Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, July 29, 2015

• Firefighter Initiative
• Hot Week
• Mystery Woman
• Petty Bureaucracy
• Weaselly Response
• Strategic Planning
• Front Page
• Meri Goosechase
• SF Vitality
• Firefighter Injuries
• Yesterday's Catch
• Paintball Punks
• Seuss Controversy
• Democratic Vacuum
• Bridge
• Oil Politics
• Lighthouse Tour
• AG 101
• Blackberry Festival

FIREFIGHTERS DECLARE DEAD TREES PUBLIC NUISANCE

Firefighters in Mendocino County filed a citizen initiative today to
address the danger posed by millions of trees killed and left standing in
the forest.

Albion Little River Chief Ted Williams explains: "This initiative
safeguards firefighters from unnecessary manufactured hazards and
residents from loss of critical infrastructure, including escape routes
and telecommunications lifelines. It effectively places people before
private industry profit, shifting damage losses from the citizens to the
corporations who stand to profit from radical forest management practices.
It's about industry accountability."

The timber industry in Mendocino County kills over one million
"undesirable" hardwood trees each year and leaves them standing dead in
the forest because they see it as the cheapest and easiest way to restore
the more profitable conifers.

Retired CAL FIRE Air Attack Captain Kirk Van Patten observes: "In ten
years of aerial wildland firefighting in Mendocino County, one of the most
profound and troubling observations I made was the timber management
practice of hack & squirt. This clearly has created a serious wildland
fire threat for the firefighters and citizens of Mendocino County."

Dead standing trees ignite easier and burn hotter and faster, endangering
everyone who lives near the dead zones. They also pose increased danger to
firefighters who are called upon to respond to such fires. A dead tree
burning is one of the most dangerous situations a firefighter can face,
and that hazard increases exponentially as the number of dead trees rises.

Mike Coltan, volunteer firefighter, states: "Mendocino County's rural
residents are at greater risk of catastrophic wildfire due to standing
dead timber intentionally left after hack & squirt, which greatly
increases wildfire flame height, rate of spread, and fire line intensity.
I am very concerned about community safety as well as the safety of my
fellow volunteer firefighters."

More than 200 residents and firefighters came before the Mendocino County
Board of Supervisors on April 21, 2015, requesting action on this
industrial practice. In spite of overwhelming public support, the
resolution failed by one vote.

James Sibbet, another volunteer firefighter, says: "The practice of
killing millions of trees over thousands of acres, compounded with leaving
the dead trees as a fuel load for fire, after years of drought, is a clear
case of human arrogance."

These four firefighters, along with Comptche resident Katy Tahja, are the
proponents of this initiative. Once enough signatures have been gathered,
this measure, which declares intentionally-killed-and-left-standing trees
a public nuisance, will be on the June 2016 primary ballot.

Ms Tahja concludes: "It would be much nicer to not have to worry about
having a standing dead forest in our backyards."

Supporters of this initiative hope to finally achieve what the Mendocino
County Board of Supervisors unanimously called for in a resolution twenty
years ago: "Call an immediate halt to any practice which leaves large
acreages of killed hardwoods standing but not downed."

(Press Release)

A STRONG HIGH PRESSURE AREA is hovering over the western US and will hold for at least the next week.

Temperatures will be warming and Wednesday through Friday daytime temperatures will be 8 to 12 degrees above normal. Some areas in the north end of California’s central valley could break the 110° mark and the foothills and higher elevations will be near record levels. The southerly flow around the west side of the high pressure area will begin to pull sub tropical moisture northward raising the humidity. On Thursday isolated mountain thunderstorms could reach as far north as Plumas county on the east side and southern Trinity county on west side. Isolated afternoon and evening thunderstorms will continue over the higher elevations of Northern California through Monday.

(Courtesy, www.northstateweather.com)

* * *

A STRONG RIDGE of high pressure will aid in providing some of the warmest temperatures of the Summer thus far along the West Coast. … Residents are urged to take precautions while working outside. (— weatherunderground.com)

ANYBODY OUT THERE RECOGNIZE THIS WOMAN? This photo is all over Navarro. Apparently she was trespassing at the Floodgate property presently being remodeled and seems to have taken items not belonging to her.

SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED

The initiative To Prohibit Social Service Organizations in the Central Business District of Fort Bragg (a four block area) was found insufficient. This is what happened and what is happening: The total number of registered voters 3124 was not disclosed by the city until after the petition was submitted. The law allows them to do this and the number must come from the city. Proponents of the petition submitted it in less than 3 weeks so it could be put on the November ballot and NOT cost the city extra money for a Special Election. The total needed to get the initiative on the ballot was "no less than 10%" of the 3124 number. The county found 312 valid signatures. Fourth grade math rules say that 312 is 10% of 312.4 However, the city has discretion and The city of Fort Bragg decided to round up instead of down and found the petition insufficient due to the .4 — yes, four tenths of a signature that was missing. The papers were filed at city hall today to start the whole process over again along with the second $200 fee for filing. The proponents are not giving up. They have asked the city council to pass a resolution to put it on the ballot in November by August 7 so that it doesn't cost the city extra money to have a special election. And so the people of Fort Bragg can vote on the issue and be done with it. Signatures were invalid mainly because people forgot to re-register after they moved to a new address in town. There were enough registered voters, not enough with valid addresses.

I hope that clears this up.

Anne Marie Cesario (Fort Bragg, writing on MCN ListServe)

WEASELLY GRAND JURY RESPONSE to complaints that Mendocino County's Children's Services employs uncredentialed, or under-credentialed people to handle abuse and neglect cases.

FCS (Mendocino County Family and Children’s Services) claims they filed a waiver request in January, but FCS does not indicate whether it was approved or not. What did the state say or do?

IT SHOULD be obvious that unless you have intelligent, conscientious people investigating these cases, dependent children can be harmed, even killed as in the awful Wilson Tubbs case in Fort Bragg.

STRATEGIC PLANNING. The phrase always makes me laugh, especially in the Mendo context. The Ukiah City Council is retreating to their war room next week to plan strategically. They began planning strategically back in 2007, although for many years and strategies the plan remains to make Ukiah as unpleasant as possible. Natch, the 2007 Council, as zany a collection of screwballs as Ukiah could manage, couldn't strategically plan on their own so they brought in a consultant named Zuieback, who was either nuts or a performance artist developing a very subtle comedy routine with the 07 Council as unwitting cast members. We wrote at the time:

“The Ukiah City Council is going for $15,000 worth of consulting to ‘facilitate goal setting.’ The last time the Council went looking for outside advice, they came up with Ukiah-based consultant Steve Zuieback and his “process enneagram.” I can't remember how much they paid Zuieback for his enema, but the City Council that hired him was purged in the next election.”

WHERE WERE WE: O yes. Strategic planning. The goals in '07 were:

• Maintain downtown historic place as a regional center of civic and economic activity
• Planning valley-wide takes place based on sound planning principles
• Develop a prioritize(d) plan for maintaining and improving public infrastructure
• Council and staff work together to create a more responsive and effective workplace

YOU REALLY NEED to pay $15 grand to come up with the obvious? Seems so, especially when the money isn't coming straight out of your own pocket. The 2015 strategic plan will be a re-write of the above, but objective number one, "Maintain downtown historic place as a regional center of civic and economic activity," has been destroyed by the plans of our 9 judges to build themselves new courtrooms three long blocks south of the present County Courthouse, meaning not only a major abandonment of central Ukiah but a huge blow to its existing businesses that depend heavily on Courthouse traffic. It's highly unlikely that the Council will denounce the plans for the new Courthouse which, predictably, is proceeding without so much as a by your leave of local considerations.

TUESDAY MORNING’S Santa Rosa Press Democrat lead website page left us confused.

Apparently, a rich couple from San Francisco has been forced to pay a little more for additional “studies” before they inflict their wine dreams and caviar wishes on Sonoma County. The photo accompanying the story shows a youngish man playing with his dog in front of a random vineyard. What conclusion are we supposed to draw from the juxtaposition? That the people in the PD’s photo department don’t read their own paper? That a dog will be doing the studies? That the wealthy savages proposing the new vineyard are the human equivalent of warm, fuzzy puppies?

HAVE YOU SEEN MERI?

The Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office issued a felony warrant for the arrest of Meri Ellen Leahy, approx 43 years old, for residential burglary.

On or about April 26, 2015, Meri Leahy and accomplices went to a residence in Ukiah and stole personal property. Ms. Leahy may have fled the Ukiah area; sources suggest Ms. Leahy may be in the Compton or Folsom areas of California.

Please contact Deputy Massey at the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office with any information of Meri Leahy’s whereabouts at (707) 463-6328 or (707) 272-1773.

THE SINGLE MOST REMARKABLE FACT about San Francisco history, it seems to me, isn't its nineteenth-century intolerance for Chinese immigrants, or its twenty-first century tolerance for nearly every nationality on the planet provided they had cash, brawn or bankable skills but rather its unrivaled ability to rise from its own ashes with more speed than anywhere else in the world. Call it the City of velocity. What happened in 1915, when the city destroyed a part of itself to rebuild and renew itself, transpired all over again in the 21st century, with vast accumulations of wealth on one side and vast poverty on the other that persuaded longtime residents to talk about the Dickensian world they saw at their feet. The metamorphosis of the old into the new took place faster than ever before, and while San Franciscans lamented the homelessness and the sense of despair they were also elated by the vitality of the City where human beings seemed to be more alive than anywhere else. — Jonah Raskin

TWO LOCAL FIREFIGHTERS WERE INJURED Sunday while battling a blaze near Grass Valley, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) reported. According to Cal Fire, a total of four firefighters, two from Cal Fire and two from the U.S. Forest Service, suffered burn injuries the evening of July 26 while fighting the Lowell Fire in Nevada County. The firefighters were airlifted to the U.C. Davis Burn Center in Sacramento for treatment. On Monday, Cal Fire reported that its firefighters, both of whom are part of the Mendocino Unit were released from the hospital and are expected to make a full recovery. One of the local firefighters has already been returned to full duty, and the second will spend the week recovering. A Cal Fire representative identified the two firefighters as Branden Campbell and Brian Gatton, though she did know which of them had been cleared to return to work. A Cal Fire release reported that the released firefighters “are in good spirits ... and had an opportunity to speak with their families. All three are ready to return to the firefight.” One of the U.S. Forest Service firefighters was also released, but the second “remains in the hospital with serious injuries.” Cal Fire is having one of its Serious Accident Review Teams review the incident. As of Monday morning, Cal Fire reported that the Lowell Fire had burned 1,500 acres in the You Bet area and was 20 percent contained. The cause is under investigation.

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 28, 2015

LETICIA ANGUIANO, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance, probation revocation.

KALLI CROOKS, Fort Bragg. Grand theft.

ROGER CRUZ, Coalinga/Ukiah. DUI.

CLEMENTE FLORES, Healdsburg/Ukiah. Pot cultivation, processing, possession for sale.

NICHOLAS HALVORSEN, Fort Bragg. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JENNIFER HEVEY, Redwood Valley. DUI, driving on DUI-suspended license.

CARLOS MORALES-CARRILLO, Ukiah. Resisting, probation revocation.

KATRINA PIMENTEL, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MATTHEW STEVENS, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ARCATA PHOTOGRAPHER SHOT BY PAINTBALLS FROM BLACK SUV

An 'Open Letter To The Cowards Who Shot Me'

Open letter to the cowards who shot me in the eye with a paintball gun in Arcata on July 27th at 1:25am.

Allow me to illuminate how my night went after you made your mistake. First I screamed my tits off to make sure you knew something had gone terribly wrong. Then my traumatized girlfriend walked me home to our car. When we got to the hospital, I puked my guts out in the parking lot. The puke was from the nausea of a serious eye wound, and it's a running theme. They threw dye in my eye and did all these tests. I made all the hospital puns. Then the shock wore off, and I doubled over. This is where the puke returns, but I was out of food to puke. So I threw up stomach acid. All night.

I have to imagine that there's something in your life that causes you great pain for you to be interested in attacking strangers. Maybe you lack self control or maybe your job sucks or maybe you were just bored. However you rationalize it your actions were very wrong hearted.

Your attempt to exert your will on my life has failed. All you have succeeded in doing is making all the wonderful people in my life sick with disgust.

You can learn from this if you try. You can learn how to build up those around you. You can learn to be more focused on the moment, how to express yourself in healthy ways. I have to think that if you'd been more focused on your actions on July 27th, you wouldn't have shot me.

Your thoughtless act could cost me dearly. I'm a photographer, and you may or may not have just given me lifelong cataracts/glaucoma. We just don't know yet. The EYE DOC said my iris has a tear and the reason it's hard for me to see is because there's blood between the iris and the TOP BIT of the eye. The major risk is the iris getting another tear within the next 5 days. I've an appointment for next Monday and now you know everything I do about the damage you caused.

Humboldt friends, please spam this post everywhere you can think of. They were driving an all-black SUV, looked like an Explorer. The paint gun had a shiny barrel that looked silver, and they were shooting green paint. The shooter was in a moving vehicle and hit me twice in about a second. They're clearly good at the game of paintball when they're not busy being complete jackasses. Humboldt is VERY small, maybe we can figure out who these foolish fiends were.

I'm coming out of a very profound personal funk, one that took me all year to figure out. I've been in the ER twice in the last 4 months. This is a just another speed bump in a year of healing. Although you've messed up my work and potentially my career, you can't stop me suckas!

PS you've also given me an excuse to wear sunglasses literally whenever I want for the rest of my life. That's actually super sweet of you. I wore them in the shower today, it was awesome.

PSS If you're some sweet family/friend and you'd like to show support PLEASE don't call/text/email me. I'm figuring out this trauma and the added stress of having to reply to a flood of sympathy is NOT what I need (iphone keyboards and a lack of depth perception is a lesson in autocorrect comedy). Comment here with love and thoughts. PM me if you expect a response. But if you really wanna make my day? Mail me any old sunglasses you don't wear anymore. Preferably big ones, I've a big head. Probably made it a good target.

With Much Love (even for the fools),

Sean Patrick Leydon

Arcata

DR. SEUSS: RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST

“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.

I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.”

That there will be a new Dr. Seuss book published today, though the author died in 1991, is an interesting story. Even more interesting: Dr. Seuss was evidently some kind of an environmentalist whose The Lorax, published in 1971, caused controversy in Mendocino County in 1989, when The Timber Wars were raging on the Northcoast of California.

From People Magazine in 1989: The trouble began the day Sammy Bailey came home from school last spring. The Laytonville, Calif., second grader had just finished reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, the sad tale of a fuzzy little creature who loses his forest home when the greedy Once-lers cut down all the Truffula trees. A troubled and thoughtful Sammy had taken the story's lesson to heart. "If you cut down a tree," he told his father, Bill Bailey, "then it's just like someone coming in and taking away your home."

Another parent might have been touched by his child's sensitivity; Bailey was not. The owner of a logging supplies mail-order business, he was incensed by what he saw as a flagrant attack on the livelihood of Laytonville, a tiny (pop. 1,096), single-industry lumber town 150 miles north of San Francisco. Rounding up support from other outraged parents, Bailey, 46, and his wife, Judith, 42, asked the local school board in September to remove The Lorax from the second-grade required-reading list. "Teachers...mock the timber industry, and some of our kids are being brainwashed," screamed Bailey's full-page ad in the local weekly. "We've got to stop this crap right now!"

From a Laytonville resident's newsletter at the time: In The Lorax, Dr. Seuss makes an outstanding case against greed and reckless environmental practices. If Bill Bailey thinks the good doctor is in error, let him present a better case. Show us the book, Mr. Bailey, that will put a good face on what your friends in the logging industry are doing to our land. Instead of bullying and braggadocio, show us through intelligent argument the truth and justice of your cause.

Outside of your place of business, Mr. Bailey, you fly a large American flag, but I maintain that every time you interfere with the free dissemination of ideas, you disgrace that flag. There is much wrong with the American system and the American way of life, but one thing we can be undeniably proud of is the right to read and say and think whatever we choose. When you deny that right to our children, you strike at the heart of what is best about this country.

* * *

The only Dr. Seuss book I remember from my childhood is Bartholemew and the Oobleck, published in 1949, in which green gooey stuff rains from the sky. In retrospect this too reads like an environmental warning, though I only remember enjoying the whimsical story and the great illustrations:

(Rob Anderson, Courtesy, District 5 Diary)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Concerning themselves with stupid sexual politics makes total sense when you consider the fact that there is no longer a difference between the corporate-centric Democratic party and those corporate-centric other guys. Without anything to really stand for, and having eshewed their progressive roots in favor of Wall Street money; trivial issues filled the Democratic vacuum.

Many disaffected could have rallied around a Democratic party which had grand ideals. Instead they are pushed to be tolerant of sexual outliers which is foolish since hard core progressive types have been tolerant of sexual minorities for better than forty years now. Those who are not tolerant are beyond hope and they will vote for Jeb no matter what they are told. The two big American political parties have become just two big box choices of generic sameness. Perhaps it would help if the fine print on the generic choices were made larger so we knew which war the Democrats would start to enrich their corporate friends and which war those other guys would start to enrich their corporate friends.

Then we could actually be choosing something.

 

CALIFORNIA'S BIGGEST "SECRET" — oil industry capture of the regulatory apparatus

Big Oil spent $266 million influencing CA politics from 2005-2014

by Dan Bacher

The biggest, most explosive story in California environmental politics is the capture of the regulatory apparatus by the regulated, but you wouldn’t know it if you rely on the mainstream media for your information.

While corporate agribusiness, the timber industry, insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and other corporate interests spend many millions of dollars every year on lobbying and campaigning in California, Big Oil is the largest, most powerful corporate lobby in Sacramento.

No industry has done a better job of capturing the regulatory apparatus than Big Oil. The oil industry exerts inordinate influence over the regulators by using a small fraction of the billions of dollars in profits it makes every year to lobby state officials and fund political campaigns.

Big Oil spent an amazing $266 million influencing California politics from 2005 to 2014, according to an analysis of California Secretary of State data by StopFoolingCA.org, an online and social media public education and awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to “mislead and confuse Californians.”

The industry spent $112 million of this money on lobbying and the other $154 million on political campaigns. (http://www.stopfoolingca.org/2015/02/big-oils-big-money/)

2014 was the biggest year-ever for Big Oil spending on lobbying and campaigns. The oil industry spent a combined total of 38,653,186 for lobbying and campaigns in 2014. That is a 129 percent increase from the 2013 total of $16,915,226!

The top lobbyists in the oil industry during this 10-year-period were:

• Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA): $50,111,867
• Chevron: $23,442,629
• BP: $6,788,261
• Shell: $4,536,112
• Occidental: $4,315,817

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), an oil industry trade association that every year tops the list of spenders among the state’s lobbying groups, spent a record $8.9 million on lobbying in 2014, nearly double what it spent in the previous year. WSPA spent $4.67 million in 2013. (http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/02/06/big-oil-group-spent-89-million-last-year-lobbing-jerry-brown-and-california-officials)

WSPA spent much of its lobbying money on stopping a fracking moratorium bill in the Legislature and trying to undermine California’s law to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The group also successfully opposed legislation by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson to protect the Vandenberg State Marine Reserve and the Tranquillon Ridge from offshore oil drilling plans. In a bizarre scenario that could only take place in the "green" state of California, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of WSPA and Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create questionable “marine protected areas” in Southern California, lobbied against marine protection in a "marine protected area" that she helped to create! (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp)

But for all of the millions WSPA and the oil companies spend every year on lobbying, they dumped even more money, $154 million, into political campaigns during the ten-year-period.

The top campaign spenders in the oil industry from 2005 through 2014 were:

• Chevron: $75,665,793
• Aera Energy: $37,177,594
• Occidental: $17,100,680
• Valero: $6,472,155
• ConocoPhilipps: $5,872,096

In 2014, Chevron alone spent $3 million (unsuccessfully) to elect their selected candidates to the Richmond City Council. The oil industry also dumped $7.6 million into defeating a measure calling for a fracking ban in Santa Barbara County and nearly $2 million into an unsuccessful campaign to defeat a measure banning fracking and other extreme oil extraction techniques in San Benito County during the November 2014 election.

The oil lobby is also one of the largest contributors to Jerry Brown's campaigns. While the Governor was cynically spouting off about "fighting climate change" at a Vatican symposium in Rome on July 21 and 22, his administration continues to promote the expansion of fracking in California. Governor Brown told the Vatican climate conference that one-third of the world's oil needs to stay in the ground, yet California remains the third largest oil-producing state in nation.

On September 20, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 4, a controversial piece of legislation that creates the infrastructure for the expansion of fracking in California. Before Brown signed the bill, he had received $2.49 million in financial donations over the previous several years from oil and natural gas interests, according to public records on file with the Secretary of State's Office and the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

"Of the total, $770,000 went to Brown's two Oakland charter schools — the Oakland School for the Arts and the Oakland Military Institute. The other $1.72 million went to his statewide political campaigns for attorney general and governor, along with his Proposition 30 ballot-measure campaign last year," wrote Robert Gammon in the East Bay Express on October 2, 2013. (http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/fracking-jerry-brown/Content?oid=3726533)

More recently, Big Oil's inordinate influence over Brown administration policies was exposed when Mark Nechodom, the controversial director of the California Department of Conservation, the agency that oversees the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), resigned on June 4. DOGGR is the agency charged with regulating the state's oil and gas industry.

Governor Jerry Brown in 2011 appointed Nechodom, who is considered very friendly to the oil industry, to the post in order to expedite permits for oil drilling in Kern County and elsewhere. In 2011, Brown fired two high-ranking state regulators from their posts, one of whom was replaced by Nechodom, because the oil industry believed they weren't approving their drilling permits fast enough! (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/western-states-petroleum-association_n_7715584.html)

The agency has faced increasing scrutiny from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after permitting oil companies conducting steam injection and fracking operations to drill thousands of oilfield wastewater disposal wells into protected aquifers. The Committee to Protect Agricultural Water, a citizen organization comprised of Central Valley farmers and "individuals concerned about California's drinking water," filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) complaint in Federal Court on June 3, the day before Nechodom resigned.

The RICO Complaint claims that Governor Jerry Brown's office ordered the DOGGR to approve permits to inject contaminated water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. (http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/06/03/741916/10137097/en/Kern-County-Group-Files-RICO-Lawsuit-Against-Governor-and-Oil-Companies.html#sthash.9gqriFwS.dpuf_)

Not only does Big Oil spend millions every year on lobbying and campaign contributions, but it funds "Astroturf" campaigns to eviscerate environmental laws. Leaked documents provided to Northwest Public Radio, Business Week, and other media outlets last year exposed a campaign by the Western States Petroleum Association to fund and coordinate a network of “Astroturf” groups to oppose environmental laws and local campaigns against fracking in California, Washington, and Oregon. This network was revealed in a PowerPoint presentation from a November 11, 2014 presentation to the Washington Research Council, given by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, WSPA president. (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/12/12/18765457.php)

Oil and chemical industry representatives also further exert their power and influence by serving on state and federal regulatory panels. In one of the most overt conflicts of interest in recent California history, WSPA President Reheis-Boyd served as the chair of the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called "marine protected areas" in Southern California, as previously noted. She also served on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast, and North Coast, in addition to sitting on a NOAA federal marine protected areas panel from 2003 to 2014.

It is no surprise that so-called "marine protected areas" created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from fracking, offshore oil drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.

Not only did these alleged "Yosemites of the Sea" fail to protect the ocean, but they violate the traditional fishing and gathering rights of the Yurok Tribe and other Indian Nations and are based on terminally flawed and incomplete science. (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/08/18715021.php)

However, the millions Chevron and other oil companies have spent on lobbying, campaign contributions, setting up “Astroturf” groups, and getting their representatives on state regulatory panels in order to promote the oil industry agenda are just chump change to Big Oil.

In spite of sliding oil prices, the big five oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Shell — made $16.4 billion in the last quarter of 2014 and $89.7 billion for the entire year, according to the Center for American Progress. In 2015 to date, Big Oil’s estimated profits are over $52 billion. (http://www.stopfoolingca.org)

For Big Oil, spending $266 million to shape California policy over the past 10 years is just part of the cost of "doing business." And as the oil industry faces increasing public opposition to fracking and Big Oil's attacks on environmental laws, you can expect the industry to continue increasing its spending on lobbying and campaigns.

POINT CABRILLO LIGHTHOUSE LANTERN ROOM & LENS TOURS

Saturday, August 8, 10am-4pm.

A unique opportunity to visit the lantern room and the beautifully restored operational Third Order Fresnel Lens. These tours are offered only eight days each year.

A modest fee, which supports the lighthouse maintenance fund, of $5 is appreciated. Children must be at least 42 inches tall to participate in the tours.

For additional information please call 707/937-6122.

pointcabrillolightkeepers@gmail.com

AG 101 CUSTOMER APPRECIATION Event August 7th from 6pm till the cows come home at our Mendo County Location: 6301 N State St Calpella, CA.

We will have FREE Ag 420 samples, Live Entertainment from the amazing:

Flynn Creek Circus: 8-8:30pm

Contortion, Hand to hand, Aerial silks/straps, 2 comedy numbers, Trapeze & Partner unicycle.

Soulevity: 8:30-10:30pm

Afrofunk Experience: 10:30PM - TILL THE COWS COME HOME

FREE Food catered by Master Chef Luca Rubino from 8pm-10pm

FREE Wine donated & poured by Frey Vineyards from 6pm-midnight.

Best,

Josh Bowers

THE 33rd ANNUAL ROUND VALLEY BLACKBERRY FESTIVAL

The 33^rd Annual Round Valley Blackberry Festival will be held this year on August 22^nd & 23^rd at the festival grounds in downtown Covelo. Admission is free.

Mickey will be Master of Ceremonies and will kick off the festivities at 10am on Saturday. Sip a glass of Mendocino County wine while listening to the numerous local musical groups playing throughout the entire weekend. Enjoy a blackberry slush while strolling around the surrounding arbor which will be full of arts and craft vendors and community organizations. There will be a climbing wall for children of all ages. Saturday night, at 7pm, join the community for a fun square dance.

There will be a 5/10K run/walk on Sunday morning (http://www.roundvalley.org/library/race.pdf) sponsored by the Friends of the Round Valley Library. Later in the day enjoy the motorcycle and antique car show featuring both local and out of town vehicles.

The festival runs from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm on Saturday and 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Sunday. Further festival or booth information can be found at www.roundvalleyblackberryfestival.com