Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, June 23, 2015

• Judge Denies
• Sanhedrin 80%
• Summer Fog
• Corby Sale
• Unconfirmed Rumors
• Wrong Deputy
• Balo's Barn
• SNWMF Images
• Fire Season
• Corrections Box
• Shadow
• Marijuana Eradication
• Stuck Truck
• Shawshank Escape
• Yesterday's Catch
• Gold Dome
• Hopeless Underclass
• Briana Recommends
• Dog Meat
• Next Generation
• GOP Trumped
• Opening Acts
• KZYX Hole
• Frobeck Coming
• Costume Movie
• Craig East

JUDGE HENDERSON DENIES EFFORT to stop Coast Hotel Deal in Fort Bragg.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/4102300-181/judge-refuses-to-halt-homeless

SANHEDRIN FIRE UPDATE

Upper Lake — As of Monday morning the Sanhedrin fire remains 80% contained and approximately 25 acres. Firefighting resources started to be released today as the fire moves towards full containment and mop-up activity. Smoke from the fire may still be visible for the next few days along Highway 101 and to communities on the west side of the forest. The fire, reported Friday night around 7:30 p.m., is burning on private land within the Mendocino National Forest south of Little Signal Peak and east of the Sanhedrin Wilderness on the Upper Lake Ranger District. The cause is under investigation. For more information, please contact the Mendocino National Forest at 530-934-3316 or visit www.fs.usda.gov/mendocino

IS THERE ANY MORE reassuring sight than a hearty fog bank at the Navarro end of the Anderson Valley? Never is the color gray more beautiful than it is from summer time Boonville after a run of hundred degree days.

AS REPORTED HERE two weeks ago, Ted Hall, proprietor of the Long Meadow Ranch in Rutherford, has bought the 145-acre Corby Vineyard, Philo, paying more than $100,000 per planted acre, which is what Anderson Valley vineyards are going for these days, as old timers scratch their heads and remember when bare land went for a hundred an acre, if that. (The Corbys have relocated to Florida.) Hall farms his Napa County holdings organically, which is the good news for us in a valley heavy on industrial grape growing.

STEPHANE VIVIER, a native of France, will be Hall's winemaker at Corby, Paul Ardzrooni of Ardzrooni Vineyard Management in Philo will oversee the vineyard.

IN THE PRESS DEMOCRAT'S breathless prose announcing the Hall family's purchase of Philo's Corby Vineyards, appears this annoying passage: “The area has seen a little controversy lately as one community resident filed a lawsuit claiming that wind machines used to stave off frost in the vineyards regularly violate the county’s noise ordinance, which limits noise to 40 decibels at night. Residents want to preserve their quality of life in the hamlet and are wary of tourism growth and events that are commonplace in Sonoma and Napa counties…"

THE COUNTY could have avoided the “little controversy” simply by enforcing its own rules, thus sparing that “one community resident” the expense of a lawsuit, a suit the “one community resident” will drop if his neighbors simply agree to quiet their frost fans.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY has already been overwhelmed by the forces of high end booze, and the only obstacle that prevents us from becoming the twin horrors of the Napa and Sonoma valleys, is our “lack of infrastructure.” Long may it lack!

DEPUTY WALKER said Sunday that he has been unable to confirm that widely rumored armed robbery, alleged to have occurred in Boonville a few weeks ago. The Deputy was similarly nonplussed by another prevalent rumor that three locals, two women and a man, had been drugged, apparently, they thought, by a date rape-like substance slipped into their drinks. The Deputy says he has no reason to disbelieve the unfortunate trio but he is unable to confirm that it happened.

IN THE COURSE of writing up the sad ripoff saga of the two old ladies in Willits, one of the ladies complained that she couldn't get a deputy to even note that someone was now trying to creep her out at night by periodically sitting at the foot of her driveway. She wasn't asking for regular drive-bys or any other attention deputies seldom have time for, all she wanted was for the police to know this was happening to her. I think she got the wrong deputy. Our deputy here in Boonville, Craig Walker, notes everything, and is famous and famously appreciated for following up on every call no matter how trivial or downright wacky. And I understand that both the Ukiah and the Willits police departments are equivalently conscientious.

BALO’S BARN

by David Severn

When the dirt started moving on the parcel of land that had been recently sold by Bryant Whittaker between the “Big Dig” pond and the vineyard on the far end of Anderson Valley Way, the speculation was that it was going to be another huge pond with riparian rights to Anderson Creek's struggling fish population's water. After about the third time someone asked me what I knew, I called the new owners of the property, Balo Vineyards, situated in Philo, kitty-corner across the highway from Goldeneye. Whomever answered gave me their name which I've forgotten and said that no way, no how was it going to be a pond and no grapes either but rather a low key barn. Balo, by the way, is owned by a non-resident couple named Timothy and Michele Mullins. As with 99% of vineyard owners and developers they are quite wealthy.

So I thought I knew the skinny and as the building progressed I told all who asked, "No pond, no grape involvement, just an animal barn."

That is, until I noticed they were digging what looked like a pond behind the growing barn.

OK, so now it's time to go to the building department and see what kind of permits they have. Because I needed an address to get the building permit files, I went to the County Recorder's office and found it listed on the recorder’s ParcelQuest computer under Balo Vineyards at 10600 AV Way.

At the Building Department while standing at the counter I opened the file and almost immediately Mendocino County’s chief Building Inspector looked over and said "That's wrong!"

"What?" I asked.

"Class K." he said. "Balo Vineyards is a commercial enterprise and Class K is not appropriate for commercial usage." He leafed quickly through the various papers in the file and without finding anything notable. He added he thought he remembered talking with "the wife" who said it was going to be a horse barn for personal use. "That must be the reason for a Class K permit," he offered.

The permit was issued 7/17/14 and a note from the building contractor, Jeff Chandler, stated, "No 2nd floor, no electric, no plumbing or waste." The file did include a grading exemption for a pit pond to hold 5.6 acre-feet of water with a 10 foot max dam. A small pond by comparison to most vineyard standards. but still curious why that was needed for horses. But with the non-commercial “horse barn” explanation it appeared everything seemed legit.

On my way out I grabbed a printed copy of the Mendocino County Class K Ordinance known as Chapter 18.23 — Regulations For Limited Density Rural Dwellings and made available from a wall rack. Unofficially, but in reality, Class K in Mendocino was initiated to accommodate the Hippie Back to the Land Movement in the 80s and usher the longhairs in some manner into the system. Structural soundness must be maintained, but many of the normally required plans, procedures and inspections are eliminated. Costs are lower as well as bureaucratic hassle. At home when I read the second paragraph I was struck with a question.

It states, “The purpose of this chapter is to provide minimum requirements for the protection of life, limb, health, property,safety, and welfare of the general public and the owners and occupants of limited density rural dwellings and appurtenant structures.” (My emphasis) The same language is strewn throughout the ordinance "…owner-built rural dwellings and appurtenant structures.”

My dictionary defines appurtenant as “an accompaniment, auxiliary, accessory” and in this case there was no dwelling to be appurtenant to. In fact toward the end of the ordinance, by way of explaining the need for it, item (4) states, "Mendocino has a severe housing shortage. Low cost housing is especially hard to find in the County and the adoption of regulations for limited density rural dwellings will encourage the further construction of such dwellings."

Hmm?

The next time in Ukiah I stopped by the Building Department and asked, “Just what does appurtenant mean?” The inspector immediately became a little rattled and excused himself from the others at the counter. He lead me into a back room where he asked a maintenance man to please excuse us for a short time. He knew, without me stating, which project I was referring to and then explained to me that they in the Building Department had realized that they were making a mistake issuing Class K permits for structures not appurtenant to any dwelling. I might have heard wrong but it sounded like he was saying or implying that this wasn't the only case.

I did not complain or expect any rectification and he did not offer any for the Balo Vineyards horse barn. It was built, certainly it was solid, there was a County-issued permit and no way would it be torn down. I was and am OK with that, it is just an amusing, human incident that might or might not happen again.

I knew I was going to have to write it up but I was uncomfortable because I like the Building Department people. They are always courteous and helpful on my many forays looking for the goods on what I perceive as questionable enterprise. But before I started the story I began noticing various pieces of farm machinery around the barn and even parked in what looked like horse stalls.

Some of my friends started laughing when I told them the story about it being a horse barn. “Yeah, that John Deere tractor is horse number one, that Massey Ferguson is horse number two, and that orchard spray rig is horse number three.”

OK, so now I felt I needed to go back to the County permit folder for a closer look to see if I could find any documented discourse on the intended use of the barn. But in the manner that I often work, I had forgotten to bring the needed address to retrieve the files so I went back to the recorder’s office and did what I had done the first time and searched for Balo Vineyards.

Lo, the Anderson Valley Way Balo property was not listed any longer. So I went to the parcel map book for the area, got the assessor’s parcel number for the property and found that the ownership had been changed from Balo Vineyards to Vineyard Logistics at the same PO Box in Philo. Sure doesn't look or sound like a noncommercial family horse facility anymore.

So now there are two violations of the Class K Ordinance: it's obviously commercial and not intended to be a family horse barn and there ain't no house to be appurtenant to.

Back at the Building Department, Chief Inspector Chris Warrick said he would look into the matter. I put the story on hold to see how it would work out.

Once, a couple weeks down the road while in the Building Department on another matter Chris Warrick said he had been to Anderson Valley and noticed the tractors parked there and said he would be doing something about it.

It's been a couple months now and when I last went to look closely at the files I did not find any indication of remediation of the issues and Chris Warrick wasn't in to ask.

What I did find was a signed document that read in part, "I, Timothy Mullins, request that all inspections prior to final be waived and I hereby declare that all work conducted at 10600 AV Way, Boonville, will be in compliance with the provisions of Chapter 18.23 (regulations for limited density rural dwellings) of the Mendocino County Code, which allows for the deviation from requirements of the standard uniform construction codes…"

Ha!

This is Monday morning the 22nd of June and I have finally written the story. I will email a copy to the Building Department for comment and include any reply that they might make. But you know what? I don't think it's all that big a deal. We all make mistakes. We all fudge a bit here and there.

That barn in itself is not going to hurt anybody, albeit, it is a violation of code on two counts.

What I find amusing, though, and a bit exasperating is how very rich people and often those of the vineyard ilk tend to get treated somewhat differently than the rest of us. It's annoying, too, that they seem to expect and feel entitled to such preferential treatment.

IMAGES OF SIERRA NEVADA MUSIC FEST, 2015

WORST EVER FIRE SEASON LOOMS

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/4101680-181/fire-season-hits-sonoma-county

ACTUALIZATION

Editor,

Bruce old boy, just between us in this quiet little nook where no one can overhear us, let me remind you that an actual newspaper is expected to maintain a CORRECTIONS box. Or column. Or page. You see the problem.

Gordon Black, Mendocino

ED REPLY: Thanks for the tip, Gordy, but what is an 'actual newspaper?' You mean like the Press Democrat with horoscopes, prostitution ads, advice to the lovelorn, and daily tributes to the wine industry, with corrections printed two weeks after the error, if at all? Besides, actuality seems awfully subjective anymore, and however defined I'm pretty sure we don't share it. But with your help, and don't think I'm unaware of the media wisdom you've banked from reading liner notes at our pseudo-public radio station for three decades, I too might yet glimpse The White Rabbit!

PS from The Major: The format for requests for corrections is as follows: You wrote [a], but that’s incorrect; it should be [b]. Or, You wrote [a] and [a] is correct, but you left out [b]. Or, You wrote [a] but that’s not clear so you should have written [b]. Or, You wrote [a] but what was meant was [b]. Or, You wrote [a] and I disagree because [b]. For example, You wrote “no one can overhear us,” but that’s incorrect; it would only be true if we were on KZYX.

FROM DEEP IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS....

On June 22, 2015 at 7am Deputies from Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino Counties began serving several search warrants in the Island Mountain area associated with large scale marijuana cultivation sites. Personnel from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were assisting Deputies as it was suspected that situations of water diversion, water theft and environment degradation would be discovered. Specific details of the search warrant services will be released on 06-23-2015 as information becomes available.

Addendum: Dozens of deputies from Sheriff's office in three counties - Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity - are on a joint marijuana eradication mission at Island Mountain, a remote area which touches all three counties. It is the original Emerald Triangle area. Sources say they expect to find upwards of 100,000 plants. The teams left for the area early this morning and had a long trip - 2.5 hours into the woods past the nearest paved road. No federal agencies are involved. Sources say the marijuana grows are not Mexican cartel operations but from local wealthy growers who have been at it for years. Beyond the sheer size of the grows, prompting the raid is evidence of massive water theft from the river there. More on the raid is expected this afternoon.

STRAIGHT STEER

On June 18, 2015, at approximately 10:30am, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were called to a vacant residence on Highway 20 near Fort Bragg regarding a subject in a flatbed truck taking items from the property. Upon their arrival Deputies located Terry Counterman, 46, of Fort Bragg, whose flatbed truck had become stuck while driving off of the property. Counterman was detained and Deputies found structures on the property that had recently been forced open and items removed. Some of the stolen items were located in Counterman's flatbed truck. Counterman was arrested for burglary and lodged at the Mendocino County Jail to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail. This investigation is continuing and persons with relevant information are requested to contact Deputy J. Comer at (707) 234-2100.

PENOLOGY

THE SHAWSHANK ESCAPE is fascinating. If I was looking at never getting out of prison, I'd break out, too. Or try to. Most people would. People get too much time. Lots of them deserve severe sanctions, but severity ought to be relatively brief and contingent upon how well the miscreant does while incarcerated, and prisoners should have access to education up through college and every other rehab strategy, too. The felon gets with the program, improves himself, he ought to have a realistic shot at getting back out there again after, max, twenty years, psycho killers and chomos, excepted. Inmates will tell you exactly who is so dangerous he's got to stay inside and who is highly unlikely to re-offend. And who should decide who gets out when? Inmates and prison staff are better judges of who ought to stay locked up than politically appointed parole boards.

OUR PENAL STRATEGIES deliberately misunderstand human nature. Young people, men especially, do stupid things when they're young. That's a universal given. European countries operate their prisons on that assumption — that a kid of 19 who, say, kills someone, is not the same person at 30, and he certainly isn't the same person at 50. I know a Covelo guy, no longer a kid, who did exactly that, killed someone out of some weird kid impulse at age 19. He's over thirty now and not the same person he was when he pulled that trigger. Perfect record inside. Achieved diplomas from every entity that grants them. The man he murdered is still dead, and was elderly when he was killed, not that that fact is much in the way of an ameliorating factor. I did stuff that could easily have gotten me killed that I wouldn't have done past the age of 25. Ask any man and they'll often tell you the same thing. Myself, I'm for the two guys who broke out of Shawshank. They ought to be paroled simply on the basis of their ingenuity in pulling it off, but in the context of insanely long sentences, and the increasingly harsh conditions of incarceration, bloodier escapes and attempted escapes are part of the prevailing madness.

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 22, 2015

JARRED BURROWS, Walnut Creek/Willits. DUI.

DYLAN DONOVAN JR., Gualala. Possession of controlled substance, probation revocation.

RICKY LEWIS, Ukiah. Domestic assault, probation revocation.

JOSEPH LITTLE, Fort Bragg. Probation violation.

STEVEN MUNSON, Willits. Under influence of controlled substance.

ROGELIO RAMIREZ, Ukiah. DUI.

MELODY SCROGGINS, Willits. Violation of court order, failure to appear.

RONNY WADE, Austin, Texas/Covelo. Pot cultivation.

THE ‘REAL STORY’ OF HOW THE CITY WORKS

In yesterday's Chronicle, we learn from Matier & Ross and Willie Brown (below in italics Brown brags about it) — in side-by-side columns in the Bay Area section — how city government works: you have to pay to play. Is anyone really surprised?

Matier & Ross write about how "private donors" win City Hall's affections by donating money to pay for the America's Cup, the mayors' conference, the gaudy light system on City Hall, repainting City Hall, etc. No problem, according to the mayor's press secretary: "People have been working hard to raise funds and make sure that city taxpayers weren't left on the hook." Only grouchy old Aaron Peskin questions the practice.

On the same page, Heather Knight writes about how city residents are upset about conditions in the city (Lapses in public services tax San Franciscans’ patience): homelessness, potholes, Muni, poorly maintained parks, etc.

“Two weeks ago, we asked City Insider readers what they think of the fact that San Francisco’s budget hit a whopping $9 billion a year — more than the budgets of at least 10 states. Now that more taxes are pouring into city coffers than ever before, do residents think they’re getting their money’s worth? We were surprised by the deluge of e-mails, which continue to roll in, and the very vehement responses. Every single person who wrote had valid complaints, and not one thought city services were up to snuff for one of the richest cities in the world.”

City taxes mostly go to support a growing bureaucracy of 35,771 city workers, 23 city workers for every city resident!

Willie Brown on big projects, like the Bay Bridge, the Central Subway, and high-speed rail: Dig a hole and fill it with money!

With City Hall turning 100, it’s time to tell the real story of how we got the gold leaf onto its magnificent dome.

It was a few years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Part of my agenda when I became mayor was bringing a sense of luster back to San Francisco, and making City Hall once again a true “people’s palace” was at the top of my list.

We got the building seismically upgraded. We got the dingy offices returned to their wood-paneled glory, and the North and South light courts were made into some of the best event rooms in the city. But I could not use a dime of federal earthquake-recovery money to bring real gold back to the dome.

One day, one of the city’s biggest architects, Jeffrey Heller, comes to me and says, “I’m mad as all hell at your planning department for trying to force me to include some kind of public art in this building I’m designing. It just doesn’t fit. Can’t I just give the city some money for art somewhere else?”

Click! The light bulb turned on.

“Where is your building?” I asked.

“Just down the street.”

“Can you see the dome of City Hall from it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“OK, how about instead of putting this required art piece in a building that only some people will see, we put it on top of City Hall as part of an artwork that everyone can see? And that ‘art’ will be the gold leaf on top of the dome.”

And that’s what we did.

It wasn’t long before every developer with a pending project realized that the quickest path to the front of the approval line was to come in with some gold leaf for City Hall and a paintbrush.

— Rob Anderson, District5Diary

FOR THE USA IN PARTICULAR the signs of bankruptcy have been starkly visible for a long time outside the bubble regions of New York, Washington, and San Francisco. You see it in the amazing decrepitude of the built environment — the cities and towns left for dead, the struggling suburban strip malls tenanted if at all by wig shops and check-cashing operations, the rusted bridges, pot-holed highways, the Third World style train service. Most sickeningly you see it in a population of formerly earnest, hard-working, basically-educated people with hopes and dreams transformed into a hopeless moiling underclass of tattooed savages dressed in baby clothes devoting their leisure hours (i.e. all their time) to drug-seeking and the erasure of sexual boundaries. Fifty years of financial engineering comes to the grief it deserves for promoting the idea that it’s possible to get something for nothing.

— James Kunstler

BLUE JEAN NATION

Editors,

Have you all in California heard of Mike McCabe and his new book titled "Blue Jean Nation, the coming makeover of American politics"?

I never paid attention to politics in California, but now that I'm retired and living in Wisconsin, which used to be one of the most progressive states in the union, I recently read this book and was truly impressed. I thought somebody in Anderson Valley would like to read it and write a review, if it hasn't already come to your attention. It ties in with Thomas Piketty's "Capitalism in the Twenty First Century" which I understand is getting a lot of attention. How nice to be retired and have time to read the kind of thing I was way too naive to understand when I was in college.

Regards to all,

Briana Burns, Black Earth, Wisconsin

DOG MEAT

Editor,

If ever there was one more reason to avoid buying anything imported from China, this takes the cake. In Yulin, southern China, there is a Dog-meat festival every summer. I am sure that some will argue that there are simply too many dogs bred, given the pet market. Discouraging overbreeding from "puppy mills" can help solve that part of the problem. But the practice does not rely on breeders alone. It is reported that many of the dogs destined for the "chopping block" are stolen pets. Makes one's skin crawl.

So, my wife and I are doubly determined to avoid buying any import from China. What with Costco and Walmart, any retailer, this is no easy task. Near impossible, one might insist. Still, one must try. If we could, we would ask every American to think twice before buying anything Chinese. We are not suggesting that China-bashing is a good thing in itself. But, if the Chinese government was to realize that resistance to their exports, a broad spectrum of them, might depress their markets, so much the better. Who knows, they might decide not to eat dog.

Frank Graham, from beyond the Deep End.

AVA: THE NEXT GENERATION!

TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT?

Giving the GOP Nightmares

by Ralph Nader

Donald Trump, the bombastic builder of Trump Towers and Trump gambling casinos is moving from his reality TV show to the theater of presidential elections. If he survives the first three months of mass media drubbing him and his notorious affliction of ‘leaving no impulsive opinion behind,’ he’s going to be trouble for the other 15 or so Republican presidential candidates.

Already the commentators have derided his massive egotitis — he said “I” 195 times in his announcement speech, not counting the 28 times he said “my” or “mine” or the 22 mentions of “me.” But Trump revels in self-promotion and, as one commentator wrote, “plays the media like a harp.”

If he is still campaigning by Labor Day, watch out Republicans! He will be a big nightmare for Republican contenders — from Jeb Bush to Ted Cruz, from John Kasich to Scott Walker. Here are some reasons why:

Many American voters love to vote for very rich candidates, whether they are Republicans or Democrats. They believe they can’t be bought. They love business success stories. And being very rich, the media keeps the very rich candidates in the limelight, as do the national polls.

He can pay for his own media. Remember billionaire Ross Perot and his purchase of national television to show his charts on deficits. People laughed. But Mr. Perot got 19 million votes in 1992, even after dropping out of the campaign in the summer and being labeled a conspiracy theorist before again becoming a candidate in the fall!

Trump regularly and personally attacks the other candidates, which makes for regular news. The other candidates do not like to engage in personal attacks unless under political duress.

Trump turns liabilities into assets, including his vaunted forthcoming disclosures of his net worth — he focused on assets, while ignoring many complex liabilities. While Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney before him tried to play down their wealth, Trump insists he’s worth over ten billion dollars. He even ridiculed Bush who announced for president without wearing a suit and tie.

To accusations that he has taken public subsidies and eminent domain protections for his giant projects, Trump replies that capital and tax money create jobs and more businesses.

Trump will crowd other candidates out from valuable TV, radio (Rush Limbaugh thinks highly of him) and print space. To adjust, they may have to become more flamboyant, further expanding the circus-like atmosphere of the Republican Primaries, while the Democratic Party leaders chortle.

Some of Trump’s positions have sizable support among Republican voters. He believes in public works programs on a big scale. He talks jobs, jobs, jobs and says he’s the only one among the candidates, who has been creating jobs. He objects strongly to the trade agreements, including the proposed Trans-Pacific deal now in the news, on the grounds that other countries, such as Japan and China, are superior negotiators and are taking us to the cleaners. He wants to build a tall wall on the Mexican border. He is against Common Core and federalizing education. He warned against invading Iraq in some detail, predicting it would expand Iran’s influence. He is for a strong military and talks about the mistreatment of veterans. He exudes self-confidence and attaches it to American national interests.

Having survived tough, acidic New York journalism for years, he is almost scandal-proof. Attacks from his business and political enemies have helped to immunize the big-time scrapper from serious reporting. He feeds off public cynicism about politics.

If the Republican bigwigs try to exclude or humiliate him, Trump has the means to run as an Independent candidate for president — as Mr. Perot essentially did under the banner of his Reform Party. Just the prospect of that added nightmare might induce caution at the top levels of the GOP.

He is not going to run out of money and, unlike his competitors, he doesn’t have to spend any precious campaign time dialing for dollars or making campaign promises. He can hire the smart strategists, speech-writers, election lawyers and primary delegate-seekers.

One hurdle Trump may not be able to surmount is Saturday Night Live (SNL). Lorne Michaels, SNL’s forever producer, uses exaggeration and satire to lampoon politicians. How can he satirize buffoonish satire itself? How can he exaggerate Trump who brags that the master bathroom on his private jet has a 24-karat-gold-plated sink?

(Ralph Nader’s latest book is: Unstoppable: the Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.)

LOCAL PIANO MAN FRANKIE J to Open for Bay Area Soul Fave, Earl Thomas

Parducci Wine Cellars' Acoustic Cafe Concerts Now Feature Opening Acts

UKIAH, CA—June 22, 2015—Parducci Wine Cellars will kick off its 5th Annual Summer Concert Series, June 27^th, with Earl Thomas, soul and R & B legend. Tickets are now on sale at www.parducci.com. Tickets may also be purchased in the Parducci Wine Cellars Tasting Room, open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call (707) 463-5357 for more information.

General Admission is $20 with special discounts available to Parducci Wine Club members. All shows feature general festival seating on the lawn. Performances take place weather permitting.

The Parducci Wine Cellars Patio and Wine Bar opens at 5:30 before each concert. Opening music and food sales start at 6:00. The headliner act plays at 7:00. Concert-goers may also bring their own picnic basket. No outside alcholic beverages permitted.

A Night Full of Soulful Tunes, Local Food and Wine

“Earl Thomas is the perfect artist to open the 2015 Acoustic Café season,” said Rochelle Loren Enzler, Parducci Wine Cellars Director of Hospitality and Events. “His smooth, soulful sound is the ideal soundtrack for the start of summer, and time spent relaxing outdoors.” Thomas often plays with the San Francisco-based band The Blues Ambassadors, earning him a loyal Bay Area following.

Loren Enzler is also excited to announce that favorite local piano man, Frankie J, will open for Thomas. "Opening acts are a new feature of the 2015 Acoustic Cafe series," said Loren Enzler. "Now folks can arrive, order their food and wine and start enjoying music right at 6:00. It will be a full night of great music."

Parducci Wine Cellars is located at 501 Parducci Road in Ukiah. For more information or directions visit us online www.parducci.com or you can reach our tasting room at 707-463-5357.

THE KZYX DISCUSSION ROLLS ON

The board's, the management's and Tim Gregory's magic bubble. Tim Gregory <tgregory@saber.net> wrote under the subject:

Re: [Kzyxtalk] on dictators, goons, sycophants, stuffed shirts and cheerleaders, and cheering mobs:

"Too bad Norman...you see the tool John [Sakowicz] has has made of your efforts at discussion? Some folks never learn boundaries--the world is their magic bubble..."

* * *

Okay, Tim, think of it the other way around. Imagine reading a speech-to-text output of all the pledge-drive talk from a single day of a typical unlistenable KZYX pledge drive, about how the station needs more and more money in memberships and donations just to keep the great programs coming, and about how it's like a great big restaurant where all the listeners eat for free and so are bound by honor to pay up, so pay up, and so on, and then the fatuous chuckling, and praise of the management and staff who do so much under such difficult conditions...

Now try to hold this in the same mind: just the manager and program director and ad (underwriting) salesman together suck $140,000 a year out of the station -- the equivalent of 2,800 yearly fifty-dollar memberships -- more members than KZYX ever had or will have.

Mary Aigner's position (program director) is entirely superfluous. NPR and other syndicated shows switch in and out automatically. Deejays show up and play their CDs and once per hour ID the station, and when they don't show up automation covers for them. What do you suppose Mary's directing but a sine wave graph of pledge drive activity, so she can continue to be paid to pretend to be needed and to quite viciously defend her turf and her undeserved authority over others.

David Steffen is paid more than whatever he imagines he's winning for the station in return for it. Naturally he's a snarling dog for the status quo.

And all John Coate has accomplished in eight years: sucking out of the station for himself half a million dollars, firing the news department right off the bat and 7.6 years later starting a pretend new one, occasionally telephoning an engineer to half-assedly patch things together for him, faking up the occasional financial report, and adding approximately one bell and two whistles to a web page.

The CPB grant has always paid twice-over all the real-life expenses of running and maintaning KZYX. How can you not grasp, Tim, that you'd still get to do your show if the disastrous expensive top-down hierarchy were deposed, and-- maybe my show would be on KZYX too, and the shows of others who over the years have run afoul of the bad humour of the real usurpers of the radio frequency, which is a natural resource, not a shoe store. Three frequencies, in the case of MCPB. The money is there. Airpersons can and should be paid for their work.

You say, "Too bad, Norman," but really, it's too bad for all of us. You see the tool the "dictators, goons, sycophants, stuffed shirts and cheerleaders" have made of our good faith and, for many of us, of our lifelong efforts to provide a place for educational noncommercial radiopeople to do audio art and science. Those dictators, goons, etc. running the station have caused all their own troubles from within their magic bubble of reactionary privilege -- that's a good term, and an accurate description, and they blame it all on others when anything threatens that bubble. And they get angry enough for their heads to explode. We've all seen it.

This conversation should be taking place regularly on the air, and in a forum on the KZYX web page, where boardmembers, and so-called management, and airpeople -- and the public, who pay for the station with their taxes whether they like it or not -- can all participate equally, in the light. It's crazy that Norman should have had to start this listserv in the first place. KZYX should have been hosting an open unmoderated forum on its webpage all along.

So John Sakowicz talks like an angry man. There are some real things and creatures to be angry about at KZYX, and they've dug the hole they're in, and they're still digging. I have trouble understanding why you won't recognize this, Tim.

Marco McClean memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

FROBECK — To Perform Second Concert At Sundays In The Park Concerts Sunday June 28th

Ukiah, CA. - On Sunday, June 28th in Todd Grove Park at 6:00pm Fowler Auto & Truck Center, The City of Ukiah, KWNE-FM and MAX 93.5 are proud to present the second concert of the 24th annual Sundays in the Park concert series with a Funk Rock Vaccination featuring Frobeck.

With high-octane vocals, life-altering songs and world-class musicianship, Frobeck is one of California’s top Funk-Rock bands. Since the band’s inception in 2005, Frobeck has earned a Grammy nomination and two North Bay Music Award (NORBAY) nominations. They have shared the stage with Bootsy Collins, Bill Champlin and The Sons of Champlin, Booker T, Ozomatli, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Tommy Castro, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Trombone Shorty, Los Lonely Boys and many others.

With an earth-shaking horn section, this powerhouse group has entered into the realm of their musical heroes: Tower of Power, The Sons of Champlin, and Stevie Wonder. Spencer Burrows and Kris Dilbeck, the co-founders of Frobeck, were born a couple of decades too late. They would have been a much better fit in the soul/funk music scene of the late '60s and '70s.

In their heyday, the Sons of Champlin were notoriously anti-music business, a free-wheeling attitude that so undermined their commercial success that Champlin quit, moved to L.A. and eventually joined Chicago. Formed in 2005, with four albums to their credit, Frobeck shares that same idealism and musical integrity, refusing to dumb their songs down or bow to popular trends. The title of the new album, "624," is another tip off to their art for art's sake philosophy. "You can't serve greed and love at the same time," Burrows insists. "You've got to make a choice. Right now we have everything, our music, our recordings, our shows. We write our own contracts and create our own artwork.

Burrows and Dilbeck who write all Frobeck's songs, met in a choir at Sonoma State University and solidified their friendship and musical partnership when they were students at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There are signs that Frobeck is becoming part of the zeitgeist without even trying. They noticed at the recent Bottle Rock Festival in Napa that bands with classic sounds like Alabama Shakes, the Black Keys and the Shins were headlining, which bodes well for them. "Those guys aren't old, but they're bringing back a sound from a different era," Burrows says. "I think if that's what happens, and we're on the crest of that wave, then it's thumbs up for us."

“Frobeck is very musical with a good rhythm section and powerful vocals. The songwriting is also a real strong point. At times they brought back very fond memories of my time playing with Little Feat yet they seem to be finding their own unique voice.” Emilio Castillo — Tower of Power

MAKERSPACE & A MOVIE!

The Ukiah Library will be presenting: Makerspace & a Movie!

DIY Duct-Tape Costumes & Guardians of the Galaxy, July 8^th 4:30pm

Teens & tweens are invited to watch Guardians of the Galaxy and also DIY their own costumes from duct-tape & cardboard. This makerspace & a movie is part of our Teen Summer Reading Club & attendance can be counted toward earning prizes. Start building your costumes now to be ready for our Cosplay Heroes Finale on August 15^th.   Duct-tape & cardboard will be provided. There will also be food. It will be Groot.

Questions? Contact 380-5486.

Sponsored by Ukiah Valley Friends of the Library. 105 N Main St. Ukiah

CRAIG'S ON THE MOVE!

Please know that I am going to western Massachusetts on Monday June 29th, and will be with Michael & Penny Novack. They are lending me a tent. We will be driving to the EF! rondy site in Vermont's Green Mountains. PS. Ron Huber in Maine has invited me for a visit post-rondy, to check out the Penobscot Bay situation.

Craig Louis Stehr