Off the Record (Jun 3, 2015)

TUESDAY NIGHT'S MEETING of the Fort Bragg City Council featured a parade of speakers swearing allegiance to mayor Dave Turner and urging each other to urge their fellow Fort Bragg residents not to sign recall petitions. Councilman Hammerstrom also urged Fort Bragg residents not to sign the petitions.

IF YOU SHARE the consensus view that politics is non-violent warfare, angry people attempting to qualify a recall vote is a perfectly democratic means of expressing their unhappiness. You may not share our view that the recallers have ample grounds to chase Turner out of office, but what's wrong with putting it to a vote?

TURNER leads a town where un-elected people make policy decisions and commit large sums of public money to these decisions. Conversion of an historic structure to a for-profit business disguised as a non-profit; commitment to the unneeded new transfer station; personnel decisions shafting the deserving local guy, as we saw in the selection of the new police chief. And so on. There is ample reason for an up or down vote on the mayor.

HAD TO LAUGH at the number of speakers who cited the cost of a recall election as a strong reason for opposing the mere attempt to qualify it for the ballot. How about the cost of the San Francisco lawyer city management hired? Or any number of recent consultant-led investigations into projects that will never happen? (cf, the restoration of streams flowing through the old mill site to the sea? Etc.)

REX GRESSETT strode boldly in to Tuesday night's Fort Bragg anti-recall love-in to nicely articulate the recall position:

“I would like to address the issue of the recall. What we have here (in the recallers) are people saying that they love Fort Bragg. That they want to take care of Fort Bragg. We love for Bragg. We love it so much that we put our money on the table and we spent our time and our energy doing things that no citizen would normally have to do — filling out paperwork that was extremely complex, hiring lawyers, organizing, getting together, having meetings. We did not do it because we didn't love Fort Bragg. We did it because we do love Fort Bragg. We know that she needs to be protected. When I was at the budget meeting, I was the only person at the budget meeting other than the City Council. It was quite clear that the budget from the city was a convoluted, obscure, undecipherable document that no member of the City Council even began to understand. I see Linda Ruffing over there laughing about it as though the complexity of government was over the heads of the normal people. Well, it is over the heads of the normal people because they make it that way. But they don't have to be. We know when we've been embezzled. We know when we've been cheated. We know when we come to the City Council with 1600 signatures and are treated with disrespect and contempt. When the mayor says they won the court case which they haven't won — they are about to go up on June 4 against the demurrer — and we are definitely going to prevail. The reason that we're doing this, the reason we are taking this action, this definitely radical action, is because we believe that in the person of Linda Ruffing and in the person of Marie Jones, the people of Fort Bragg have abdicated their control of their city to technocrats who feel no responsibility to inform them of what's going on or to help them understand what's going on and who are operating in the interest of making money for themselves, running a complex machine that generates revenue for a few people and that have gotten behind them in this enterprise the City Council. That constitutes a violation of the spirit of the Brown Act if not the letter. They have skirted the edges of the Brown Act and it was very, very close. The intention of the Brown act is that the people, and I can almost quote it, that the people should not give up the right to control the instruments that they created. We did not give to the City Council to write to decide what is good for the people. We did not give to Linda Ruffing the right to make money on our backs without telling us how it's going to be done. We did not give the City Council the right to rule over us as rulers. We expect them to be our instrument and that's why were doing it and we do love the city of Fort Bragg.”

HOW DAVE TURNER became mayor of Fort Bragg. (15 minutes into the video.) http://livestream.com/accounts/62078/events/3645697

FORT BRAGG, like all Mendocino County government, is run by smart, capable women. Say what you will about Linda Ruffing, she's no dummy. Our smartest judge is Ann Moorman. County CEO Carmel Angelo runs the whole show at the County level. Almost everywhere you look in County government, a woman is running things. The innumerable nonprofits? The schools? All women in the power slots except for Galletti at County Schools, the best job in the County, which pays more than a hundred grand a year, plus a range of perks, for literally doing nothing. Pseudo Public Radio? Cross Mary Aigner at your peril, boys, which accounts for the denatured behavior of KZYX's male staff. The station's rubber-stamp (latex-stamp?) board of directors is mostly female with, it seems to me, strong fascist tendencies given their meeting behavior. Which, except for the fascism, is fine with me. But the beef I have is with these apparently mommy-starved men sitting on all these public boards. These boys are elected to make decisions, but they roll right over for the unelected women they are supposed to be supervising. They'd roll over for men with as much alacrity, I'd suppose, given that the roll over is the way of public discourse anymore. Everyone is just so doggone nice! But we happen to have a unmistakeable Mendo Matriarchy and a lot of "liberal" or "feminized" men who seem to really, really, really miss their mommies to where you sit there watching the meetings, thinking to yourself, "What's wrong with these people? They all look and talk like they've been meatballed." I can't even remember the last time a supervisor, for instance, brought up an important matter on his little old lonesome. Mommy would probably not approve.

FORT BRAGG, as is evident from watching the meetings, Ms. Ruffing is driving the bus while Mayor Turner, who reminds me of Mr. Peepers, the narcoleptic Hammerstrom and the barely visible Dietz, who seems to shrink during meetings, simply ratify whatever Ruffing has handed them. Ditto for the Supervisors and Carmel Angelo. She writes the agenda, the Supes stagger through it, wasting much of their meeting time issuing fatuous proclamations, listening to self-serving reports from their administrators and congratulating everyone (except for Beth Bosk) who appears at the mike on their all-round wonderfulness.

WE ARE ALL INDEBTED to James Marmon for this one: "Finally, the Mendocino County Superior Court has updated their website. It no longer states that you have to post bail before requesting a court trial on traffic infractions. I am still somewhat confused about Mendocino County Superior Court CEO Chris Ruhl reporting that the Court website did not reflect the Court’s “actual practices” of collecting fines and fees. Is that true? If so, why the discrepancy, and why did it take the Court 26 days to correct it after the ACLU contacted the them? I personally don’t believe that the Court is being truthful about what was really going on with this issue, nor do I believe that that the court wasn’t charging bail upfront for hearings. Since this story first broke it has been discovered that almost every county in the State had this bail requirement going on. Now I’m supposed to believe that Mendocino County was the only one that didn’t, even though their website stated otherwise? Anyway, below are the court’s new instructions.

MENDOCINO COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT WEBSITE:

Requesting a Trial in Person or by Mail

Any person who has received a written Notice to Appear for an infraction may, prior to the time at which the person is required to appear, enter a plea of not guilty.

Any person may enter a plea of not guilty in person in court at the arraignment. Arraignments are scheduled by contacting the clerk of the court named in the Notice to Appear. Deposit of bail is not required if you appear in person for arraignment to enter a plea of not guilty and request a court trial.

Any person may plead not guilty and request a trial in writing in lieu of appearing in person for arraignment. The written plea can be prepared on local form MTR-140 - Advisement of Right and Plea of Not Guilty, which shall be directed to the court named in the Notice to Appear and shall be accompanied by a deposit consisting of the amount of bail listed on the courtesy notice for the offense(s) charged. Upon receipt of the plea and deposit, the case shall be set for arraignment/trial pursuant to California Vehicle Code section 40519(b).

Any person using the written procedure set forth above shall be deemed to have given a written promise to appear at the time designated by the court for trial, and failure to appear may result in the trial going forward without an appearance.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK: Those temp tags are the biggest scam going. People take off their license plates when coming into the city, and put those on (who knows if it's legit or not). Then, if they get into a fender bender or worse, they run. "What was the license of the car that hit you ma'am?" ---"uh, all it had was a temp tag." End of story. You can also park anywhere you want, illegally, because how are they going to issue a ticket? Cover up the portion on your dash that shows the VIN, and with no plate, voila! No ticket.

AS THE SUPERVISORS take more pay for less work, the children of the poor in this county are protected by an under-paid, demoralized, ill-managed staff. Will the supervisors act? We wouldn't bet on it.

THE ENTIRE GJ report on the sorry state of children's services can be read on our website at: https://www.theava.com/archives/43922#2

LAST WEDNESDAY (27th May) was big for sports fans, what with another win for the Giants and then the Warriors taking the Western Conference title over Houston. About the Warriors: Am I the only person to hear Klay Thompson say, post-game, he was still "a little dizzy"? He took a terrific shot to the ear during the game. It knocked him down and almost out. Thompson went to the locker room for a spell, returned to the game only to return to the locker room again because he was bleeding from the ear. Then, post-game, we heard him say he was still dizzy. I found it all rather disturbing, frankly, that the Warrior doctors cleared him to play after that initial knee-blow to the ear. And, sure enough, today we learn that Thompson suffered a concussion that had him vomiting and so foggy he couldn't drive home. Here's hoping the Warriors review their medical staffing. I think their doctors are dangerous to the long-term health and welfare of Warrior players.

LIKE A LOT of front runners, I hadn't paid much attention to the Warriors until this year when, like thousands of Bay Area fans, I began watching closely for the first time since Clifford Ray, Al Attles, Rick Barry and Company, the one and only previous NBA championship Warriors. Now in full pre-senilty mode — total recall of events long ago, little or no memory of what happened last week — I remember the Warriors playing at the Cow Palace and then downtown at what is now called the Bill Graham Auditorium. Tickets were under five bucks, way under, maybe three.

PS. THE BEST, SMOOTHEST basketball player I've ever seen with my own eyes was Fred LaCour out of San Francisco, later with the Hawks where his career was abbreviated by heroin addiction. Steph Curry is amazing but I've only seen him on tv. http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/NorthSouth/fred_lacour.html

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BILLY DOAK CASE? Doak, of Fort Bragg, took a plea in February and it flew under our radar screen because the only mention of it was on the DA’s “jury trial results” webpage, which we don’t check often. The DA wrote: “On February 25, 2015, the day set for picking a jury for a third trial following two previous hung juries, defendant Doak instead admitted criminal liability for having falsely imprisoned the victim. The Court accepted the change of plea and sentenced the defendant to one year in the county jail. This conviction is weighed as a win.”

CONSIDERING that Doak was originally charged with “criminal mayhem” — i.e., shooting his girlfriend’s finger off — calling it a “win” seems like a stretch. Doak’s two prior trials had ended in hung juries and Deputy DA Kevin Davenport (of the Fort Bragg office) had announced after the second one that he fully intended to go for Doak a third time. But instead, it ended with the simple false imprisonment plea. The process has, among other things, pauperized Mr. Doak. For more background:

• https://www.theava.com/archives/32661
• https://www.theava.com/archives/33649#8

MENDO STONERS may be interested to learn that Paul McCartney says he has given up marijuana after many years of indulgence and now prefers wine or "a nice margarita." The former Beatle told the Daily Mirror he doesn't want to set a bad example for his children and grandchildren by using marijuana. He said Saturday his decision is "a parent thing." He says "the last time I smoked was a long time ago." McCartney had been a long-time marijuana user who spent 10 nights in jail after he was arrested trying to enter Japan with a large quantity of the drug in 1980. The 72-year-old British rock/pop star is fit and has long advocated a vegetarian lifestyle and, of course, continues to perform for adoring crowds worldwide.