- Thank You
- Campaign for Quiet Nights Announced by Community Plagued by Noise
- Inferno Prevention
- Premature Water Crackdown
- Fully Fund Law Enforcement
- ‘Victory’?
- Wind Fans: The Df&W Angle
- Median Flows
- Exploitation Control
THANK YOU
Editor,
To each person who came to the memorial ceremony last Saturday to show their love, support and respect for Marianne Pardini.
It was truly heartwarming to look and see the tremendous turnout of people affected by specifically ours, and collectively, the whole community’s loss.
May God bless each of you for your kindness. It will be remembered forever.
The Pardini & Summit Families
CAMPAIGN FOR QUIET NIGHTS ANNOUNCED BY COMMUNITY PLAGUED BY NOISE
Editor,
A campaign to end intolerable levels of nocturnal noise entered a new phase in Anderson Valley today, as a citizens group called the Anderson Valley Red Eyes announces the Campaign for Quiet Nights.
The purpose of the campaign is to assert the right of residents to quiet nights. The group is focusing on public education and nonviolent direct action. The group is working on completely eliminating harmful and intolerable noise and vibration as expediently as possible.
Recent nights of residents experiencing vineyard wind machine noise and vibration so extreme as to destroy health and prevent sleep shows that years of working with vineyard managers has not solved the problem. Despite several formal complaints to Mendocino County officials and even a lawsuit demanding that the county enforce its noise ordinance, many wind machines in the valley still hit residents with noise levels far above the 40 decibel night time limit.
The Anderson Valley Red Eyes are organizing nonviolent, legal demonstrations on the weekend of the Anderson Valley Pinot Festival to inform everyone about the intolerably disruptive and harmful wind machine noise and vibration which many valley residents experience on cold nights. We ask all community members to join us in this peaceful protest and information effort on May 15 through 17.
The Red Eyes are hoping to work with vineyard managers and government officials to install quieter wind machines and get noise levels down to at least meet county maximum limits set by the noise ordinance. The group seeks to work harmoniously with all involved. We are one community, and the extremely damaging effects of vineyard machine noise to some of us affect us all.
The Anderson Valley Red Eyes can be contacted by calling or emailing Wendy Read (707) 895-9074, caretakersg@gmail.com
Anderson Valley Red Eyes
Boonville
INFERNO PREVENTION
Please Note:
The Board of Supervisors meeting next Tuesday has time scheduled for addressing the fire dangers resulting from the timber industry practice of leaving vast numbers of dead standing trees in our forests.
For an idea of the scope of this problem in Mendocino County alone, over the past three years (2012-2014) timber companies reported using 3,782 gallons of imazapyr (their drug of choice for hack & squirt) over 22,764 acres. Put another way, they poisoned, and left standing, around five million hardwood trees over the past three years. That's a lot of fuel just waiting out there, during these dry and warming times, for the next fire to come along. Studies also indicate that these deadzones can burn twice as intensely (flame height and spread rates) as a normal forest.
If you'd like to help apply the brakes on this insane and greedy practice, I urge you to come to the meeting next Tuesday, April 21, 1:30pm, at the County Admin Center, corner of Bush and Low Gap, Ukiah.
Mike Kalantarian
Navarro
PREMATURE WATER CRACKDOWN
To whom it may concern,
I am writing in regards to the ongoing Mendocino water board’s [the Community Services District Board in the Town of Mendocino — www.mccsd.com] imposing water control over wells in Mendocino. I am the President of Crown Hall in Mendocino and I have deep ties to the community. I am very aware that water is a precious commodity, as most locals are. We have no objection with a meter on our well if we were in a Stage 4 Drought, but we are not. And when the water board submitted all of these applications to sign over deeded access to our wells, they did this under false pretense. They do not supply water to anyone. I received a letter from Steve Gomes who is fighting their tactics. His phone number is written at the bottom of the letter—he has a lot of facts and information regarding this issue. I think it is important to educate as many people as possible about this—many people submitted the forms not knowing that they had a choice, and then if they didn't they were fined. Crown Hall has received a fine of $24k for not complying. Many paid their fines and complied because they were basically coerced and bullied. I have not. There are a few hold outs— they feel that there is a better way to go about this, and Steve Gomes has one, but the board will not listen to his suggestions. There was a meeting last night, and they [the Board members] were guided not to answer or comment by their lawyer, Jim Jackson. I believe this subject would interest you and your readers.
If you have any questions or would like to see any literature sent by the water board to me, I would happily share them with you.
Sincerely
Kevin Silva
937-0907 or 357-5314
kntsilva@aol.com
FULLY FUND LAW ENFORCEMENT
Dear Supervisor Hamburg:
Recently the Unity Club, of which I am a member, learned of the truly distressing treatment of our Deputy Sheriffs. The DSO voluntarily took a 10% pay cut in 2010 when our county needed funds. This was not reinstated. Nor have they received a cost of living increase. Clearly a case of insult to injury. At this point in time they receive a fraction of the pay given to Ukiah City officers.
Now we are losing our deputies to agencies that are awarded a higher pay. This is truly outrageous.
I demand a 10% increase in the salaries of the Deputies AND a cost of living increase retroactive to 2010. Anderson Valley is proud of our Deputy Walker and we miss him. We need these salaries repaired so that Walker and others can serve those of us in the outlying areas.
Sincerely, Mary Pat Palmer, MA, RH
Philo
‘VICTORY’?
Editor,
As the attorney for Concerned Citizens of Fort Bragg, I was dismayed to find Mayor Dave Turner, for whom I have great respect, quoted in the City's press release saying that he is "saddened that a group calling themselves 'Concerned Citizens of Fort Bragg' would waste our taxpayers money and court time on a frivolous action that the court pointed out several times was premature."
I fear Mayor Turner is getting selectively misinformed by his own staff. Turner wasn't in court on Thursday of last week so he has no first-hand information. It was only after the city attorney repeatedly informed the court that the city "had not approved" any funding of the Old Coast Hotel project and that "no decision" has been made and might not even get made by the scheduled April 13 Council meeting that the judge decided not to issue any restraining order presently. Certainly against the wishes of the city, he then calendared a full hearing on CCFB injunction request for April 24, cautioning the city that he expected it would take no steps to fund the project before that time or if it tried to do so, he expected to see me back in court seeking the TRO.
That's the city's "victory"?
And then to blame CCFB is a second misguided response. It is the city that has fast-tracked this project by holding one poorly noticed hearing in early January and, in contrast to what the city attorney said in court, "approving" the funding at that time. The Council was asked repeatedly to conduct a second hearing and presented with well over 1000 signatures of folks wanting just that. The Council turned a deaf ear. After suit was filed, the city made noises like it would agree to not act pending a TRO hearing in mid-April but then backed out of the agreement altogether. Only then did CCFB decide to go to court and ensure the city didn't do and end run on the project and "moot" the issue so a judge could not review it.
Rod Jones, lawyer for CCFB
Mendocino
WIND FANS: THE DF&W ANGLE
Editor,
Reading Mark Scaramella's article about wind noise reminded me of Mendocino City's Water tower/windmill history, as "The racket" produced by the windmills drove folks "crazy" or to relocation.
Scaramella may find it interesting that other states look to California for solutions to energy, thus the report from Nebraska's windmill permitting may be enlightening in that the reports tells more about CA wind energy than CA reveals: http://www.neo.ne.gov/reports/permitting-handbook.pdf
Is GE providing input for the grapers? Here's what GE has to say (which I find disputable)
http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/larg-wind-turbine.jpg
After moving into my residence I discovered the neighbor's street light offensive. I offered to pay for a light shield. The neighbor told me to deal with PG&E. PG&E told me it was up to the neighbor. This back and forth went on for years. I found that Department of Fish and Wildlife(DF&W) became empowered in 2005 with environmental laws which include curbing street light from lighting up the sky at night because excess light disturbs wildlife and fowl migration. I called PG&E and told them I was going to call DF&W, which I did, however, PG&E came out in less than 24 hours after my call and installed a shield. It cost me nothing. They didn't even want to talk to me, instead told the neighbor they needed to put a shield on the lamp. They did this to not get fined $10K plus damages from 2005. Maybe DF&W can help you?
Consider changing your wind noise position from "human suffering" to "wild animal and plant suffering", and see if the DF&W would be willing to testify (or make their own case) that the fans are disrupting the harmony of wild fowl migration. Also State Parks might want to pitch in with complaints from campers (provide a petition.. Mendocino Area Parks Association loves to help with that kind of stuff). http://michellawyers.com/man-made-noise-disrupts-the-growth-of-plants-and-trees/ Search "man-made noise disrupts the growth of plants and trees" and you may find a new way to convince the grapers themselves that there's a better way.
In loving thy neighbor,
BB Grace
Fort Bragg
MEDIAN FLOWS
Editor,
Re. the request in "Valley People", April 1, for an explanation of mean vs. median —
Hopefully you've received a useful response by now. If not:
The mean is, as you say, just the average of a series of numbers. You add them together and divide the total by how many numbers you're averaging. It can give you a good one-number summary of a long series of values. For example, I was in Willits last weekend and checked the average (mean) low and high temperatures to give me some idea of what clothes to pack.
The situation is more complicated when the numbers aren't randomly distributed around some value. For example, imagine a hypothetical country with ten inhabitants. Let's say nine of them make minimum wage — maybe $18,000 a year. And one special fellow makes $10,000,000 a year. The mean income in this country is 9 x 18,000 plus 1 x 10,000,000, the total divided by 10, or $1.02 million a year. You can see that's not a really useful number, since nobody actually makes anywhere near that amount (most people well under, and one way over).
That's where the median comes in. To find it, you simply sort all your numbers from lowest to highest. Then you throw out the lowest and highest values. Do that again, and again, until you meet in the middle. That remaining number (or two) is the "median." For the example, the median income would be $18,000 which gives a little more accurate picture of that country.
For rivers like the Navarro, which aren't fed from a steady trickle of melting snow or ice, the median is a more useful number. As you know, it gets a few massive storms every winter that can overtop the bridges but most of the year you can wade across it without wetting your knees. So the median will tell you what you can expect in the river on any given day better than the average would.
Hope that helps. If you haven't had enough, I can talk about percentiles as well.
Ralf Burgert
San Francisco
EXPLOITATION CONTROL
Editor,
We Selfish Humans…
Population control is a reactionary proposition, whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.
Do you mean to tell me that all of the systems of human exploitation have the moral high ground over human beings?
According to some, human beings are apparently making too many of us, those too many of us of course making all of us possible… The systems of exploitation in the modern world are unable to deal with the human mass so we must now according to their wisdom downsize.
These are the ways of thinking that have brought us such widespread successes as the California Department of Corrections. How about this? How about as ever many humans we make, that we all collectively take responsibility for at least the "decent" treatment of the whole lot. We can do better.
Why aim low at the treatment of the whole mess of humanity?
People don't bow out yet.
What irks me the most is that people will do things like buy more pets who they must by good impulse indulge with food, space and scarce resources to occupy a starving world.
All the while proposing that it is humans, and mostly "those other people" if we are honest, who need to control their procreation. Well that's textbook old-school hardcore racism in my book.
For all you pet owners investing all of your resources into pets instead of humans, a literal cultural phenomena where peoples pets in 2015 are now regularly addressed as their "children", this question is for you.
Riddle me this, will your pets one day run the world? Have you no consideration beyond your own little self? Why not invest in humans?
This society’s best writers are in prison. Its beneficiaries are a bunch of marshmallow ass economic fascists whose preoccupation being commodity fetishism obviously don't have even enough time to read simple shit like books. Books being the consensus modern fountainhead of human empathy in an era of cloistered suburbanism, if they are left behind well, here we are.
With the proliferation of gadgets, marketing, commodification, "connectedness" and the like all of the space for real people is being squeezed out… For many reasons I say that the "human being" is being left out in society’s new equations, the "human being" is the real endangered species.
Nate Collins
Oakland
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