Off the Record (May 20, 2015)

THIRD DISTRICT SUPERVISOR TOM WOODHOUSE is the latest in a long line of shallow-thinking Mendo officials to insist on “local control” of whatever pot legalization scheme the state comes up with. In some areas, local control is a good thing: land use, law enforcement, transportation… But Pot? No! Definitely not!

DO WE HAVE local control of booze? No! We have the state’s simple and efficient Alcoholic Beverage Control bureaucracy. Does anyone think we need “local control” of booze?

COULD POT be merged into the ABC department, making it M&ABC? Easily, with no new bureaucracy, just a few new rules and staffers for the existing regional state offices. Do you want your pot rules to change from county to county? Do you want to wonder if you’re legal if you move your dispensary from one county to another?

WE PRESENTLY SUFFER “local control” of our welfare offices. Does it work well? From county to county it's a morass of confusion. Oregon and Washington. In those states you have a state welfare agency -- food stamps, MedicAid, mental health, etc. -- with one set of administrators and offices in all the major cities. One set of rules, one set of bureaucrats, one software program.

IN CALIFORNIA, there are 58 different welfare offices with varying rules and a small army of paper shufflers. Each county exercises “local control” and it's a mess.

SUPERVISOR WOODHOUSE, a self-described libertarian, should re-think the idea of local control of pot. We think the pot business, at least for the thousands of people on the Northcoast in the business, works perfectly as is. Legalization is the last thing anyone in the business wants because they'd soon be broke and unemployed as Silicon slicksters, poised and ready to go with their corporatization schemes, would take over the whole show. The way it is now, apart from the ever-present random violence associated with any illegal enterprise, the cops take off just enough dope to keep prices reasonably attractive, and a whole lot of people on the Northcoast who would otherwise have no income, don't do too badly.

TOXICS IN PARADISE? The long-abandoned Point Arena Air Force Station, at one time a radar installation, is an intact, well-maintained, uninhabited village perched on 81 acres atop the highest ridge east of town. As many as 200 airman and their families once lived at the station which, incidentally, came with a gym, a swimming pool and a bowling alley. Begun in the teeth of the Cold War, 1950, the installation was decommissioned in 1998.

THE GHOSTLY VILLAGE is about four miles up Eureka Hill Road out of Point Arena. It would be a perfect site to house Mendocino County's population of habitual dependents, the roughly hundred or so people constantly in and out of the County Jail — the non-reimbursables they might be called — whose alcoholism, drug addiction and varied mental illnesses make them the expensive responsibility of the Sheriff's Department, not the County's privatized, cash and carry mental health “services” allegedly offered by the Ortner Management Group of Yuba City.

CALIFORNIA'S Department of Toxic Substances Control has announced that it's beginning the clean-up process at the Point Arena Air Force base. "Historical military operations at the Air Force Station lead to the presence of lead, volatile organic compounds and total petroleum hydrocarbons in the soil and groundwater." Plans for the clean-up may be viewed at the Point Arena Library and are on-line at the department's website. Public comment on clean-up strategies began on May 15th and must be received by June 15th.

DICK'S BAR, MENDOCINO, a brief history: "In 1894 Riccardo Cecchi was born in Italy. Many are familiar with the motto of Dick’s Bar: 'so few Richards, so many Dicks.' Not all realize that Dick Cecchi was not a Richard, he was a Riccardo. He emigrated from Italy with his father in 1904. He spent 20 years working in various logging camps in the Mendocino area. He met his wife Dora at the Irmulco camp and married her three months later in 1921. As the logging business began to dwindle with the Depression, Dick Cecchi chose this time to begin a new business. He opened a liquor store on Main Street in 1934 and purchased the bar building and house next to the liquor store in 1937.

The image shows Dick behind his bar; his daughter Irene is to his right. Dick’s Place can still be found on Main Street in Mendocino. (The essential MendocinoSportsPlus unearthed this interesting piece of local history.)

DOCTOR PETER KEEGAN TOURS PARIS with Libby Crawford, both of Ukiah.

Dr. Keegan remains the only suspect in the bludgeoning death of his wife of 30 years, Susan Keegan, five years ago.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

On the front page of the Fort Bragg Advocate-News of May 7, 2015, garbage czar Mike Sweeney proposes a land swap that would preserve endangered pygmy forestland in Caspar in exchange for destroying endangered pygmy forestland in Jackson Demonstration State Forest on Highway 20 where Sweeney hopes to build a multi-million dollar transfer station.

The proposed swap is not new, though the public may have forgotten AB384 by Sweeney’s buddy, assemblyman Wes Chesbro, who offered a similar deal in 2011. The problem is not with preserving pygmy forest in Caspar in exchange for destroying it elsewhere. Even Mike Sweeney acknowledges there are fewer than 2000 aces of pygmy forest in California and the United States.

Another endangered species demonstrates Sweeney’s faulty logic. To save one threatened spotted owl does not mean another spotted owl can be killed, and saving one section of pygmy forest does not forgive the destruction of pygmy forestland elsewhere.

If Sweeney truly cared about the environment, he would contract with the Skunk Train to haul coastal garbage to Willits. He might also explore a co-generation facility on the coast to deal with our garbage locally.

Mike Sweeney is a faux environmentalist. — John Fremont

THE GREAT DISTANCE RUNNER, JIM GIBBONS, has put his Willits property on the market to live full-time in Hawaii. Jim's pal and carpenter workmate, Bob Deines, is also selling his half of the property west of Willits. Tara Moratti at Coldwell Banker is the sales agent. Willits won't be the same. The Gibbons boys set all kinds of Northcoast foot race records as high school kids, while their old man was a nationally ranked senior competitor. Mr. G. often writes for the ava. Mr. Deines, a pretty good distance man himself, now lives full-time on the Mendocino Coast. A gifted photographer, his pictures have graced the New Settler Interview for many years.

CONSPIRACIES. We get a lot of conspiracy stuff, long, endlessly long, endlessly earnest tracts, all of them saying, basically, one thing — our government is trying to kill us. Of course it is. Who doesn't know that? But really, there's only one conspiracy. It's called life. From conception on it kills you and, after hacking away at you all your days, it shoves you into infinity. Contrails, Building 7, the UN, the Kennedy Assassination, vaccinations? All irrelevant. While you're fortifying your tin foil hat and biting your nails over matters you have zero control over, you're also eating Big Macs and wrestling your significant other for the remote, thereby assisting Life in killing you early. You might also be hit by a truck crossing 128 while you're checking your gizmo for the latest on the Kardashians. It's all random, but count on it, everything is against you, and you're dead.

A READER COMMENTS: I don't think people are flocking to Fort Bragg to sponge off Hospitality House. Fair question, though, about residency, which is too easily established. Basically, you are a resident if you say you are (the underlying principle was written into the Constitution). At most, you might have to wait 15 or 30 days. A number of questions have been raised about the Old Coast Hotel transaction, but the attacks on Hospitality House and Anna Shaw are often mean spirited and unfair.

OPPOSITION to the Coast Hotel project is not the only reason for the recall launched last week against Fort Bragg mayor, Ron Turner. Turner's regime makes a lot of decisions behind closed doors, and a lot of those decisions are made by unelected staff, not the city council. The Main Street remodel was extremely unpopular, as is the Hare Creek Mall, and the proposed transfer station. Turner's focus on future mill site development, on land the city doesn't own, cost time and tax money, and ignored entirely the city that exists now. The recall represents years of residents' frustration at being denied a democratic process. And portraying opponents of the Coast Hotel proposal as homeless haters is simply slanderous.

LATER IN THE MEETING, at which the Mayor was informed he was going to be the object of a recall election, he said: "I wanted to make a point of personal privilege to answer some of these, the things. The great thing about living in the United States is we have a government that is answerable to the citizens. In the case of Fort Bragg City Council we have elections every four years. Five months ago I was honored to be returned to office to continue to work on the promises I made when I asked the citizens of Fort Bragg to elect me. Since 2002 I have been committed to bringing a business sense to Fort Bragg, balanced budgets, jobs, Pudding Creek trestle, smart mill site redevelopment, affordable high-speed Internet, clean Fort Bragg streets, downtown revitalization, Coastal Trail, water solutions, Noyo Center, Community College, CV Starr Center, playing fields, rainy day reserves. Many of the things we have accomplished and many are ongoing. We still need to see through some of them including the smart mill site redevelopment, the reservoir, the Noyo Center, the best community college marine science program in California, scholarships to Coast Mendocino College for graduating Fort Bragg high school students, jobs, affordable Internet for businesses using gigabyte level services which is jobs, the playing field here in town. These continue to be my priorities. Our great democracy allows for citizens to recall elected officials in between elections. I support that right. I commend citizens for taking an interest in their city. I believe that when the voters of Fort Bragg consider the work they want done they will support my continuing to serve. I will address the specifics in the document I was handed after I have had a chance to read it."

BUT THE OLD COAST deal was brought off almost a year ago, as established by staff e-mail, then presented to the public via the mayor as, "Here's what we're going to do..."

THE HOTEL'S OWNER, a branch of Fort Bragg's Carine family, in public cash and tax breaks, will get about twice as much for their property as the property is worth. The emphasis in the emails was on a maximized appraisal. Translation of the entire deal? Major gift of public money to a private person, Mr. Carine.

SEX ED, A READER COMMENTS: "Looking back at my high school years in the mid 90s in a small central California farm town I'm surprised by the depth of sex education that I received — std's, contraceptives, even the morning after pill (ru-486), which I believe was relatively new at the time. I can even remember a condom demonstration on a banana from a nurse who came into my medical ROP class. Of course, she also told us boys that our genitalia were loaded and dangerous weapons. I remember feeling a sense of caution but not fear which I think is what most sex education programs should be going for. Of course we learned that abstinence was the safest method and that contraceptives were not 100% effective, but I don't recall being lambasted with the former as the only way and the latter as a crap shoot at best like some of these programs seem to do. A good education--regardless of subject--presents all the information in an unbiased fashion. One wouldn't conduct a driver's ed class by saying the only way to avoid accidents is to never drive and leave it at that."

AS A CHILD of the chaste but churning 1950s, sex ed consisted entirely of an illustrated biology lecture all about zygotes journeying up the fallopian river to meet random spermatozoa (depicted as pollywogs) to somehow create a new consumer. This, anyway, is my memory of the sex ed part of my high school biology class. A few months later, in Marine Corps boot camp, we were shown a film of two implausibly attractive women pull up alongside a couple of Marines to invite them to go for a ride. A ride? I'm sure our virginal platoon laughed and exchanged knowing looks. The film's very next scene showed an African whose testicles are so swollen he's pushing them along a dusty lane in a wheelbarrow. That, gyrenes, is what can happen if a couple of babes take you for a ride! I'm sure, however, that we mostly agreed that a ride with the two women in the convertible would have been worth the risk. These days, of course, by the time a kid is thirteen he's seen every possible sexual connection and probably participated in half of them, and who's to say which generation is the more psycho-sexually screwed-up?

ON MAY 6, 2015 at approximately 10:28 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to the 40000 block of Little River Airport Road in Little River, California to a report of an armed robbery. Sheriff’s Deputies were advised that two armed suspects, described as wearing ski masks and dark clothing confronted the victims, age 62 (male) and 55 (female) in their driveway shortly after arriving at their residence. One of the suspects pointed a firearm at the victims and demanded money. The victims fled into their residence and dialed 911. It was unknown if the suspects were still at the location at the time of the 911 call. Sheriff’s Deputies arrived a short time later and conducted a protective sweep, securing the residence, outbuildings and densely wooded property. Adjacent properties were checked and residents were made aware of the possible danger in the area. A criminal investigation was initiated and the scene was processed for latent evidence. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is actively investigating the attempted robbery and requests anyone who may have information about this incident to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Tip-Line at 707-234-2100. (Sheriff’s Press Release)

I DON'T GET THE ABOVE. Two yobbos pull a gun on an AARP-qualified couple at the Little River Airport but the two geezes somehow elude the yobs?

COAST HOSPITAL, FORT BRAGG, is considering signing a corporate deal that hires only doctors willing to work 24/7, 7-10 days in a row. This arrangement specifically excludes medicos who choose to work "only" 12 or 14 hours at a stretch. Not all that long ago, Coast Hospital, the only community-owned hospital left in Mendocino County, with a reform board of directors working hard to make sensible financial decisions, had the hospital in the black. Since, well, a serious reversal of fortunes.

AFTER HE'D SAVED the redwoods and won nearly a million bucks from the federal government for "libeling" him, Darryl Cherney bought a pot farm near Garberville, from which he periodically resurfaces for a few minutes of media time on the Pacifica stations and KMUD with breathless announcements that he's made a great movie or he's got crucial new evidence that just might solve the non-mystery of the Bari Bombing.

CHERNEY'S movie is called Who Bombed Judi Bari because he and the Bari Cult don't want people to know that there's a legitimate documentary film for KQED about the Bari Bombing also called Who Bombed Judi Bari. Cherney's movie features him and the late Bari singing songs along with news clips suggesting that the FBI tried to kill them. (If our government is going to murder you, you're probably gonna get kilt. The feds aren't going to do it with a cockamamie pipe bomb put together in a Redwood Valley garage.) Bari and Cherney were able to cash in big time on what is essentially a false claim to the tune of about $4 million. On the way to court, they traveled around the country raising money from the credulous, promising, if they won the case, the money would go to the "environment." They won, the money went to them.

ONE of the many ironies in the Bari-Cherney hustle is that their greatest pool of the hustled was at the Pacifica Network where the hustled included Amy Goodman. She devoted a whole hour to an embarrassingly hagiographic, and totally false, depiction of the Bari interlude. With the naive and the estranged, make a claim that you've been the victim of a government conspiracy and out come the checkbooks.

KPFA's self-certified "investigative reporter" and "poet," Dennis Bernstein, has always beat the drums for whatever nonsense Cherney comes up with, as did Estelle Fennell when she did the news for KMUD before getting elected a HumCo supervisor. KZYX, here in Mendo County, another oasis of drooling credulity, especially during Annie Esposito's tenure as news director, also faithfully stuck to the party line.

AND THAT PARTY LINE, right from the day in May when Judi Bari was blown up in Oakland, has religiously diverted attention from Bari's ex-husband, Mike Sweeney, former Maoist before he thoroughly reinvented himself as Mendocino County's top trash bureaucrat. (Gosh, the man in the woman's life hardly ever harms his former mate. Hell, we all know that.) Sweeney got a free pass from the FBI, and later in federal court, we saw the harmonic convergence of the Bari Cult and its "movement" lawyers with the FBI as the "movement" lawyers got together with the feds to prune the libel case of even the possibility of the mention of who might have done it. But, but, but I thought the movement and the FBI were enemies. I used to think that too until I saw them become allies in this fraud. Bari-Cherney and the FBI were full co-dependents.

SO, HERE COMES Cherney again. This time the relentless self-promoter is claiming he's got DNA evidence linking the bombing to a female. We don't have the name yet of this latter day Mata Hari, but we'll say, in utter confidence, it will be totally untrue, and one more ploy of Cherney shoving himself up front for some media time. He'll get all the time he wants on KPFA, KMUD and KZYX, and maybe even some from Sweeney's girl friend, Glenda Anderson at the Press Democrat. The next day no one will remember any of it, and no one will dare say, "How about the ex husband here?"

ONE MORE THING: This fact is, of course, never mentioned by the Bari Cult, which, by the way, continues to profit from Bari's cash register corpse, but Bari, within days of the bombing, dispatched her attorney, Susan B. Jordan, to the FBI with a request for partial immunity from prosecution. The FBI said no because they considered Bari an active suspect in her own near immolation. Fact 2: The Bari family never demanded that the crime be solved. Most families, if a loved one had been blasted in a mysterious attack, would still be out in front of the federal building demanding justice. Didn't happen here. Why? Because they knew what happened, most likely. Judi Bari knew what happened, too.

FOR ME, the Bari interlude hasn't exactly been disillusioning — the left has been replete with phonies for fifty years — but it has been disheartening because if we're ever going to get anywhere in this doomed country we're going to need a reputable left. But you'd have to go back to the 1960s to find a left that still attracted people of ability, and even then the best people tended to be liberals, not radicals. The left these days, such as it exists in the Bay Area and NorCal, is simply debauched. For the last forty years, a whole lot of clay-foots of the Cherney type have sailed right on by as the "left" shouts hurrah. Get ready to watch it happen again.

WHICH WAS TUESDAY (May 19th) with the Mendo supervisors declaring Judi Bari Day. The Supes should have declared Find The Bomber Day or, with her ex-husband still a County employee, maybe Mike Sweeney will say a few words under the general heading, Love Hurts.

SOMEWHERE the old girl is laughing that she, once Public Enemy Number One on the Northcoast, and passionately despised by the Supervisors of the time, now gets a proclamation honoring her. Last week, the Supes honored Mike Thompson for his "service." Service to what? The wine industry?

MENDO’S “DROUGHT RESPONSE ACTION PLAN”!

What does Mendocino County plan to do in the face of what the County itself calls “a Local Emergency and Imminent Threat of Disaster due to the ongoing drought emergency”?

ACCORDING to the County’s newly drafted “Water Action Plan...

1. Drought Response:

1.a Renew Mendocino County’s declaration of a Local Emergency and Imminent Threat of Disaster due to the ongoing drought emergency, allowing the county to take proactive measures to meet the statewide drought directives and so on.

BUT THE ONLY THING in the entire "action plan" that can be remotely described as an "action" is "monitor county water use." But there is no physical way to "monitor county water use” because there are no measuring devices in place anywhere outside of the incorporated cities and their billable water systems.

NO MENTION is made of exploring Mendo's relationship with the Sonoma County Water Agency as proposed last year by Supervisor Pinches. Sonoma County owns most of Mendo's manageable water. Maybe if we asked SoCo nicely they might let us keep some of our own water.

Gerald Vitelli, 22, out of Fullerton was found dead on Spy Rock last week. Authorities concluded that Vitelli was sleeping in a poorly ventilated room with "a small generator near the entrance of the sleeping quarters." It the thing was on long enough while the kid was sleeping...

THE WORM TURNS. A number of County employees have finally concluded the obvious — they are badly represented by the SEIU (Service Employees International Union). According to a handout at a meeting of dissident employees at the Saturday Afternoon Club in Ukiah last Wednesday, SEIU collected $344,600 in dues last year, a huge amount that gave back in representation, especially in negotiations with the County, only confusion and incompetence. The dissident employee group says it can provide much better representation for much less in membership deductions if they have right to choose who will represent them.

BRUCE McEWEN WRITES: If it were a different demographic this would be called gang tagging, but it's the DA so it's way cool.

The DA's Office sponsored a great party at the Alex R. Thomas Plaza today, Saturday, May 16th. Lots of kids dancing to congas and flutes w/ flowered wreaths on their heads and summer dresses, various bands, food vendors, and dozens of artists working w/ colored chalk on the sidewalks. The Ukiah Farmers' Market going on alongside on School Street. Very well attended, everyone having oodles and scads of funzies-onezies.

SAGE SANGIACOMO, 41, will succeed Ukiah City Manager Jane Chambers when Chambers leaves in June. A local boy, Sangiacomo has spent his entire working life with the City of Ukiah.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, Supervisor Dan Hamburg mentioned that the State Mental Health auditor had “disallowed” $4.5 million in Mendo Mental Health bills which, allegedly, was part of the reason Mendo’s discretionary budget coffers were depleted and, therefore, why patrol deputy pay was so low and deputy recruitment so difficult. We found this number surprisingly high but, in theory, a manageable number, especially since it was one of the reasons the County rushed to privatize mental health services. Those services, such as they may be, are only provided to people with some kind of insurance that can cover Ortner’s costs. So what was disallowed and why? Read on.

SO WE SENT THE FOLLOWING EMAIL to County CEO Carmel Angelo: Dear Ms. Angelo, “Supervisor Hamburg said last night at a local discussion about our resident deputy and associated county budget/revenue issues, that the county had (apparently recently) been advised of $4.5 million in disallowed mental health service costs. It wasn't clear what year(s) he was referring to or when this astonishing figure was sent to the County. Mr. Hamburg also said that large as it was, it was less than it had been in prior years.” Further, I had been under the impression that Mental Health privatization was supposed to at least partially deal with this problem.” So, can you tell me if there is a $4.5 million recent bill from the state and which year it applies to?“ Also can you tell me how it compares to prior year disallowances? Thank you, Mark Scaramella/AVA-Boonville

CEO ANGELO REPLIED: Mr. Scaramella, My staff worked on your questions. I think we have it all for you now. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue with you. The $4.5 million in disallowed mental health costs that was mentioned, was not simply attributable to one year, nor was it all related to audit findings. The $4.5 million (actually originally anticipated as $4.6 million) was the total anticipated deficit in the Mental Health fund by the end of the fiscal year. This is the total of several years of audit findings that are hitting the County all at one time. This approximate total includes: $790,658 from FY 2007-08, $2.17 million from FY 2008-09, $911,926 from FY 2009-10, for a total of $3.9 million. The remaining balance of the $4.6 million deficit is related to other issues. I am including below the text from our recent 3rd Quarter Budget Report related to the Mental Health fund which provides more detail on both the audits and other cost increases. “BU 4050 – Mental Health: Projected to be $3,693,074 over budget. This is a reduction from the anticipated amount of $4,665,056 at mid-year. The primary driver of the deficit is due to audit and settlement charges that were expected to settle by the end of the year. The costs associated with the various audits identified at Mid-Year are as follows: FY 2007-08 ($790,658), FY 2008-09 ($2,171,000), FY 2009-10 ($1,000,000) for a total of $3,962,658. These ‘costs’ will be claimed by the state reducing local revenue to Mental Health. Staff has been working to mitigate the impacts of the audit to the extent possible. Recently it was determined that the 2009-10 amount of $1,000,000 will not end up impacting the budget until FY 2015-16. The total difference in costs is shown below as $0 due to the anticipation that the Health and Human Services Agency will cover these cost increases with savings in other budget units within the Agency. In addition, the Agency intends to utilize the Mental Health Audit Reserve of $1,000,000, established for this purpose, to offset a portion of the costs. Significant savings within BU 4050 are anticipated due to the difficulty in hiring clinicians to provide services in both the 1000 and 2000 series accounts. However, the staffing challenges are also expected to impact revenue due to lower than anticipated billable services. Increased costs are also anticipated due to Affordable Care Act (ACA) driven increases in Medi-Cal eligibility, setbacks in housing for mental health clients, and delayed implementation of electronic health records technology. The Executive Office is working closely with the Agency to identify and perform an external audit of the Mental Health fund in order to provide more clarity and additional analysis of on-going audit liability and cost overruns. The Executive Office and HHSA will continue to work through the remainder of the fiscal year to mitigate the impacts to the budget, now and in the future, by minimizing revenue reductions and identifying ways to cover additional costs.” I hope this helps clarify your questions. As mentioned in the text above, we are working on auditing the fund, but the audit exceptions are a problem that is plaguing Counties across the state. It is difficult to get a handle on it because of the significant lag time between the FY that is audited and the year the audit is performed. For example we were notified in December 2008 of the findings from the FY 2003/04 audit, in September 2009 of the findings from the FY 2004/05 audit, October 2011 of the findings from the FY 2005/06 audit, July 2013 of the findings from the FY 2007/08 audit, and January 2015 of the findings from the FY 2008/09 audit. Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Carmel Angelo

OF COURSE, 1. We already knew all of this; it’s in the budget book. 2. If the problem is so old, why is it still a problem, lag time or not? 3. What specifically is being disallowed and why? And why does that require an “audit,” which should have been done years ago?; 4. Has privatization made a difference? … We’d also like to know how many uninsured mental health clients are receiving services and how are they paid for?

BUT ASKING THESE QUESTIONS — which should be asked by Ms. Angelo and the Board of Supervisors since it’s such a big number and is contributing to line-employees being underpaid — would just be a lot of work for staff which, if it’s just us asking, is hardly worth bringing up.

UKIAH, May 18. -- Local Man Convicted of Molesting Two Victims.

With a trial date quickly approaching, defendant Timothy Scott Buckway, age 42, formerly of Ukiah, appeared before Judge Ann Moorman this afternoon and admitted criminal responsibility for two separate and distinct counts of felony child molestation. Buckway admitted the aggravated sexual assault (sodomy) of a 10-year-old child, said offense having occurred during the month of May 2014. Buckway also separately admitted the continuous sexual abuse of two children, both ten years of age or younger, during the calendar year 2013 into April 2014. The continuous sexual abuse of a child occurs when a person either resides in the same home with a minor child or has recurring access to the child and then commits against the child at least three acts of substantial sexual conduct over a period of time not less than three months in duration.

The matter was referred to the adult probation department for a background study and sentencing report, a report used by the Department of Corrections for classification purposes once a defendant is delivered to their custody. Formal sentencing is scheduled for June 19, 2015 at 9:00 a.m. in Department A. Anyone interested in this case is welcome to attend that hearing.

By stipulation, the sentence that will be imposed on Buckway on the 19th is an indeterminate state prison commitment of 21 years to life. Should this defendant ever be deemed suitable for release from prison by the parole board, he will be under parole supervision for life. He will also have to register for life as a sex offender with local law enforcement agencies.

The attorney who has been handling the prosecution of this defendant is Deputy District Attorney Shannon Cox. The investigating law enforcement agency was the Ukiah Police Department.

(District Attorney’s Office Press Release.)