fort Bragg. Parole violation.

EDWARD JOHNSON, Ukiah. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JEREMY KENYON, Anchor Bay/Fort Bragg. Shoplifting, petty theft, receiving stolen property, probation revocation.

NOAH LURANHATT, Willits. Possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia, resisting arrest, parole violation.

JUSTIN MALUGANI, Ukiah. Under influence of controlled substance, probation revocation.

JEREMIAH MCOSKER, Ukiah. County parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

SHERRY NEELEY, Ukiah. Possession and under influence of controlled substance, petty theft, receiving stolen property.

JOSE PADILLA-GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

DEMETRIE PIKE, Hopland. Probation revocation.

STEVEN SIWINSKI, Fort Bragg. No license, petty theft, failure to appear, failure to pay, probation revocation.

THERON TAYLOR, Ukiah. Parole violation.

SHAWN WELSH, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

There are no plans, only a theme and a theme is no plan. The generals have been doubling down on all the high-tech wizardry that’s never worked ever since Viet Nam and as a means by which to land seven-figure salaries when they retire. They all know it’s a hopeless fiction yet they buy into it so they can score big on retirement. At some point, possibly when the great fiction that is the financial community has another shakeup, the European community will back off their NATO commitments (and the US) and Putin will call our generals’ bluff. It’s all a very elaborate house of cards and it can’t last much longer.

A few years ago the defense department held some war games to demonstrate the effectiveness of all their high tech wizardry. There was a retired general who was making a living by bad-mouthing all these so-called weapons systems on the talk-show circuit. He was a regular guest on the morning news shows. So, to shut him up they brought him out of retirement to be OPFOR (Red Opposing Forces) Commander. They were sure they had the game rigged in their favor yet within the first minutes of the war games this retired general annihilated the entire combined forces of the Blue team. He sunk every ship and destroyed every plane. All the infantry, artillery and armor forces were killed. In just minutes he called their high tech bluff and made fools of them all. The US has been in Afghanistan for 12 years and the Taliban is still there and the country is given to chaos. Ten years in Iraq and it’s a failed state. The idiots in Washington are all insane and getting more insane by the minute. They think they’re in control yet events, not people, are in control now.

WHOSE BEHALF?

To the Editor:

In his review of “For Love of Country” (March 15), James Wright aptly notes that fewer and fewer Americans have faced a draft or military service, but then asks, “How will the remainder of the population ever appreciate what they ask less than 1 percent of the citizenry to do on their behalf?” This ignores the bigger problem: that many, if not most Americans have not asked anybody to fight, especially in such misguided wars as Vietnam and Iraq. In fact, millions of us have protested these aggressions. This is not to diminish the heroism of our military, but also not to forget that the more recent battles they have been sent into have been tragic mistakes. As Ernest Hemingway observed: “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.” This is even more tragically true when said war is neither necessary nor justified.

Steve Heilig, San Francisco

MORE ELECTRONIC WASTE @ VISTA SONOMA IMPROPERLY HANDLED

Editor,

Since the past weekend, there has been yet another discarded television in the parking lot at Vista Sonoma Senior Apartments. The television is/was located across the parking lot from buildings 1401 and 1403 and was left next to the green recycling dumpster. This tv set which constitutes controlled Electronic Waste is a Sony model KV-20V80 with serial number 4066176 and a date of manufacturer given as May 1999.

Yesterday afternoon having observed that the television had been thrown in the recycling dumpster, I observed a new fpi-mgt maintenance man, name not yet known to me, approach the dumpster with a container full of yard waste (primarily plant material like grass and grass clippings and dead landscape shrubs) and prepare to throw it in on top of other plant material which was already starting to cover up the tv. I asked him if he had tossed the television into the container and he said he had. I informed him that it was hazardous Electronic Waste and that he ought to remove it. I also mentioned to him that plant yard waste was not to be thrown in with recycling materials. the maintenance man said he had called someone to pick up the tv but that they did not show up so he threw the television in the recycling dumpster. We will need to know who did he call, from what phone, and whether the person called is licensed to handle and transport hazardous Electronic Waste. I respectfully suggest that such disposal include a receipted paper trail now and in the future.

I then proceeded to the Vista Sonoma office and asked the property manager, Jenifer Johnson, if I could speak to her about yet another violation of Electronic Waste disposal. Johnson was extremely defensive and essentially blamed the television mishandling on a "new" employee, just as she had in a previous incident also in the past week which involved improper attempts to deal with the toxic, mercury laden florescent bulbs. Said bulbs are the primary lighting source for Vista Sonoma common areas indoors and outdoors as well as a major lighting component within the 189 apartments.

I am prepared to testify that for years, I have personally seen various maintenance personnel throw electronic waste including household electronics, florescent light tubes, batteries, etc.in recycling dumpsters and or bury such materials in garbage dumpsters. My complaints about these illegal practices have been have been ignored, dismissed, and ridiculed by Vista Sonoma management. FPI management seems to operate on the "out of site, out of mind" evasion of their responsibilities under the law. Cost cutting by avoiding paying for the employee time to needed to comply with environmental regulations appears to me to be another standard Vista Sonoma practice.

For years, Vista Sonoma management has been having such plant materials thrown in the garbage dumpster at building 1401 by the gardening contractor(s). Rather than doing the right thing and obtain a dedicated yard waste container to keep plant material out the waste stream and so such plant material can be composted.

It is clear that there has never been the proper in house training for office staff, maintenance personnel, and the porter as to the handling and use of hazardous materials including Electronic Waste. This lack of procedure endangers the Health and Safety of the environment, the residents, the material handlers at the recycling facilities, employees of Vista Sonoma, and the public in general.

Irv Sutley, Glen Ellen

300 PEOPLE/ $900 MILLION

Shouldn't America have at least one major party that isn't beholden to the corporate elite?

Well look here – just such a party has popped up, raring to roar into the 2016 presidential race. Called the KBParty, it has the funding and political punch to bypass the establishment's control of the election system. But don't rush to sign-up: KB stands for Koch Brothers.

Yes, Charlie and David – the multibillionaire, right-wing industrial barons who already own several congress critters, governors, think tanks, astroturf campaign machines, front groups, etc. – now have their very own, private political party. And it's not beholden to the corporate elite, since it is the elite. The Koch boys have rallied roughly 300 like-minded opponents of democracy to their brotherhood of plutocrats, intent on purchasing a president and Congress that will impose their vision of corporate rule over America.

At a secretive retreat in January for KBParty funders, the 300 barons ponied up $900 million for their campaign. That's nearly $200 million more than the combined expenditures of the Republican and Democratic parties in last year's elections, and it's way more than either of those parties will have for 2016.

This means that, in our nation of 350 million people, a cabal of only 300 of the wealthiest will have the wherewithal to narrow the choice of candidates presented to the rest of us, restrict the range of policy ideas that are proposed to voters, imbue the overall campaign with a negative tone, and – most important – shape the governing agenda of those who get elected.

The Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United edict created this mess. To help ban the corporate cash that's clogging our elections and killing our people's democratic rights, go to www.DemocracyIsForPeople.org.

-- Jim Hightower

FREE FUNDRAISING WORKSHOP

Hosted by the Mendocino County Library

The workshop, Titled “FR 101: An Introduction to Resource Development for Community Based Organizations” will be offered at the Ukiah Branch Library from 12 noon to 4 pm on Monday, April 13^th, and at the Fort Bragg Branch Library from 12 noon to 4 pm on Monday, April 20^th.

This workshop will provide the attendees with an overview of the fundraising process, and start them on their way toward a lucrative future for their organization.

Participants will learn: Basic Fundraising Techniques; Where the Money is; How to Set Realistic Goals; and How to Develop a Case Statement.

The workshop is free, but preregistration is required. Interested persons should call 463-4490 to reserve a spot.

‘DON'T CRY OUT LOUD’

Baby cried the day the circus came to town

'cause she didn't want parades just passin' by her

So she painted on a smile and took up with some clown

While she danced without a net upon the wire

I know a lot about 'er 'cause, you see

Baby is an awful lot like me

 

Don't cry out loud

Just keep it inside, learn how to hide your feelings

Fly high and proud

And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all

 

Baby saw that when they pulled that big top down

They left behind her dreams among the litter.

The different kind of love she thought she'd found?

There was nothin' left but sawdust and some glitter.

But baby can't be broken 'cause you see

She had the finest teacher-that was me… I told 'er

 

Don't cry out loud

Just keep it inside and learn how to hide your feelings

Fly high and proud

And if you should fall, remember you almost made it.

 

Don't cry out loud

Just keep it inside, learn how to hide your feelings

Fly high and proud

And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all

— Diana Degarmo

CULTURE NOTES: "The Scene of the Crime — A reporter's journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past" by Seymour Hersh in the March 30th New Yorker. It's a must read for everyone whose lives were changed by the War On Vietnam, and should be read as a cautionary tale by everyone else, especially young people, not that our current foreign policy of war forever against everyone is likely to be influenced by our historical record or warnings not to do it again.

OUT OF THE ENNUI inspired by an 80 degree day in March (!) and the beginnings of another premature early summer that continues year-round, I net flicked "Blue Jasmine" by Woody Allen. I wanted to flee about five minutes in but my wife said, "You always do that before you even give it a chance." Chastened, I sat back down and watched as what's left of my aesthetic intake valves groaned at the fake authenticity of stuttering (and real dumb) dialogue and at watching the romantic adventures of mildly repellent people worked out in a narrative that a couple of twelve-year-old girls could have knocked out at recess. The working class characters are presented as dummies and oafs with violent tendencies, the supposedly desirable people come off as complete twits, not that they're intended to. Cate Blanchett is very good, but then she has real talent and is always good. The thing is filmed in Frisco and Marin. The story line is two sisters adopted at birth, Cinderella and Cinder-in-the-Eye. One sister, not the elegant Blanchett, goes for blue collar men because, you see, the rich guys are beyond her. The contempt for the kind of people who can actually do things seems prevalent in our culture anymore and are people Allen never depicts as smart and capable. Blanchett goes for a priapic financial swindler who goes to jail and kills himself there, then she goes for a Gavin Newsom-like guy, an alleged foreign service person who somehow can afford a home in Belvedere and has his eye on California public office. Things work out for Cinder-in-the-Eye but Blanchett winds up on the edge of bag lady-ism. The movie was so irritating I had to write about it to exorcise it.

RECREATIONAL OCEAN SALMON FISHING SEASON WILL OPEN APRIL 4

by Dan Bacher

The recreational salmon fishing season is slated to begin in the Fort Bragg, San Francisco and Monterey South regions of the California coast on Saturday, April 4, 2015. In spite of the record drought, the outlook for this year's season is promising, due to an abundance of both Sacramento and Klamath River Chinook salmon.

Charter boat captains and private boaters will depart in the early morning hours of opening day from a multitude of ports and landings, stretching from Shelter Cove in Mendocino County to Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, in pursuit of the iconic silvery fish, weather permitting.

On March 12, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) adopted three public review options for the 2015 recreational and commercial salmon seasons off the West Coast. The Council will select a final option at their next meeting in Rohnert Park, California on April 10‐16.

Central Valley fall Chinook numbers are forecast at over 652,000, providing ample salmon fishing opportunity while allowing estimated spawning escapements over 300,000, according to the federal and state fishery managers. The minimum conservation goal is 122,000 to 180,000 spawning adult salmon.

The ocean abundance forecast for Klamath River Fall Chinook is nearly 423,000, providing "reasonable sport and commercial harvest while meeting the minimum natural spawning goal of 40,700, and the 2015 management objective of an ocean harvest rate of no more than 16 percent," according to Dr. Donald McIsaac, PFMC Executive Director.

Options for Oregon ocean Chinook fishing in the Brookings area and Northern California in the Klamath Management Zone run from May through September. For the Tillamook, Newport, and Coos Bay areas, season options range from March to October.

“California ocean sport fishing options south of the Klamath Management Zone generally provide continuous fishing opportunity from April to October or November,” McIsaac noted. “However, one alternative for 2015 takes a precautionary approach due to concerns for future Chinook abundance, particularly Sacramento River winter Chinook.”

The Coastside Fishing Club is alarmed over that proposal by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to eliminate two months of the 2015 recreational salmon season. The CDFW advanced the proposal as one of three season options for public review and potential adoption by the PFMC.

"Excessive water exports and mismanagement by federal and state authorities in 2014 caused the loss of 95% of the out-migrating naturally spawning winter run Chinook," according to a statement from the Club. "Surviving offspring from this year class will return to the Sacramento River in early 2017, but will be too small to be affected by the fishery this year."

Dan Wolford, Coastside President and Council member, noted that there is justifiable concern over this brood of winter-run salmon, but these fish will not be seen in the fishery until 2016. “Closing the fishery in 2015 will confer no benefit on this struggling generation of fish, but it will exact a high price on fishing communities,” said Wolford.

Wolford said the 2016 recreational salmon fishing season will likely see "significant cutbacks" as a consequence of the outbound winter-run Chinook mortalities in 2014 because that generation of fish will likely be far less numerous than typical.

“Once again, anglers will be forced to pay for the greed of the water interests,” said Coastside Director Marc Gorelnik. “As painful as the potential closures will be in 2016, it is senseless to impose meaningless closures in 2015 when the fall-run Chinook are expected to be plentiful.”

Public hearings to receive input on the options are scheduled for March 30 in Westport, Washington and Coos Bay, Oregon; and for March 31 in Fort Bragg, California. The Council will consult with scientists, hear public comment, and revise preliminary decisions until it chooses a final option at its meeting April 10‐16 in Rohnert Park, California.

Coastside Fishing Club is encouraging recreational anglers to organize and make their justifiable concerns known at the April Council meeting in Rohnert Park, as well as at the earlier public hearing in Ft. Bragg.

To learn more about this and to stay on top of recreational salmon season developments in California, visit the organization’s website at www.CoastsideFishingClub.com.

Detailed information about season starting dates, areas open, and catch limits for all three options are available on the Council’s website: http://www.pcouncil.org/2015/03/35838/sal-pre2-2015/

While the Sacramento River fall run Chinook returns were relatively abundant, it is crucial to understand the heavy impact that the mismanagement of Central Valley reservoirs and rivers and the Delta pumps by the state and federal governments will have on the 2016 to 2017 seasons.

"The most important thing now is to get busy making serious investments to get the wild spawners back," said Dick Pool, Secretary of the Golden Gate Salmon Association and Administrator of water4fish.org. "It's clear that in the drought we have lost the majority of the wild fish. It will be very difficult to bring these fish back."

"Fortunately, there are a number of good habitat projects that can help if we move quickly. Plus, most of the hatchery fish survived. We will now have to lean on the hatcheries to help bring back the wild stocks. One promising technology is to inject selected surplus hatchery eggs into the gravel in the wild," concluded Pool.

It is also essential to understand that the winter and spring Chinook runs, both listed under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts, declined from the previous year, due to the mismanagement of Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs by the Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources during 2013 and 2014, record drought years.

The winter run return was only 3,015 fish, including 2,688 adults and 327 jacks. By contrast, the winter Chinook return was 117,000 in 1969.

A total of only 9,498 spring Chinook returned to the Sacramento and its tributaries. This number included 2,825 fish, including 2,163 adults and 222 jacks, from the Feather River Fish Hatchery.

The winter and spring run Chinook salmon populations, like the endangered Delta smelt, are the proverbial "canaries in the coal mine." An ecosystem where these once abundant fish species can no longer survive is an environment where human beings will be no longer be able to survive. If these species go extinct, due to abysmal management of Central Valley rivers and the San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary by the state and federal governments, people will undoubtedly be next.