- Ukiah Shooting
- Marmots Burrowing
- Niner Drama
- Wino
- Test Scores
- Utley Suspended
- Ethics Training
- FB 2005
- GJ 2008
- Privateer Pinizzotto
- Yesterday's Catch
- Threat Levels
- Gun Santa
THE 19-YEAR-OLD MAN who was shot and killed Friday night at a Ukiah apartment building in the 200 block of Observatory has now been identified as Roman Elliott, 19, of Ukiah. Neighbors of the incident reported that unknown assailants fired multiple gunshots. The shooting is under investigation.
IF TOM STIENSTRA says we can expect a monster El Nino, we're almost certain to get one. The Chron's ace outdoors writer is almost always correct about this stuff, and he cites a raft of other people who know their ocean temps and other sure signs that we're coming up on some big rains. Stienstra himself said Sunday that he noticed at Yosemite's higher elevations the marmots have already headed for their winter burrows; in an ordinary weather year they grub around outside for at least most of October.
EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT a football fan, this year's edition of the San Francisco Forty-Niners is a fascinating saga. You may know that the team moved about fifty miles south to a non-place called Santa Clara, interesting only for its old mission. You may not know that the team has fallen apart every which way. The Ohio-based owners — (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_York) — built a new stadium down there, the usual hog heaven deal with a bunch of luxury boxes for the magic money swine from nearby GizmoLandia. Seating prices priced thousands of real fans right out of the ballpark, and the ballpark itself is basically a mall with a football field in the center of it with turf so screwed up no one wants to play on it. The Niners even charge $15 to get into the mall's Niner museum, from which former head coach Jim Harbaugh is non-personed, Stalinist style.
IT WAS A MEASURE of civic Frisco's dysfunction that the team left town. Never should have happened, but Frisco has changed, too. The football fan base has been priced outtathere. We should have been agitating for a Green Bay-style ownership — the city owns the Green Bay team, not a family of inheritance gentry. Sports fans can acutely analyze the game but seem to think it's perfectly natural that taxpayers build stadiums for billionaires.
SO THE TEAM LEFT for NoWheresVille — friends tell me it's a four hour round trip from SF on game day — and thousands of fans, whose grandparents and even great-grandparents went all the way back to Kezar with the Niners, said goodbye to the Niners. There are several active boycotts of the team underway.
BUT THE NINERS have never been more interesting. I thought they were even going to be improved. Instead we have the sad spectacle of the quarterback in some kind of psychological meltdown, having totally lost his confidence, the head coach wandering the sidelines like an amnesiac, players flipping out on national tv from frustration with the suddenly mojo-less Kaepernick and the play-calling and coaches. Meanwhile, the owners are suddenly invisible. They haven't stepped up to even acknowledge the torrent of abuse rolling over them from Bay Area sports fans.
IT'S 4:30 Sunday afternoon. Kickoff is at 5:30. I'll bet every football fan in the Bay Area will be tuning in to watch the latest chapter of the disappearing franchise. I wouldn't miss it.
* * *
WATCHED THE GAME with the sound off to avoid being influenced by expert opinion and to avoid annoyance. The Niners were beaten on a great pass and a greater catch at the very end of play. It was a terrific game. Last week they looked terrible in every department, tonight they looked pretty good in every department. Kaepernick played a good game and made a lot of good throws. The offensive line did well. The defense was ok but not quite good enough. This is a mystery team, week to week. They aren't as hopeless as they looked last week. The psycho-drama goes on.
INTERESTING STORY by Mike A'Dair in the October 8th edition of the Willits Weekly. The piece is called “Test Results Spark Acrimony at School Board Meeting.” Mendocino County students did not do well on the new computerized Common Core tests in English and math. Willits did even worse than most of the County's school districts. Willits school board trustee Chris Neary apparently described the test results as “cause for alarm” and “This is a test of the teachers. People in the community are coming to me and talking. And there is a perception in the community that we are under-performing. I think we got an 'F'.”
THE ENTIRE social-psycho-economic context the public schools operate in, including the schools, is cause for alarm but psycho-social breakdown is unlikely to be arrested by any one school system. I can say from personal observation of a high end private school, if the public schools had comparable funding American young people might have a better shot at learning to use their native tongue with relative facility and would be odds-on to master the basics of mathematics.
ANYWAY, WHEN NEARY said Willits' pathetic test scores were cause for alarm, teacher's rep John Haschak fired back the way the teachers always fire back, although Haschak was more blunt: “If you would get out of your office once in a while and visit the schools, you would know what the conditions in the schools are. Your remark that the teachers should get an 'F' is just totally wrong. Teachers don't control the curriculum. We don't control the computers. (They don't?) We don't control what goes on in kids’ lives. There's a lot we don't control…"
TEACHERS are in fact part of the problem. So are school administrators. So are school boards. So's Everything, and no part of Everything is likely to change short of, well, pick your apocalypse.
TRADITIONALLY HIGH SCORING Mendocino, managed a 51% overall pass on English, 45% were test-proficient in math, and the results indicate that a high scoring 11th grade Mendo class pulled the entire district's scores up.
WILLITS was indeed cause for alarm. Only 20% of Willits students met math standards, a mere 24% hacked it in English. You could teach a hundred chimpanzees to do better than this. Something is seriously wrong in Willits' schools. Children of normal intelligence should not be doing this poorly.
HERE IN THE EDUCATIONAL ATHENS of Boonville, we managed a 48% proficiency in English, 38% in math but, like Mendocino, a smart 11th grade pulled the total scores up to, ah, state “standards.”
AS ALWAYS, or at least since drugs and thuggery took over Covelo schools, Covelo managed an almost acceptable 26% proficiency in English but a dismal 5% proficiency in math.
UKIAH DID EVEN WORSE than the perennial dunce center of Point Arena, scoring 30% in English, 20% math while PA's young scholars came in with 53% of their students more or less English-proficient, while only 25% did reasonably well in math.
“ILLEGAL SLIDE” COSTS DODGER TWO-GAME PLAYOFF SUSPENSION
Utley expected to appeal suspension for breaking Mets’ second baseman’s leg
http://www.csnbayarea.com/giants/mlb-suspends-dodgers-utley-illegal-takeout-slide
DEPARTMENT OF UNINTENTIONAL HUMOR. The Fort Bragg City Council has scheduled an "Ethics, Conflict and Brown Act Training for October 14th. This workshop will be presented by City Attorney Samantha Zutler." There isn't anything necessarily funny in a lawyer giving ethics lessons, but there are professions where basic scruples are more likely found. And Ms. Z is based in San Francisco, meaning she gets paid to drive to Fort Bragg, paid to eat and spend the night in Fort Bragg, paid to tell her employers how to be remain ethically flexible, how to hide the public business from the public and, in Fort Bragg's case, how to go all self-righteous and legalistic when the public complains.
FORT BRAGG, 2005
Fort Bragg sees future in polluted past / Rustic legacy could transform old mill town into tourist attraction (SFGate)
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Fort-Bragg-sees-future-in-polluted-past-Rustic-2729965.php
THE GRAND JURY TOOK A LOOK AT FORT BRAGG'S WATER IN 2008
“Providing an adequate supply of potable water will be an on-going challenge. End users can anticipate continuing pressure to conserve water. They would be well advised to plan for mandatory rationing during periods of drought. They may also expect periodic rate increases to cover the cost of maintaining and upgrading the system.”
http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/grandjury/pdf/REPORT%2018_A_%20FB%20Water.pdf
WE SAW MR. P COMING.
Don't say you weren't warned, Mendo.
TOM PINIZZOTTO, current or former (we’re still not sure what his position is at the moment and we’re not alone) Mendocino County Mental Health Director was hired as a mental health consultant from Solano County by Health & Human Services Director Stacey Cryer in mid-2010. A father of eight himself, he quickly impressed the local mental health staff with his apparent enthusiasm and energy and his command of the mental health system buzzwords which impressed the locals, especially the then-Mental Health Board and the County’s as-yet unprivatized senior mental health staff which deferred to him at every turn. Right away he began telling his colleagues that there wasn’t any mental health data with which to manage mental health activities and services because of what he said was Mendo’s antiquated computer system, claiming that it was a priority of his that such data be collected and presented to staff. To this day, however, data about Mental Health services — not rocket science in the first place; it’s a fairly simple matter of tracking numbers of clients, calls, response times, and closed cases (easier than keeping track of high school students in class, for example) — is still lacking. The Mental Health board has been asking for it for years to no avail. (The “incompetence” presumption that explains most dysfunctional management systems in Mendo no longer applies because they’ve known about it for years and it’s still not fixed. We must now presume they have something to hide.)
HOWEVER, it wasn’t hard to see that Pinizzotto’s real objective from the outset was privatization of Mendo’s mental health services and he was angling for a position to steer that privatization to his old Solano County employer pals at Ortner Management Group.
THE FOLLOWING are a few paragraphs we wrote in October of 2010 (five years ago now) a few months after Mr. P was first hired as a consultant.
(https://www.theava.com/archives/8417)
* * *
COUNTY CEO Carmel Angelo and Health and Human Services Director Stacey Cryer told the Board of Supervisors last week that they had met with the State’s Mental Health Director who told them that Mendocino County may not have to pay back quite as much for “audit exceptions” (technically unreimburseable mental health services) owed several years ago. But our local Mental Health Branch is still looking at a serious, nay crippling, deficit that can no longer be absorbed out of other funds.
CEO ANGELO and Ms. Cryer also said they’re working on a “regional approach” to mental health services to help reduce costs, perhaps a reference confirming rumors that selective privatization of mental health services on the North Coast may be next. While it’s understandable that any government agency would consider privatization, the model that would probably make the most financial sense is to provide services only to profitable mental health patients while leaving the Sheriff with the great majority of uninsured and otherwise impoverished 5150s. In other words, the crazy people who have private or government insurance would be farmed out to for-profit treatment centers while the rest would remain where they are — the Mendocino County Jail.
THIS CASH AND CARRY approach to the County's mentally ill appears well under way. Our Health and Human Services has already hired two consultants to develop a proposal for just such a thing. One of these consultants, a Mr. Tom Pinizzotto, is the Administrator of the North Valley-Solano Behavioral Center in Fairfield who just happens to also have an existing contract with Lake County for “mental health administrative services.” The other consultant, Ms. Nancy M. Callahan, PhD, is an alleged expert in “mental health services to Medicaid recipients,” and a specialist in computerized data processing, meaning Dr. Callahan is real good at figuring out who can be a valuable funding unit for the private “behavior health” services companies. It seems appropriate about here to repeat our annual definition of a consultant: a person you lend your watch to so he can tell you what time it is.
COMBINE THESE MERCENARY DEVELOPMENTS with a recent internal memo from Ms. Cryer to the Mental Health staff: “We are obviously not moving forward with any plans to fill positions — revenue generating or not.” Which means even positions that could be funded by state and federal mental health programs (which would not cost any money from the County's general fund) will not be filled — clearly a step towards privatization. Or this: “I want to be truthful and tell you that we are probably facing layoffs in the Mental Health Division.” And, “Tom Pinizzotto has been here working for several weeks now, usually two to three days per week and will now be serving as the Mental Health Director. He will continue as a contractor. … His colleague, Nancy Callahan, is assisting with portions of the plan.” Mr. Pinizzotto’s ultimate objective, according to Ms. Cryer, is to “transform Mental Health” into something Ms. Cryer chooses not to describe to her staff while, we suppose, sending fully funded local mental health patients to his Fairfield facility.
IF YOU know someone who is in need of long-term mental health services you have two choices: 1. find some way to pay for it yourself or with insurance, or 2. take your uncle directly to Sheriff Allman.
CATCH OF THE DAY, October 11, 2015
DAVID BARNES, Ukiah. Vandalism.
RANDY BONNET, Leggett, Domestic battery, suspended license.
KATHERINE BOWES, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
SONO CARRIGG, Willits. Failure to appear.
PRUDENCE DAVIS, Ukiah. Domestic assault.
LLUAN FUENTES, Ukiah. Community supervision violation.
JAMES GARDNER III, Ukiah. Vehicle theft, receiving stolen property, probation revocation.
SCOTT HEIDINGER, Hopland. Drunk in public.
DAVID JOHNSTON, Potter Valley. DUI w/drugs causing great bodily injury, under influence of controlled substance, suspended license.
MICHAEL LEHNHERR, San Francisco/Ukiah. Probation revocation.
DANNY MOORE, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
THOMAS SANDERS, Ukiah. Drunk in public. (Frequent flyer.)
WILLIAM WILLIAMS, Ukiah. Failure to appear.
ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2015 EUROPE
by John Cleese
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.
Italy has increased their alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides." The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs."
They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose." Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.
Regards,
John Cleese, British writer, actor and tall person
PS. And as a final thought: Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC.
THE LIMITS OF PARODY
Okay, but you can't really parody people who think what's pictured below is sane behavior:
The Onion came close to effective parody last year after the Santa Barbara shooting: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
— Rob Anderson (Courtesy, District5Diary)
John Cleese is now my only source for ‘news’ except the blessed li’l AVA
A lot of Fort Braggers have turned to the AVA for the NEWS. If you want both sides of an issue it’s the only place to get it.
Groupthink and the News Media
Knowledge is power and we as citizens and as a nation are becoming less powerful. We face an administration that believes in operating under high levels of secrecy. The American press, especially the television news media, has let down the American people and the American people have allowed this to happen. US television news is geared more toward providing entertainment than information. When one compares the news Americans received about the “war on terrorism” and “war in Iraq” with the news citizens of other countries received, it is easy to see why many Americans were eager to launch an attack on Saddam Hussein while most of the world thought this was not a good idea. The major news networks eagerly voiced almost exclusively the Bush administration’s (questionable) justifications for the attack on Iraq and ignored the voices of millions who knew that other ways of addressing the issues were still possible. Furthermore, the rapid pace of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News opinion programs makes it difficult for viewers to process information in any depth. Americans need a press that serves as a devil’s advocate to alleviate the ongoing groupthink concerning the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.
Review the following consequences of groupthink and consider how many of them apply to the Bush administration’s handling of the ‘war on terrorism’ and the issues related to Iraq and Saddam Hussein:
a) incomplete survey of alternatives
b) incomplete survey of objectives
c) failure to examine risks of preferred choice
d) failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives
e) poor information search
f) selective bias in processing information at hand
g) failure to work out contingency plans
h) low probability of successful outcome
http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm
I forgot the quotation marks on the above quote.
Another voice – Not such a rosy picture
By Sonya Nesch 11/30/13 UDJ
10. HHSA says going to the media “risks victimizing the patients and family.” Patients, families and our communities were victimized when Cryer and Pinizzotto began denying state mandated Psychiatric Emergency Services, and Recovery Services to patients.
11. HHSA says that going to the media “undermines the efforts of many very dedicated public servants.” Didn’t HHSA undermine these efforts by eliminating more than 90 of their positions, and choosing the inexperienced Ortner over Optum (Mental Health services provider in 24 states)? Cryer and Pinizzotto should look in the mirror instead of being the pot calling the kettle black when they say, “Reports are often not accurate, not fully told and serve to do more harm than good.” A good therapist can explain their behavior and words to them – it’s called projection.
12. The HHSA suggestion that the public participate through the Mental Health Board is disingenuous – one gets 3 minutes to speak and no answers are given and no problems are resolved.
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/opinion/20131130/another-voice-not-such-a-rosy-picture
Nesch continues to be right on.
Your “group think” was most appropriate.
Political theatre doesn’t work well in “Group Think” culture as your past experience and recent observations confirm repeatedly.
North Valley Behavioral Health LLC, aka North Valley-Solano County Psychiatric Health Facility (it has two registered legal names), is physically located in Fairfield / Solano County, but its official HIPAA mailing address is 1547 Plumas Court in Yuba City – the address of Willow Glen Care Center. Thomas Ortner is the CEO of the Willow Glen Care Center and Ortner Management Group is contracted to manage it. Mr. Pinizzotto came directly from an Ortner-managed facility to set up Ortner Management Group to (mis)manage Mendocino County Mental Health. And Ortner has contracted with Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center to administer mental health care to the coast.
I disagree with the reader comment from a few days ago that Ortner is made out to be the “fall guy”. By subcontracting with MCHC, who has absolutely NO business providing mental health care, they are a part of the problem, hand-in-hand with the county. As far as Patient Plans, everyone started giving them out at around the same time – it wasn’t an Ortner initiative.
Every page of the Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center website still states that their Wellness Center is located at 468 S. Franklin in Fort Bragg, a location that they moved out of 2 months ago! Can you imagine being homeless and in need of some mental health resources to avoid getting into a crisis situation? You check your phone and see that help can be obtained at the Wellness Center at 468 South Franklin. You walk to South Franklin and find a note directing you to a different address. Leaving their old address on their website for so long shows a severe lack of consideration by MCHC for their potential clients who are making their first step to getting help before a crisis erupts. I’m not talking about the Access Center address as I don’t know if it moved to the beautiful new digs yet. But I dare you to go to their website (www.mendocinochc.org) and quickly find any information about the Access Center. On the county website it’s shown as being at “544 Main Street, Suite B” – without designating that it’s SOUTH Main Street. What if someone tries to find it at NORTH Main Street? People in need of mental health help don’t need the added confusion created by those who are relied upon for help.
Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast Packet is more popular than the Advocate-Beacon.
I saw that Fort Bragg City (sic) is “Hosting a Dialoque”, 16 Oct., 8 – 10am @ the Fort Bragg Police Department Conference room. I guess the City doesn’t expect many folks to show up? But it sure is strange that after all that money spent fixing up Town Hall the City chooses to have a dialoque at the FBPD conference room.
http://www.advocate-news.com/general-news/20151008/city-hosts-dialogue
Tom P’s relationship with Tom Ortner goes back at least 10 years. When I was the LPS Conservatorship Case Manager for Lake County Mental Health about 15 years ago I would visit Willow Glen on a regular basis. The “patch” was outrageous then and I bet it is really high now. A patch is the county’s share of cost above and beyond what Medi-Cal or Medicare will pay per day for conservatorship placement in a mental health facility. Below is a Tom P statement in 2005. He talks about the “patch” then, I wonder what they are now? That would be a Bryan Lowery (Public Guardian) question.
Yolo County Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services
Local Mental Health Board Minutes
September 26, 2005
Sequoia Psychiatric Center- Tom Ortner, who runs the Willow Glen residential facility for SMI adults in Yuba City, is building two new psychiatric healthcare facilities and plans to build a new Willow Glen facility on the same site. The Sequoia Psychiatric Center and the other Psychiatric Center will cost less than other acute care inpatient facilities currently cost. Each of the psychiatric centers holds 16 residents.
Tom Pinizzotto estimates Yolo County will need at least 200 patient days. The Yuba City facility will cost a maximum of $560 a day, possibly less if waivers can be arranged. The Willow Glen residential facility is $75-80 per day for long term care. Last year ADMHS spent $1,100,000 on inpatient days alone.
http://namiyolo.org/lmhb/minutes-2005-09-lmhb.pdf
This might be a good time for the AVA to review the County CEO contract with the pay raise, sweet heart extended years agreement, the financial penalty to the County for early termination, and what constitutes non performance in the contractual agreement.
Today on email, I received information below, for mental health job opening in Fort Bragg, at so called “Hospitality Center”, at yet another address than those mentioned in comments above for the “Wellness Center”.
On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 8:06 AM, Admin Administrator
wrote:
> Vacancy: Specialty Mental Health Care Manager (40 hrs. per week) to work at
> “Hospitality Center”. Required: relevant Master’s degree and two years’
> experience, or relevant Bachelor’s degree and 4 years’ experience, or
> relevant Associate’s degree and 6 years’ experience. For an application
> pack, contact Hospitality Center, 101 N. Franklin St, Fort Bragg.
If we have a monster El Nino we need to remember the warming water probably will kill the coral reefs and the warming water as it expands could will flood low lying areas. Further an El Nino over year end does not mean the drought will go away. Global temperatures have been increasing every year to new highs and they undoubtedly will continue to increase every year. We are moving closer and closer to Todd Walton’s doomsday prediction.
This UDJ article from 09/2014 does a better job of explaining than I could.
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/general-news/20140912/ortner-reports-on-mental-health-care-in-mendocino-county
I believe Hospitality Center is in part Ortner access for Fort Bragg as Manzanita is in part Ortner access for Ukiah. I believe Mendocino Coast Clinics does their own Medi-Cal billing, as they also do Medicare, Medicade and I don’t believe Ortner does Medicare/aide, at least I’ve never seen Medicare/aide listed on their data dashboards.
The lack of mental health hospital beds in the County is a problem mentioned in the article.. Old Howard Hospital in Willits sits there waiting for THE COUNTY to move forward. It’s not up to Ortner to establish a mental health hospital; It’s up to the County to say to Ortner, “We have a mental health hospital for you to manage”.
No contracted service can provide mental health hospitalization and intense care in the County that does not have a mental health hospital facility in the County. Moving people out of County to service them is a big part of the problem as Ortner has more access to consumers than their families at that point. But that’s not Ortner’s choice. That’s the problem Ortner is working to resolve with the County.