EVERY DAY brings a fresh deluge of catastrophes, but the one in Fort Bragg on October 17th of 2014 is particularly memorable. A deranged man named Michael Bitney, 56, of shifting Oregon addresses, inexplicably drove through the wall and into the motel room next door to him, plowing into a Bay Area woman holding the infant she was baby sitting while her family enjoyed a ride on the Skunk Train. Karen Zuehlsdorf, 45, was killed, her 7-month-old nephew badly injured. Bitney emerged unscathed from his pick-up truck and drove off north where he was stopped and arrested near Ten Mile. He was not drunk or otherwise under the influence and did not know Mrs. Zuehlsdorf. There is, however, an ongoing argument about how nuts Bitney really is. Is he fit for trial? That's the subject of an ongoing debate among his psychiatric evaluators. Bitney has been held in the County Jail since his arrest and has had to be medicated while there. He's done state prison time in California for a robbery conviction.
THAT POTTER VALLEY DOUBLE SUICIDE? Turns out to be beyond awful, Shakespearean even. The troubled son of Kevin Paul Allen, 50, committed suicide, the father discovered the son's body and, without pausing, shot himself to death. Five years ago, Allen was the alleged victim in a sketchy, unconfirmed home invasion at his remote grow near the Mendo-Lake county line. Allen claimed "four or five Hispanic men," one of them armed, who proceeded to shoot Allen in the arm, smack him around, tie him up, then drive off in Allen's truck. Allen was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm.
DATELINE UKIAH. A young woman is in town looking for marijuana work. She spots an ad that looks promising. She calls the number and leaves her name and contact information. That evening, while eating dinner with her boyfriend, she receives a text message that says, "I don't have any trim work at this time, but if you want to meet me at Motel 6, I'll give you a hundred dollars for an hour of your time. I'm sure we'll both be happy after it's over."
KEITH BRAMSTEDT REMEMBERS: "I was ten years old when the Warriors won the championship in 1975. I remember listening to the championship-clinching Game 4 on a transistor radio on my way to a Memorial Day picnic, to show how unbearably long the NBA season is now. Bill King, of course, was the Warriors' radio announcer. I thought he was a better basketball announcer than football or baseball. He had a rapid-fire delivery that suited the fast pace of basketball. The Warriors had to play their two home games in the Finals at the Cow Palace because the Oakland Coliseum Arena had scheduled an ice show there ahead of the Finals!"
THE NEWS that KZYX’s "executive director and general manager" John Coate has resigned is an opportunity for good things to at last happen at our pointlessly paranoid public radio station. If, however, the station's captive board of directors simply inserts another bunker brain in the boss chair, KXYX will continue full steam ahead for the fiscal rocks.
THERE'S NO rational reason to pay someone 60 grand a year to do the few tasks Coate allegedly performed. In fact, there's no rational reason for a program director at 40 grand and the other two full-time guys forty grand each to do whatever they do. An outback radio station, especially one a little too heavy on crazy talk, will only generate "community support" from specified listener blocs, a fact of audio life on the Northcoast fully realized by KMUD to the north of us in Southern HumCo. They don't pay management anywhere near what the KZYX apparat pulls down, and KMUD, unlike KZYX, is managerially transparent.
MENDOCINO COUNTY PUBLIC RADIO ought to reorganize with headquarters in Ukiah, our county seat. It's past time to start up all over again without the terrible albatross founding father Donovan foisted off on a credulous community, so credulous that it still doesn't seem to understand that Donovan organized the station in a way that makes it the tool of whomever sits in the Big Chair.
AND IT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY that a new manager, if the station's cringing board of directors, as is likely, sticks with the authoritarian management style, will do any better than Coate. To be plain: On the off chance a smart, capable, pleasant person gets the nod he or she will (1) take one look around and run screaming down KZYX's driveway, or (2) will quickly be driven out by the entrenched ghouls.
I THINK there's some bad fiscal news coming to Mendo Public Radio, and I think that's why Coate is leaving "to spend more time with his family." His tenure has simply continued a running management disaster.
IT'S CLEAN SWEEP TIME at Mendo Public Radio. Fire them all, including the present line-up of programmers, most of whom have been in place for years, and start over.
ART & SOUL ~ SAVING OUR PLANET
June 4 through 26, Odd Fellows Gallery, Mendocino
A unique exhibit of Spiritual & Social Commentary Art by 15 Mendocino County artists ~ PLUS: a multi-media EXPO presenting hopeful news about momentous events now transforming our world.
Gallery hours: 10:30 - 5 pm (closed Tuesdays & Wednesdays)
Opening Celebration: Saturday, June 13, 5:00 pm.
Transmission Meditation Workshop: Friday, June 19, 7 pm.
Sponsored by: Share International USA
Information: 895-3134
PBS NEWS HOUR on weed and water politics as they converge to form one big hot topic on the Northcoast features a segment on the “medical” marijuana industry in the Humboldt County backwoods, and how it does or doesn’t compound the impact of California’s three-year drought. “Are marijuana growers sucking California dry?” Reporter Spencer Michaels tags along with a Department of Fish and Wildlife/North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board raid somewhere in southern Humboldt, where they discover a slightly more egregious than usual illegal water-delivery setup.
Elsewhere in the piece, Michaels talks with many of the most prominent names in the debate over legalization, regulation and the impact of weed on the environment — Fish and Wildlife’s Scott Bauer, Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman, Friends of the Eel River Executive Director Scott Greacen, grower Casey O’Neill, Anderson Valley Grape Grower George Lee, and others. Watch the whole segment on YouTube. (Hank Sims, LCO)
DEPUTY DA Paul Sequeira's son, Anthony Sequeira, was drafted last week by the Phillies. A hard-throwing right-hander, Sequeira, who played his high school baseball in Petaluma, was selected in Round 23 of the annual draft and was the 2015 Summit League Player of the Year, hitting .341/.423/.583 for Oral Roberts. Sequeira led Petaluma High School to the Sonoma County League championship twice during his high school career. He was an All-Empire selection his junior and senior seasons. After high school, Sequeira played two seasons at Santa Rosa Junior College, where he was named to the All-Big 8 Conference Second Team in 2013.
A READER WRITES: "Your recent comments about Fred LaCour brought back memories of the old Drake High summer league. LaCour played for the St Agnes Youth Center of San Francisco, the only non-Marin team in the league. The team, coached by a Catholic priest, included such Bay Area notables as Tom Meschery, LaRoy Doss, Bobby Dole of St. Mary’s, Gene Womack and others. There were some good players and good teams but I don’t remember anyone ever giving them a close game. I think they were good enough and deep enough to beat many of the college teams of the day. Incidentally, I heard somewhere that LaCour died in San Quentin Prison."
JANE FUTCHER has resigned from the KZYX board to begin life as a station programmer as host of “The Cannabis Hour” every other Thursday at 9 a.m. As per the station bylaws, a board member elected from a specific district, in Ms. Futcher's case the 3rd District, cannot serve as a programmer, hence her resignation from the station's board of directors. Martin A. Lee, author of Smoke Signals: A social history of marijuana—medical, recreational and scientific, and director of Project CBD, will appear on that inaugural Cannabis Hour on Thursday, June 18, 9am where he will be interviewed by Ms. Futcher. Call-ins welcome.
THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS spent their meeting day last week trying to stay awake through the CEO's budget presentation. The budget show was orchestrated by a kid who looked like he was maybe a junior in high school, and for all we know maybe he was. There were periodic walk-ons by self-serving bureaucrats like Mental Health Department honcho (and former Ortner executive) Tom Pinizzotto who added their rubberstamps to the impenetrable County budget.
OTHER PEOPLE read proclamations, and the supervisors approved an irrelevant rearrangement of the County’s tourist promotion deckchairs, and everyone congratulated themselves for the great job they’re all doing.
"PUBLIC EXPRESSION" was dominated by employees and bureaucrats telling the Board what a swell job they were doing and, in a few cases, why they should get more money to do even sweller jobs. In fact, if there was more than one person not on the County's payroll or already on a board of commission who spoke during "public expression" we didn't see them.
PINIZZOTTO’S BUDGET PRESENTATION was so grossly info-free — x-thousand “encounters,” y-thousand “visits,” z-hundred “clients” over the last three years — that even Mental Health Board chair John Wentzler stood up to say he was “disappointed” in it and he [Wentzler] wished the Board could see their way clear to go into maybe a bit more mental health program specifics. The entirety of the Board’s reaction was from Board Chair Carre Brown: “Thank you. The next speaker card I have is…”
NO BUDGET CHANGES were made or even suggested. The staff's numbers were accepted without critical comment except for one item about a $1.9 million county match for a grant that Supervisor McCowen thought wasn't explained well enough. Supervisor Gjerde said he had a few minor budget questions that he'd ask privately, not on the record. Supervisor Woodhouse said several times that everybody had done a "good job," "great work," etc. We couldn't bring ourselves to listen to Supervisor Hamburg's head-of-a-pin questions about whether a number belonged here or over there.
CEO ANGELO'S BUDGET SUMMARY was the usual random selection of budget clichés we hear every year: "We must continue to look ahead and we urge the Board to exercise continued caution when considering expenditure increases in order to keep the County on the road to financial recovery. Both State and Federal budget outlooks continue to be based on a number of assumptions and should any of those assumptions not come to light, we may end up right back where we were a few years ago. This time, however, we will be better prepared due to the Board’s policy and commitment to funding the General Reserve and other stabilizing factors. … It should be noted that there is a reason for optimism. Most discretionary revenue streams are increasing, some have even recovered past pre-recession levels. Property tax, sales tax, and transient occupancy tax are all on the rise. In addition, property values and employment indicators are trending positive. It is however essential to temper this optimism with fiscal restraint and prudence."
THERE ARE THREE promo groups in Mendocino County variously funded out of the bed tax and straight out of the general fund. Well over a million dollars a year is divvied up by these people to do what? They place unseen advertisements here and there and sip wine at Frisco soirees with other promo people. Meanwhile, here in Boomsville, now firmly established as a tourist destination, our downtown businesses get nothing of any value out of all the tax money they collect for the county. One would think that the county supervisors would demand that at least some of this extravagantly wasted promotional money be invested in public bathrooms for Boonville. Our businesses have been forced to close their bathrooms to the public because it's almost a full-time job just to keep their bathrooms user-friendly for their customers. Throw in the wandering hordes of touri, a surprising number of whom seem to have been toilet trained by chimpanzees, and toilets overflow, septic systems back up and odd acts of pure vandalism are committed.
AT A RECENT meeting of the Supervisors, meetings mostly irrelevant to the functioning of the county, the Lodging Association rightly complained they weren't getting anything of value from Visit Mendocino County, and on and on around the mulberry bush. Those complaints were soon absorbed into the rearrangement that now takes an extra $200k from the County’s general fund for its “tourist promotion” match. It seems from here that no bed tax money, or general fund money, should be spent on advertising private businesses. Bed tax money should be spent on practical amenities like public bathrooms in Boonville. Quick! Who said this? "Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket."
RE MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING, a reader writes: “What's being overlooked here is that Health and Human Services Agency was funded for the unfilled positions in Family and Children's Services and instead of hiring people, or giving pay raises, they placed the money in their ‘reserve account.’ Now they are using those reserve funds to pay down the $3 million mental health debt. It's a big shell game. That mental health debt should be paid from the general fund reserves, not HHSA reserves. That %3 million debt occurred prior to realignment. I caught on to this during the budget hearing Tuesday when they moved through this really fast. The mental health debt is due to overpayments made to the county prior to 2011. The County General fund received the overpayment dollars during those years, so they should be responsible for the debt. CEO Angelo, HHSA Director Cryer and Brian Lowery (Assistant HHSA Director) are running HHSA into the dirt.”
WE ASKED SUPERVISOR JOHN McCOWEN for further clarification. The 2nd District supervisor said that funds were indeed budgeted to hire “x” number of positions, and that it was also true that not all budgeted positions were filled. But, McCowen said, it was not true that a decision was made not to hire people so the Supes could funnel money into a “reserve account.” McCowen said there are many reserve accounts and positions were not filled for all the reasons detailed in the GJ report, but not for lack of trying.
THE MENTAL HEALTH deficit, the supervisor said, will be paid from cost savings within the overall HHSA budget but wasn't sure if this is from unspecified “reserves” or “year end carryover” from cost savings in the overall budget, mostly from salary savings for positions that were not filled last year.
THAT THE MENTAL HEALTH DEBT should be paid from the general fund reserves, not HHSA reserves, the Supe characterized as “a statement of opinion but it is not the way that the County operates or has operated. The real prob is that the federal government has defaulted on its responsibility to adequately fund mental health services, just as they have on social services in general. That $3 million debt occurred prior to realignment. It is true that the audit exception portion of the Mental Health deficit stems from 5-7 several years ago. So apparently, things weren't exactly ticking like a Swiss watch before privatization and the dread Ortner.”
AT VARIOUS POINTS in the marathon budget presentation, a form of verbal rope-a-dope designed to narcotize rational thought processes, Supervisor McCowen asked pointed questions of the budget presenter, the replacement for the departed Kyle Knopp. Knopp's replacement guy looks like he's about 14, but the kid seems to have a precocious grasp of the art of obfuscation — never respond with a yes or no if a longer answer will confuse matters, never admit to anything, and always insist that whatever is being requested is not possible because we have always done it this way.
THE YOUNG OBFUSCATOR did, however, agree with much of what McCowen, the 2nd District supervisor, said. He agreed that the $3 million transferred into the Road Fund every year is General Fund money that is transferred by policy/direction of the Board of Supes, not because it is required. The Supes probably do want to support the road department, although the money typically goes for salaries, not paving.
FOR DECADES Howard Dashiell, and Budge Campbell before him, maintained that the Road Fund is the equivalent of a “special district” guaranteed by law to receive a set percentage of the County property tax. County administrators and County Counsel tacitly or overtly supported this unique stance over the years, and here we are again at “Because this is the way we've always done it.”
THE YOUNG BAFFLEGAB FELLER also agreed there is no reason why the recommended budget, when it is published, cannot show a projected balance for the end of the current fiscal year. The practice has been to show “actual through 5/30” which omits any revenue or expenses for the final month of the year, and which makes meaningful comparisons to previous years difficult to impossible since it results in an apples and oranges comparisons. County bureaucrats have said for years it would be too much work to make the change. The new budget guy, with the brashness of youth, said he didn't see any reason why it couldn't be done. Woodhouse, 3rd District supervisor, supported McCowen, acknowledging that McCowen's “annual request” to reform this particular practice made sense.
McCOWEN also requested that the supervisors develop two new schedules, one that would show all reserve accounts by department, and a second that would show all operating transfers in (and out) when those transfers are from the General Fund or another department.
THESE SUGGESTED MODIFICATIONS would indeed be helpful to the Board and to the general public in understanding the budget, which, one would think, would be a Board priority.
LODGING is destroying Mendocino County's tourist promotion? Supervisor Dan Hamburg on why he was going to vote for the re-organized Business Improvement District with a doubling of the County match to about $400k, June 9, 2015: “The trajectory of the bid is going to be set by what we are doing today and I think what we need to be doing over the next year if we do continue the BID for the next year is planning what is going to be our new structure going forward and I don't think it should be a structure where lodging can dictate the terms of promotion for Mendocino County. It has been pointed out time and again that promotion is much bigger than just the lodging industry and also you've got a significant part of the lodging industry that's basically pretty hostile to this kind of a countywide organization and I don't want to fight with them anymore, not like I've been in the front lines like you guys, but we are doing something really good for the entire county and to see this one, you know, one sub-element of the County, this one part of the lodging industry, just trying to destroy it is just very it disheartening and I want to look to the day when we don't have to deal with that anymore and if that means taking this organization in house and doing it without a BID and with increasing the TOT [Transient Occupancy Tax] that's the direction I want to go, so I'm willing to go along with, you know, passing this going forward with a somewhat crippled, at least budgetarily crippled organization, but I don't see that as the future of promotion for Mendocino County. We need a new plan. I definitely appreciate the structure that supervisors Gjerde and McCowen have designed, that may be workable, but I'm just not willing to let lodging and the elements of lodging that are so opposed to this continued to drive this train.”
THERE AREN'T MANY LOCAL ATTORNEYS who practice both civil and criminal law at both the state and federal levels, but our very own Edie Lerman of Santa Rosa and Ukiah does all four, and does all four with a high rate of success, as she has recently in a federal case arising out of Trinity County involving the feds vs. the Pickle family. (See McEwen this week.)
THE FORMIDABLE E.D. LERMAN, Esq. has worked a veritable miracle in getting a federal court decision overturned in a whopper of an asset forfeiture case. When the feds pounce on a pot pharm, boys and girls, the game is up. These are the big kids stepping in, and they play by different rules, and their rules really, really hurt. And sometimes they're like the old baseball joke where an umpire, confronted over an interpretation of the rules, says, "I'll show you the rule as soon as the ink's dry."
RULE G, for instance. Ever hear of that one?
WOULD YOU BELIEVE that it means you have no standing when it comes to your own property? Would you believe that Rule G is so inscrutably dense and convoluted that the courts can say in practically the same breath that “Rule G is a statutory standing requirement,” and that “nevertheless, the term standing is a misnomer.”
GOT THAT?
BATTLING US ATTORNEYS Benjamin B. Wagner and his assistant Kevin C. Khasigian, who wield Rule G like a scythe in tall corn, Ms. Lerman took up the cause of Byron Pickle (now 74), his son James Pickle and his brother Thomas Pickle, all of whom were arrested by the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement (BNE) for marijuana trafficking after searches of their property revealed a large marijuana grow, firearms and tens of thousands in US currency.
JAMES AND HIS UNCLE Thomas lived on a Hennessy Road property in Trinity County. They were charged with criminal complaints, but Byron Pickle, the patriarch, was not, and the “defendant” became the property on July 16, 2009.
IF YOU'RE THINKING that the feds gave the 74-year-old a break because of his age, think again. These people would disinter their grandmothers and try them and their senior centers if they had to.
THE COMPLAINT FOR FORFEITURE states that Byron Pickle is the recorded owner of the “defendant real property.” It further asserted that Byron occupied the main residence and his son lived in an RV.
THE OLD MAN filed a verified claim in this proceeding on August 11th, 2009, in which he likewise stated that he is the “recorded owner” of the defendant property. Pickle also filed an answer on September 4, 2009, in which he claimed to be “an innocent possessory and/or ownership interest” in the defendant property.
WHAT FOLLOWS is an impenetrable legal thicket reminiscent of Dickens' Department of Circumlocution. The brilliant Ms. Lerman not only entered the thicket where the feds lay in wait, poised to wield Rule G like baseball bats, she prevailed.
THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT was and is the old guy and his sons have spent years in court to get their property back, and they're only maybe halfway there with the ruling Ms. Lerman won for them, which is the right to go back into the court that screwed them in the first place to get their property back. (— Bruce McEwen)
HOW JOSE CANSECO shot the tip of his finger off: "I was cleaning four guns at once, and I had all the magazines over to the right, and I’m on the fourth gun, and my girlfriend comes in and she distracts me, and I grab the wrong gun, I put the wrong clip in."
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