ROUGHLY a quarter of the 8,145 undocumented people released from local jails between January and August of last year were later arrested for various crimes, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report. According to the report, most of the offenses were drunk driving and drug-related, though a handful were more serious. As many as 250 jurisdictions in the U.S. have stopped holding imprisoned illegal immigrants past their scheduled release dates—on so-called immigration detainers—saying they can’t hold arrestees without probable cause.
WE CALLED the Sheriff regarding Mendocino County's policy on immigration holds. Sheriff Allman told us Monday that "everybody who gets arrested by us is fingerprinted." All the prints go to feds. The Sheriff says that his office notifies ICE on all undocumented persons passing through the Mendocino County Jail "as soon as we know when the person is going to be released." ICE, however "has legal authority to come up here prior to the release of the person" to take them into federal custody. But, the Sheriff said, "We won't hold them past their release date." Generally, the Sheriff emphasized, ICE doesn't bother with petty offenders. But persons charged in cases involving guns, violence, sexual assaults and etc. ICE drives up to the Mendo Jail and picks up the likely deportee.
"COULD SF happen here?" the Sheriff asked rhetorically. "I asked Tim Pearce (Jail commander) that exact question," he said, answering his own question. "We don't think so. We give ICE the info and leave it to them to make the decision to pick up or not." Serious felony cases, ICE almost always makes the trip to Ukiah to pick the felon up. The Sheriff said he would be pleased if the Supes gave him a full-time position to deal with ICE cases. He confirmed that at any one time there are an average of 10-15 unpapered persons housed at the County Jail.
THE MENDOCINO COUNTY Air Quality Management District Hearing Board will hold a public hearing on July 24, 2015 at 10:00am at the City of Ukiah Council Chambers, 300 Seminary Avenue, Ukiah, CA 95482, to hear the Friends Of Outlet Creek Appeal challenging Grist Creek Aggregates (“Authority to Construct”), Permit Number 1416-5-01-15-26
A READER WRITES: "FORT BRAGG is unhappy with the City's management of the 4th of July celebrations. Much angry buzz around town about the city's crack down and the heavy FBPD presence. The city charged $20 to park and had an inmate crew remove every stick of driftwood to prohibit bonfires. There is some dispute of whether this is a legal action, and there was the question of who actually owns that beach I heard the cops handed out tickets for open container violations, someone mentioned $150, that's unverified, then allowed violators to keep their beers. Inconsistent ticketing... About 1/3 of the beach goers left in disgust, probably heading for more remote spots, like Blues Beach, which really created more hazards, as Noyo at least had a fires truck and EMT vehicle available."
IT CAN HAPPEN HERE: Quoting the Press Democrat, "A feisty crowd of west Sonoma County residents peppered state [water] regulators Monday night with questions about why new water conservation rules aimed at saving endangered coho salmon do not apply to vineyards. The rules, which took effect Monday, apply to the owners of about 3,750 parcels that rely primarily on private wells in four watersheds, including the areas around Dutch Bill and Green Valley creeks in west Sonoma County. “It’s so obvious who’s sucking the water out of the ground,” shouted one man in an audience of about 100 residents, asserting that there are dozens of vineyards in the Green Valley watershed…"
DAN WALTERS, writing in the Sacramento Bee: "Could a proposed new law compel Fort Bragg, a picturesque tourist and fishing hamlet on the Mendocino County coast, to change its name? A literal reading of Senate Bill 539, introduced by Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, indicates it could. The measure is the newest effort to expunge any references to the Confederate States of America from California’s public places, sparked by the massacre of nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., last month..."
SO-CALLED violations of probation account for a lot of the people appearing in the daily booking logs. A probationer we know works full time in the Anderson Valley. His probation officer recently demanded that he appear in Ukiah for a 3pm appointment with her. "But I work," the kid complained. "Be here," Ms. Gradgrind demanded. Click. It's not easy in far-flung Mendo County to get to Ukiah for appointments with these martinets, and a lot of probationers, including the ones who are really trying to go straight, don't show up, not that it's likely that the Probation Department will suddenly become more flexible.
RE A NEW NAME FOR FORT BRAGG: An on-line comment puts it just right: "State Sen. Steven Glazer represents Orinda, the Bay Area's 'Mayberry'. African Americans make up less than 1% the population. There are, apparently, even fewer Hispanics. In short, upper middle class to wealthy white Bay Area 'progressives' voted this busy body into office. So deprived of serious concerns, all this guy can find to do is to berate Fort Bragg for a naming over a century past? How about working for a bit of racial diversity within your own district, Mr. Glazer? You know, like create a few units of affordable housing so as to make possible the assimilation into your community the less entitled? Maybe even an African American family or two more than the handful your lily white constituency currently has?"
KENNY "THE SNAKE" STABLER, who led the Oakland Raiders as quarterback during the 1970's has died at the age of 69 of colon cancer. The Snake, so named for his ability to slither out of the grasp of on-coming defensive linemen and backs, played hard, lived hard and led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl victory. We're with John Madden: Stabler was the best guy in the clutch, ever. His spirit, and that of the celebrated Raiders teams of yesteryear is perhaps best epitomized by one simple quotation. When Stabler was at his peak as a player, a sportswriter read him the following quote from Jack London: “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” Asked what the quote meant to him, Stabler said simply, “Throw deep.” Stable also once said, “Just stay in the fast lane and keep moving. You can not predict your final day, so go hard for the good times while you can.” Adding, “The players partied hard and played hard, and that combination may have been no small factor in why we won.”
THE CANNABIS HOUR, JULY 16, 9 A.M. ON KZYX
Mendocino Supervisors John McCowen and Tom Woodhouse of the county’s Marijuana Ad Hoc Committee will be live in the KZYX studio on The Cannabis Hour, Thursday, July 16 at 9 a.m. The supervisors will talk with host Jane Futcher about the challenges, opportunities and impacts of marijuana and cannabis farming on our communities. On July 30, Jayma Shields Spencer, coordinator of Laytonville’s Healthy Start Family Resource Center, will be present to discuss the cultural, social and family impacts of cannabis on the population her agency serves. Listeners are invited to call 707 895-2448 with questions or comments.
DENNIS THIBEAULT (pronounced Tebow), Vice President of Forestry for Mendocino Redwood Co., addressed the Supervisors during public expression, July 7, 2015:
“I have with me today John Anderson, our director of forest policy. It's unusual for us to make a public statement of what we consider to be just our usual operations, or plan of operations. But given the discussions that have occurred at the Board of Supervisors earlier this year we felt that it would be appropriate to come before you today just to give you a short update of what we have been doing this summer with respect to fire preparedness and some of the changes we have made as a result of the discussions that occurred here.
“We have re-reviewed our forest policies and we have gone around and met with all of our forest land managers and reiterated some policies that I want you to know we have which is that we treat all the logging slash adjacent to our private property boundaries and along public roads. We maintain all the roads within our open ownership, open and passable at all times for fire prevention. In addition to distributing our annual fire plan to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, we also distribute that plan to all the local fire agencies that have jurisdiction over our property. We have modified one of our policies with respect to leaving standing dead oak trees adjacent to private land and on public roads. That was somewhat discretionary for forestland managers in areas that might be remote where it was not perceived to be an issue. We have changed that to make that a mandatory requirement on all of our operations regardless of their location. In that context we have made some accomplishments to date.
"We have moved close to 100 log truck loads of tanoak firewood from along our boundaries and in addition we have treated logging slash and tanoak brush on approximately 40 acres adjacent to our ownership as well as the installation of a community fire water tank in Comptche. We have been participating in a committee to develop community wildfire protection plan and we have made our people and resources available to that extent. Through that process we recognize the challenges that the Fire Safe Council may have towards achieving their goal that was set for them by this board earlier with respect to an analysis of our -- of the fire danger associated with our practices. To that extent we intend to meet with them to further see how we might be able to facilitate with respect to people or material or financial support for the Fire Safe Council. Finally, I want to reiterate our commitment to take anyone anywhere at any time on our property to review our forest practices.”
Supervisor John McCowen: “A clarification if I may. With regard to making the policy mandatory not to leave standing dead trees along property boundaries and along public roads, is there a stated setback zone for that policy? Or is it—?”
Thibault: “We directed them to use the same requirements that the state requires which is 200 feet.”
McCowen: “So there will be a minimum—”
Thibault: “It will vary based on topography and our ability to access it. So I intentionally did not put a specific distance down there because in some cases it may be wider because it will allow us to create a fuel break. In other cases it might be narrower because of the topography and operational constraints. In addition, we have also begun implementation of three fuel breaks within the County of Mendocino on Alaska Ridge, Miller Ridge and Cliff Ridge. We were able to do that through the recently enacted legislation, AB-744 which allows us to do these pilot projects with expedited permitting processes. So we are in the process of implementing those as well.”
DESPITE the techno-onslaught, with much of our mail arriving electronically, we still get a lot of interesting snail mail and, as you might expect, telephone calls from people who want to talk about everything from global affairs, to people who simply want to "vent," (as the psychologists say), to people with specific information to convey, to blanket denunciations of Boonville's beloved community newspaper and its editor. The funniest call recently came from a Fort Bragg tweaker unhappy with a Bruce McEwen story of a gun incident the tweaker was involved in. The tweaker, natch, claimed to be the victim which, in a way, he was. He got shot up a bit and was lucky not to have been totally ventilated, but there were extenuating factors indicating he had it coming. I'd edited the story, knew the facts, so I said right off that I was sorry the other guy had missed. The tweaker apparently didn't hear that and commenced monologuing me. I broke in to say, "I can't hear you. I've got a banana in my ear." He went right on. This time I said, "I told you I can't hear you because there's a banana in my ear. It's growing there! Have some sympathy. Be a human being, for god's sake!" There was a pause before he said, "I hope it kills you."
A WILLITS GUY, who writes with multi-colored pens and wrote this communique on the back of a Sparetime Supply flier, had this to say: "The most important election since November 1972 is coming up next year. The Democratic presidential primary. In California." (In '72 the good guys were absolutely crushed by Nixon's romp over McGovern. I predict Bush the Third will crush Hillary, after months of stand-up comedy from Trump and the other loons the Republicans are putting up in their ongoing struggle to destroy the country faster than the Democrats.
SWITCHING colored pens, the Willits guy wrote: “A plaque honoring veterans of the Vietnam War is proposed to be placed in a city park in Willits. I propose a monument 8 feet tall to be placed in the park inscribed, ‘Remembering those who actively resisted the wars in Vietnam and Iraq’.” My correspondent also enclosed an article from the New York Times called, “F.D.A. Advisory Panel Backs Viagra for Women” at the top of which he'd written, “Hurry girls. I will pay for the prescription.”
THEN there are people who climb the deterring stairs to visit us in person, including a guy who appeared Tuesday morning, bursting through the door of the conference room next door to our office without so much as an “Excuse me” as I was talking with my friend and occasional contributor, Jonah Raskin. Bali seemed to be the theme of the man's frantically rambling presentation, Bali the Indonesian Island that is, preferred vacation destination of the well-heeled groove-o trendo-s of Mendocino County. “The people there are soooooo gentle.” (Until they aren't. In the great Indonesian year of living dangerously, 1965, more people were murdered up close and personal with machetes in the Bali purges than were slaughtered any other place in Indonesia, as perhaps a million Indonesians were hacked to pieces.) Maybe our presenter was just back from beguiling Bali, land of rice terraces, gamelans and terror. He wore a Hawaiian shirt anyway. All-in-all he wasn't any more disheveled than the next guy you see around Boonville, but he was barefooted and, to say the least, his narrative was certainly disheveled. He pulled up a chair as Raskin and I swapped eye rolls and went on free associating for a good five minutes until it occurred to me to ask, “You want back issues? Right next door, my good man. The Major will take care of you.” Darned if the guy didn't leap to the suggestion. The Major, as it happened, was talking with one of our interns about an upcoming piece she’s working on, a high school girl unaccustomed, so far as we know, to aberrant behavior. (In the newspaper business if you don't enjoy aberrant behavior you're in the wrong business.) The Major loaded the guy down with papers and he left, and we still don't know if back issues were the purpose of his visit. He probably didn't know the purpose of his visit. The intern, The Major reported, “Went a little wide-eyed but she wasn't scared.”
HERE at our suite in the Farrer Building overlooking Boonville, we share a conference space with the three ladies who maintain offices next door. They've posted a strategic sign that points out that if you've reached their sign but are looking for the AVA you've gone too far into the murk of our connecting hallway. I understand their attempt at precaution. Some of our visitors can be, ah, unsettling.
FROM THE FORT BRAGG PD: "For several months the Fort Bragg Police Department has been investigating accusations that Araceli Martinez has been victimizing undocumented citizens of the Hispanic community by claiming she has the ability to expedite their citizenship process. These accusations were accompanied by claims that Martinez may have been accepting large amounts of cash for these alleged fraudulent services, as well as requesting personally identifying documents such as birth certificates, identification cards and social security cards as part of her criminal activity. The Fort Bragg Police Department believes this criminal activity may have been occurring for the last 20 years, and is requesting the public’s assistance in identifying other victims in this investigation.
MS. MARTINEZ, 51, was arrested by Fort Bragg Police on Thursday, July 2nd on a misdemeanor charge of obtaining property, labor or services by false pretenses. On Friday, she was booked and released.
BANK IT. Fort Bragg City Manager, Linda Ruffing, will get a hefty raise Monday night. We're sure it will draw some interesting comments from those who would be unlikely to evaluate Ms. Ruffing's job performance as indulgently as her three automatic yes votes on the city council from Dietz, Turner and Hammerstrom.
A READER WRITES: “Nathan Bedford Forrest was a traitor to the United States. The Confederate criminals killed far more American service personnel during the Civil War than the number of people slaughtered by Osama Bin Laden's attack on the Twin Towers. Forest committed domestic terrorism with his formation of the Ku Klux Klan and its racist post war suppression of the rights of Black Americans. When Forrest's body is disinterred from the Memphis cemetery, the corpse ought to be taken aboard a US Naval vessel and deep sixed in exactly the same manner as Bin Laden was disposed of.”
IRONY IS, THOUGH, that Forrest died a liberal. Said he'd been wrong about race. If he was still alive he'd be a Clintonian. I think rather than digging up his bones and pulling down his statue, the old boy's life ought to be studied as a model of redemption, as an example of how human beings can change. At one of his last public appearances, Forrest got a Standing O from a black audience for his eloquent repudiation of his earlier life and opinions.
A READER ADDS: “I'm not sure that dropping out of the Klan because they didn't have enough of a military style command structure qualifies Nathan as a liberal (but then again it might). As the Great Helmsman said (or maybe it was someone else), ‘Combat Liberalism and subscribe to the Anderson Valley Advertiser’.”
ANNE MARIE CESARIO, a public opponent of the Old Coast Hotel project, was a guest on KZYX's Thursday morning "Mendocino Currents" last Thursday, hosted, we presume, by KZYX News Director Lorraine Dechter (although she never identified herself). We suspect not many people listened to the show since it's on at a bad time of the day and because it's on a station that not many people outside the narrow KZYX circle listen to. In addition, the show's content was minimally announced in advance and Ms. Cesario wasn't on until the last half of the hour. Ms. Cesario is a long-time mental health advocate and worker on the Coast and is on record as opposed to the idea of a mental health facility in the Old Coast Hotel in downtown Fort Bragg. She’s also very well informed on the subject. To listen to the entire show go to: http://jukebox.kzyx.org/ And scroll down to Mendocino Currents for Thursday, July 9, 2015.)
S.F. POLICE DIDN’T INVESTIGATE GUN THEFT BEFORE PIER KILLING. That was the hed over a Chron front-pager last week. What isn't mentioned in the story is that car break-ins are a fact of life all over the Bay Area, and what's to investigate? The perp crashes the vehicle's window glass and grabs whatever's visible and takes off. The cops are supposed to do what? The question in this particular case is why the BLM agent who owned the gun didn't even bother to secure his handgun in the trunk of his car, although the more systematic thieves just as routinely crowbar car trunks open in the larger Frisco parking garages. I do know that cops regularly stop the dope heads they recognize as career car burglars, but the justice system being the catch and release program it is, and the jails perennially overcrowded with petty criminals, car burglars are right back out on the streets after they catch up on their sleep in the city and county jails.
A READER WRITES: “This may be the last time I pester you for a while. I start treatment for Hepatitis C next week. Side effects may include difficulty in concentration. The medicine I will be taking is called "Harvoni" and is surrealistically expensive. Medicare and supplementary insurance will cover about 95% of the costs, but will still leave me with a co-pay of about $10,000. I mention this personal information not because I need sympathy; I have some savings, so I don't need the great AVA to establish a "Save The Contributor" fund. It's to give one more example of how fucked up our health care system is. I'm blessed— metaphorically, of course— gods don't exist. I have a decent income and some savings. But if it were my neighbor Mary, a widow who has only Social Security for income, who was taking the medicine, she'd probably have to sell her house to pay for it. The new medication costs $95,000 for a 12-week course of treatment. On the surface it appears even more expensive than Sovaldi, which costs $84,000 for a 12-week supply.”
I BOUGHT an iced coffee at the Peet's in the Red Hill Shopping Center (San Anselmo) the other afternoon. Peet's is a busy place, as is the shopping center surrounding it. A harried older man, the franchise owner I supposed, gave me and each succeeding customer a little spiel on how he would like us to fill out an on-line snitch survey, although he didn't call it that, whose address was on the receipt. “Take a moment to share your experience with us and receive $1 off any beverage during your next visit to any Peet's retail location.” These anonymous evaluations seem to be all the rage. Delivery trucks ask us to call an 800 number if the driver is speeding or otherwise seems likely to jack up his employer's insurance rates. And I've seen Yelp reviews of Boonville businesses that I knew were straight-up lies about this or that restaurant. You wonder at people who would go to the trouble of demoralizing a small business, but there seem to be an awful lot of them out there.
WAY BACK, I functioned as a way station for juvenile delinquents bound for the state prison system. Of course no one said that's where the junior felons were headed but, given all the social-psycho givens, that's where they were going, and that's where they went. The few I'm in touch with include a couple of killers-of-other-criminals and have done long stretches in isolation cells at Pelican Bay. They emerged unrepentant. Another guy was just in the news for murdering his girlfriend. He's killed several people in prison where he functions as an enforcer for gangs.
MOST CHILDREN in the non-system of the foster system are not criminals, although the foster system is seemingly designed to infuse the kind of inchoate rage that drives a lot of outlaws. I, however, specialized in youth who already, at an early age, had routinely deployed force or the threat of it to get what they wanted. Much of my day was spent keeping them off each other. They weren't, however, unlikeable, and we often had fun in between the psychotic episodes.
THE DIFFERENCE between a delinquent kid and a non-delinquent? On long summer nights, especially the moonlit ones, we'd go for night hikes. The delinquents were from strictly urban experiences. They very much enjoyed these after hours outings. One memorable evening, a kid yelled in genuine alarm, "What the hell's that?" as a full moon rose over a ridge to the east. Another night we were ambling along spotlighting deer, seeing what we could see of nocturnal wildlife when a frog appeared in the path before us. All half-dozen or so delinquents, as one, without hesitation, instinctively I'd say, gleefully leaped out to stomp the frog, elbowing each other out of the way to get a better shot at poor old froggy. A normal kid doesn't stomp frogs, although I remember a neighborhood kid blowing up frogs with firecrackers. He became a cop.
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