Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Dec. 31, 2015

• Frigid Mornings
• Firing Squad
• Post Offices
• Bye-bye Mattress
• Yesterday's Catch
• O'Malley Rally
• MCB Gardens Events
• M5 Closed
• Priorities
• Yazzle Dazzled
• Important Test
• The Nothing
• Warrant Wednesday
• Favorite Book
• Credit Rating
• Ukiah Friday
• New Year Doggerel

HARD FREEZE WARNING remains in effect until 8 am PST this morning.

HARD FREEZE WATCH in effect from late tonight through Friday morning.

• Low temperatures: upper 20s
• Locations include: Boonville, Yorkville, Philo

--National Weather Service

RESPONDING to a story in Wednesday's Chron about the 700 men on San Quentin's Death Row, a reader wrote, "The easiest, most effective and least cruel and unusual punishment is still the firing squad. Condemned is strapped to a chair bolted to the floor. Six modified M1 Garand rifles with electrical relay-firing triggers are bolted to bench rests and pre-positioned to fire at the chest cavity and head from a distance of not more than five can't-miss yards. The relays are attached to a randomizer that electrically actuates the triggers of five rifles loaded with 30.06 caliber expanding rounds and one rifle loaded with a blank. Six execution-trained prison guards or maybe 3 guards and 3 street cop volunteers located in a different room press firing buttons at the same time, shooting the condemned in the head and left chest area multiple times. The blank is also fired with the live rounds in accordance with the longstanding tradition of letting each executioner think that maybe the other Five killed the killer but this time he fired the gun with the blank round and didn't actually kill anyone. Six surplus Garand rifles are about $5000 or free from DCM program sources, the cost of the other materials are pretty cheap at Home Depot. Forty-two-hundred 30.06 caliber rifle rounds (700 condemned x 6 bullets per execution) might cost 30-50 cents each, about $2000 total, but would last for months catching up on all the backlogged executions.

FUNDING FOR OUTBACK post offices, and post offices generally, keeps on getting cut. The ladies who staff the Boonville and Philo post offices work doggedly right on through their long days, seldom even taking a break, as do the women (mostly) at all the County's post offices And Jan The Mail Lady — Jan Walker — drives the mail six days a week from Cloverdale to Point Arena and back again, while Rachel Olivieri, The Willits Mail Lady, does the same from Willits all the way to the Trinity County line in deepest northeast Mendocino County. Without Jan's and Rachel's jaw-dropping labor all these years, a few thousand hill muffins would have no roadside mail service. Our post office people are hugely under-appreciated. Despite working under-staffed and under onerous conditions while maintaining courteous demeanor, the Post Office is again trying to cut rural service. The busy Post Office in Mendocino is facing immediate cutbacks. Mendo people are rallying support, and one way you can support all our post offices is to buy all your stamps from them and to fill out the attached survey, emphasizing your dependence on yours. Our post offices really are community centers where we daily meet and greet people and have opportunities to chat with neighbors we seldom otherwise see.

The address for the survey is: https://postalexperience.com/Pos

AT LAST! Tomorrow, California becomes the second state in the nation with a statewide recycling program for used mattresses and box springs. The program, known as Bye Bye Mattress, allows California residents to drop-off used mattresses at participating collection sites and recycling facilities for free. California residents can find their nearest participating collection site or recycling facility at www.byebyemattress.com.

CATCH OF THE DAY, December 30, 2015

EDGAR APPLEYARD, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

FERNANDO GRANADOS-RANGEL, Hopland. Domestic battery.

MICKEY HILL, Willits. Robbery, conspiracy.

SAMMIO LEGGETT, Covelo. Possession of meth for sale. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

PABLO MORA, Ukiah. Court order violation. (Frequent Flyer)

MERRILL WALRATH, Redwood Valley. Receiving stolen property.

CHRISTINA YAKIMO, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ONE GUY SHOWED UP AT MARTIN O'MALLEY’S MEET AND GREET in Iowa

And he says he doesn't know who he'll vote for.

(Courtesy, the Daily Mail on-line.)

FRUIT TREE PRUNING 101

Saturday, January 16, 10 am to noon

Gardens’ Meeting Room with Di Scott

When it comes to basic care and pruning of fruit trees, there are many different techniques, several of which have predictable results. This class will help you to optimize performance from your fruit trees, according to your own needs and the specific environment in which the trees are growing. The spotlight will primarily be on, but not limited too, the pruning of fruit tree varieties appropriate to the North Coast climate, specifically apples, pears, and select stone fruits. Learn how time of year and type of pruning cut can greatly influence the success of your fruit trees. We will cover a complete year’s cycle of tree growth, from the tree’s perspective as well as our own.

Di Scott brings 17 years of coastal orchard experience and a lifetime of horticultural knowledge to this class.

Classes are $10 members and Master Gardeners; $20 non-members. Includes Gardens admission for the day!

CLASS SIZE IS LIMITED so please reserve your spot ASAP by phoning 707 964-4352 ext. 16 or in person at The Garden Store at MCBG.

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens 18220 North Highway 1. Fort Bragg, Ca 707-964-4352 Ext 16. Gardenbythesea.Org

* * *

40% OFF

The Garden Store at Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens has marked down holiday items by 40% through tomorrow, Dec 31st. Remember, it is always free to shop at Nursery on the Plaza and The Garden Store.

Follow The Garden Store on Facebook and be the first to find out about special offers and deals. www.facebook.com/MCBGGardenStore

Winter store hours - 9am-4pm, see you there!

NO CROSS COUNTRY TO WILLOWS UNTIL NEXT SPRING.

Mendocino Forest visitors advised of temporary closure for FS road M5 WILLOWS, Calif. - In order to provide for public and employee safety, a temporary closure has been placed on Forest Service road M5 on the Grindstone Ranger District between the junction of 17N78 north and junction 17N78 south, located south of the Stonyford Recreation Area. A substantial washout has made a section of the road impassable.  The closure went into effect December 27 and will remain in effect until it is repaired.  A detour is established on road 17N78 to bypass the washout. Signs are in place to direct vehicles to the detour. The closure order is formally referenced as Order Number 08-15-13.  It is available online at www.fs.usda.gov/mendocino. "The M5 road is a popular area due to its proximity to the Mendocino National Forest world-class Off-Highway Vehicle trail system," said Grindstone Ranger District Implementation Officer Lori Cayo.  "Safety concerns to both visitors and forest resources arise when severe weather conditions bring unexpected hazards.  We want everyone to enjoy their trip to the forest, while staying safe.  To help with this, visitors are asked to check Forest closures before leaving, be prepared for changing conditions, and minimize impacts to saturated roads and trails." With recent drenching storms, and more to come this winter, other forest roads may be impacted.  If you come across an area where the road is compromised or washed out, please report it to Forest Engineer Shannon Pozas at 530-934-3316. For more information, please contact the Mendocino National Forest at 530-934-3316 or visit www.fs.usda.gov/mendocino.  Get the latest updates and alerts easily by following us on Twitter, @MendocinoNF.

YAZZLE DAZZLED

Dear Yaz—

Subject: Simple Living membership category announced this morning

From: ldechter01@gmail.com

To: sisteryasmin@hotmail.com

Yasmin,

Just wanted to let you know we announced the Simple Living category of membership this morning, and talked about the deadline for membership in relation to voting during the next KZYX election.

We'll run it again tomrrow morning, as the 31st is the actual deadline. Must be postmarked by that date with payment included.  I think it's in the evening news block tonight, but not quite sure yet.

Just wanted you to know, your request as been partially filled. It is being announced, though not as broadly as you may have wished.

Thanks for your concern about the station and the need to increase membership and voting for representation.

— Lorraine Dechter

* * *

A break though, at last! Lorraine D. is gonna change things at OUR station, we hope & pray.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all.

Love, Peace & Justice,

DJ Sister Yasmin

NO WAY, BILL

Friend -- 

Hillary and I are emailing you today for one reason: This deadline is an important test for the campaign. 

What happens between now and midnight tomorrow will determine whether we have the resources we need to compete in Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond.

 Chip in $1 before midnight tomorrow:

Thank you and happy new year,

Bill Clinton

THE NOTHING THAT IS

(For V.L.)

by Louis Bedrock

She had been surprised when the old man asked for her phone number and at first regretted giving it to him.

She needn’t have worried. Stanley never called more than once a week—usually Thursday nights. He ended the calls before they became tiring or tedious.

He liked to obliquely show off his athleticism by complaining of injuries: a twisted ankle from a weekend skiing trip to Stowe, Vermont; a sore shoulder from four wall racquetball against men thirty years younger than him at the 92^nd Street Y; leg cramps after a five borough 70 mile bicycle ride or a marathon.

Like her, he was a reader. He read novels and short stories, liked modern poetry, and knew a lot about 17^th century Spanish letters. He could talk knowledgably about the dangers of GMOs or nuclear power, the fluoride grift, and even explained to her what derivatives were.

He was still strong at 72. But he was alone.

They had met one another at a series of Bach organ concerts at Saint John’s Cathedral. Men often asked her for her phone and e-mail address; she’d become quite disciplined about refusing. However Stanley was almost fifty years older than her and seemed safe — although he was obviously attracted to her. She liked his tranquility and self-sufficiency.

He had never quite asked her out, but they occasionally met for lunch or a movie. He inquired about her life in a polite, non-intrusive manner. She told him about her studies at Columbia University, spoke of her thesis, the publications of her columns and stories, the success of her first two books, and about the undergraduates in the classes she taught. He knew she had a young daughter because the ebullient seven-year old had once answered the phone.

He was surprised to learn that she was born in Mexico and had lived the early years of her life there. She spoke perfect English with a vague South African accent--she had spent most of her life in Cape Town. She was fluent in English and Spanish and she wrote in both languages.

...

2.

When her husband suggested another attempt at making things work, she had thought it over for a few days, then agreed. But things had not worked.

He was also a writer and an academic, six years her senior, archetypically the Latin male. He maintained his cavalier attitude toward the equal sharing of domestic responsibilities, was jealous about any attention she received from other men, but at the same time he never discouraged the adoring undergraduates that followed him around.

He had no patience with their young daughter, had screamed at the child for making too much noise while he was trying to write and this had sparked their most recent screaming match.

The following morning she told him he would have to leave. He asked few days to find another place, but she was adamant and obliged him to leave immediately, although this meant she was on her own again. Even with royalties complementing her teacher’s pay, it was not easy to make the money last until the end of the month.

She was always tired.

...

When her Stanley called Thursday, the dam burst and she poured out all of her pain and anxieties. Her separation, her daughter’s problems at school, financial difficulties, and constant exhaustion.

After a silence, he asked,

—Do you have a support network?

—No. My family is in South Africa and the DF. I have friends, but they have their own challenges. I have a woman whom I pay to babysit and help out with cleaning.

—Then you need to build one. Connect with neighbors, people at the University, friends, and acquaintances. Don’t be afraid to ask for favors as long as you are willing to repay them.

She liked that he had not clucked any sympathetic clichés. His advice was sound.

—I’m going away for three days starting tomorrow morning —he said. —May I call you Monday evening when I get back?

—Please do.

...

Monday, when she got home from the university, she had four messages on the answering machine. Two were from her husband. He had received the news of her initiation of divorce proceedings.

Another call was from the guidance counselor at her child’s school who “needed” to schedule an appointment.

The last call was problematical. It was from her housekeeper and babysitter. She was still ill and would not be available for Tuesday and perhaps Wednesday either.

The mother of one of Xiomara's classmates, with whom she was friendly, had taken the child to school and picked her up.  The child was at her house now.  They occasionally helped one another; however, now she would have to impose by asking her to take her daughter to school and bring her home for at least two more days.

There was no message or e-mail from Stanley. This surprised her.

She had a column due for the magazine section of a Spanish newspaper. There were papers to correct.

—Al mal tiempo, buena cara* —she said to herself.

...

5.

Her gringo lawyer was in love with her. She felt the corruption of power when she asked him to take her daughter to school and pick her up on Thursday and Friday; however, he seemed pleased that she had asked him. The babysitter was getting over the flu and had promised to be back on the job by the following Monday.

Her husband surprised her by amicably agreeing to a no fault divorce. He even promised to start sending her some money if he landed the full time position he had applied for at San Francisco State.

Xiomara’s teacher and guidance counselor were worried about the child’s listlessness and withdrawal.  When they learned about the issues at home, they suggested an afterschool program nearby.  It offered stimulation for Xiomara and more time for her mother.  The child could go directly from her school to the site of the program with the other children.  The program was four days a week, lasted until six, and the children were given a snack at four.

The article for the newspaper somehow got written.

There was still no word from Stanley.

...

6.

For winter break, she took Xiomara to Cape Town to spend some time with her grandparents. Her family paid the round trip air fare. She worked on her thesis, and on her third novel. She wrote her short columns for the magazine. She found time to take Xiomara to the beach every day and swim with her. She was slim, quite pretty, and looked younger than her 25 years. Local college aged guys and even high school students hit on her.

It was good to escape the cold of Manhattan in December and January. It was good to feel the sun on her body. The rest, exercise, and regular meals had restored her libido, but being with her parents and her young daughter impeded any activity on that front for now.

...

7.

It was around the end of January when she received an e-mail from Stanley. It was a farewell letter.

He was dying from late stage lung cancer. He had moved to Oregon, where he had relatives, to end his life with dignity with the help of doctors.

He was apologetic. He had been torn between sending an e-mail and just quietly disappearing. Finally, he was unable to resist saying goodbye.

She was not to feel sorry for him. He had enjoyed a long fulfilling life.

...

8.

Despite the cold, she bicycled down to Riverside Drive, chained her bike to a bench, walked along the bank of the Hudson River, and looked out at the water.

The cold, the imminent death of a friend, her isolation at the moment caused her to recall a poem by Wallace Stevens, one of her favorite poems.

It was called “The Snowman” and in it Stevens explores the reasons for the despair one feels on a bleak, frigid winter day:

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The final lines of the poem resounded in her head,

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

She heard herself say the lines aloud.

Then she murmured,

—Al mal tiempo, buena cara.*

She found her bike and headed home to deal with the nothing that is.

*At difficult times, a brave face.

WARRANT WEDNESDAY!!

Karl Douglas Gage is wanted on a $60,000 felony warrant for assault with a deadly weapon.

Height: 6' 1"
Age:46 years old
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue
Weight: 210 lbs

If you have any information regarding his location, please call MCSO Dispatch at (707) 463-4086

THE BEST NOVEL YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

by Allen Barra

Pauline Kael, Randall Jarrell, and Jonathan Franzen were all fans of this under-the-radar masterpiece from 1940.

When I came to New York in 1981, I asked every writer I came in contact with about his or her favorite novels.

Robert Christgau, then a senior editor and pop music critic for the Village Voice, recommended, without hesitation, The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead. I had never heard of the book or the author. Later, both Pauline Kael and Wilfrid Sheed told me it was one of their favorites.

Good enough for me, I thought and headed to the Strand. There was no Internet back them, but there was the Strand, in whose dark and endless chambers I determined to augment my education. Over the years I’ve returned the good karma of those writers by passing along every copy of The Man Who Loved Children I’ve found. The task is easier with the availability of the Picador edition, a reprint of the 1965 twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a gorgeous 37-page appreciation by Randall Jarrell.

TMWLC is one of those rare novels that leaves you both exhausted and exhilarated. No greater articulator of 20th-century family life exists. Sam Pollit, the head of the family, is so vivid and genial that you may be hundreds of pages into the book before perceiving what a monster he is. A minor official in the Roosevelt administration, he proclaims his love for humanity in the abstract at least once every few pages.

“What a gift he had been given,” Stead writes, “to love and understand so many races of man!” Every waking day, he “felt the great urge of love of man rise up in his throat.” Though he owns to no ideology, Sam is a Marxist at heart. Overseas, he is asked by his Indian secretary if he believes in God. “No,” says, “I do not need a God for I believe in the ultimate good.”

He is overcome by his own nobility. “I wish,” he says in a fervor, “I could go to jail for my ideas, and then scoffers—there are scoffers even at my patent sincerity—would see how deeply I feel these ideas.”

Chief scoffer is his wife, Henrietta — “Neurasthenic, worn-out, devious Henny,” wrote Jonathan Franzen for The New York Times in 2010, “given to black looks and even blacker moods.” Observers see Sam as saintly: “He is such a good young man, he is too good to understand people at all,” says one. Henny’s responds, “If you knew what he is to me, something filthy crawling in the sleeve of my dressing gown; something dirty, a splotch of blood or washing-up water on my skirts. That’s what he is, with his fine airs … The little tin Jesus!”

She tells a sometime lover, “The impulse to kill him becomes so strong sometimes, when I think of the way he’s taken my life and trampled all over it and then thinks it’s sufficient if he reads a few highbrow books … I punch my fists together to keep from rushing at his greasy yellow head …”

“I’d drink his blood,” she says, “but it would make me vomit.”

Sam is smug in his righteousness, blithely oblivious to his family’s miserable material conditions. “To Sam,” writes Jarrell, “everything … is a means to an end, and the end is Sam.”

Their huge, decaying house contains a furious ongoing battle with the large Pollit brood as pawns and prizes. Sam and Henny communicate through their children. From a genteel Southern family, “Henny was an old-fashioned woman. She had the calm of frequentation; she belonged in this house, and it to her. Though she was a prisoner in it, she possessed it. She and it were her marriage.”

She fights to drive Sam off. He will not give in: “You will never break up my house. I know that’s been your object for years, and the aim of all your secret maneuvers. I love my children as no man ever loved his before.”

Their war enervates her. “Are you sick today, Mother?” asks a daughter. “Mother’s always sick and tired,” she says gloomily.

“Henrietta screamed, and Samuel scolded,” writes Stead in a passage that 75 years later still gives off heat. “Henny daily revealed the hypocrisy of Sam, and Sam found it his painful duty to say Henny was a born liar. Each of them struggled to keep the children, not to deliver them into the hands of the enemy… ”

The oldest child, Louisa, Sam’s daughter from an earlier marriage, veers emotionally towards her stepmother, but Henny rejects her. Sam sees Louie as a kindred spirit and tries to pull her into his orbit. She withdraws, with a shudder.

The novel builds towards an inevitable tragedy that also serves as catharsis. This is one of the few novels with a truly great ending. Angela Carter, a great fan, wrote, “It is rare for a novel to have an ending as good as its middle and beginning: the sixty or seventy pages that sum up The Man Who Loved Children, [which] bring the action of the book to its real conclusion, are better than even the best things that have come before.”

* * *

Stead was born in 1902 near Sydney, Australia, where she died in 1983. She left home in 1928 for Paris, and later met and became involved with an economics professor named William J. Blake (they were married in 1952). In 1943-44 she taught writing at NYU.

Her most lucrative job was as a screenwriter in Hollywood. In a fascinating bit of literary trivia, she contributed to the script for John Ford’s film about a PT boat crew, They Were Expendable, starring John Wayne, She finally returned to her homeland after her husband’s death in 1968.

It was the only novel by Stead to achieve both commercial and critical success. But 78 years after its publication, it has faded into the twilight realm of the praised but unread. (Some of the praise came from Saul Bellow, who selected House of All Nations for Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries in 1983.)

* * *

Why was The Man Who Loved Children a commercial flop? Some critics carped that Stead’s descriptions of the local geographies and idioms of speech was false. Others complained that she didn’t seem to know the land the way an American would. I would say that she simply didn’t describe it the way an American writer would.

TMWLC is set between Washington D.C. and Baltimore in the backwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore, Stead writes, in one of my favorite passages, “has many exiles, as near as Washington, as far as Heidelberg, who never cease reviling their native town with soft-tongued scurrility … Baltimore is multifarious; as the attractive dirt of a fishing town, the nightmare horizons of a great industrial town; it is very old, sordid, traditional, and proud. It despises no sort of traffic that can be conceived of … It is at the head of an inland sea and stands between natural sea-level parks and thick-wooded hills. It does not imprison … Baltimore sees the meeting of two cultures of man, Northern and Southern … ”

I know a little about Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay. I know more about writers from the area, such as Laura Lippman and Anne Tyler, and nothing I’ve found in their work indicates that anything in Stead’s passage was false. The difference between Stead and most Americans writing about Baltimore is that she got it from the inside and the outside as well. I don’t know how she did it. She must have spent time there after she and Blake moved to New York in 1935.

We do know that Sam, as Rowley makes clear, is drawn from Stead’s father, David George Stead, a marine biologist, conservationist, and a committed Fabianist Socialist/Marxist. Stead, pressured by her publicist to make her story more American, changed her central character and locale. (An intriguing question: did David George Stead ever read TMWLC?)

It’s too simple to call TMWLC an Australian story transplanted to America, and calling it autobiographical fiction really doesn’t explain the book. Who was the model or models for Henny, the character in whom half the book’s power is contained? Stead never knew her own mother, who died when she was two. Surely the emotional horrors suffered by Louie must have been experienced by Stead growing up in a house ruled by her stepmother. But how much of Henny could have been based on her stepmother? Nothing in Australian society equates to the cultural divide in America between North and South. How did Stead know of the sorrows of a disillusioned and disenchanted Southern belle that can make a stone of the heart?

* * *

Those who love The Man Who Loved Children insist, rightfully, that its lack of popular success isn’t important, that when a great book fails to find an audience the writer is free to follow their creative instincts without worrying about having to please a vast amorphous readership. It’s a moot question now as to how success would have altered the work Stead produced after 1940, but as Jarrell noted, one definite consequence of the world’s failure to appreciate it is that we have been “robbed forever of what could have come after The Man Who Loved Children.”

Stead has never been much appreciated by her countrymen. Gone for 40 years, she returned to Australia in 1968 after the death of her husband. She was denied the Britannica Australian Literary Award on the grounds that she had “ceased to be an Australian.”

If they don’t want Stead, then we do; we can then assign The Man Who Loved Children to one category where it has always belonged: a contender for the unofficial title of “The Great American Novel.”

(Courtesy, thedailybeast.com)

AND MAYBE A C- IN ALL-ROUND FUNCTIONING

(More proof that Mendo’s real priorities are financial, not organizational operations.)

County Of Mendocino Receives “A” Credit Rating

By Fitch Ratings – Outlook Stable

Fitch Ratings recently conducted a customary review of Mendocino County’s credit rating and stability. Today, December 30, 2015, the County received the following Press Release from Fitch outlining their findings.

Fitch Affirms Mendocino County, Ca's POBs At 'A'; Outlook Stable

Fitch Ratings-San Francisco-30 December 2015: Fitch Ratings has affirmed the following

Mendocino County, CA (the county) ratings:

$64.15 million pension obligation refunding bonds (POBs) series 2002 at 'A';

Implied general obligation rating at 'A+'.

The Rating Outlook is Stable.

Security

The POBs are an absolute and unconditional obligation of the county imposed by law, the payment of which is not limited to any special source of funds.

Key Rating Drivers

Continued Financial Improvement: The county's financial position continues to improve following a period of substantial expenditure reductions and management reforms.

Limited Economic Growth: The county continues to face challenges associated with a long-term economic contraction. After falling for many years, employment levels increased modestly in the past few years while population growth has flattened. In addition, wealth and income levels remain well below state and national averages.

Management Reforms Sustained: The county continues to make notable progress in addressing weaknesses previously cited by Fitch. Management recently met increased fund balance targets, updated treasury practices, and updated the capital improvement plan.

Moderate Debt And Elevated Pensions: Overall debt levels are moderate and expected to remains so given no additional planned borrowing in the intermediate term. Pension contribution requirements are considerable and rising, though total carrying costs are manageable.

Rating Sensitivities

Limited Revenue Flexibility And Economy: The rating is likely limited to the current level due to the county's constrained revenue raising ability coupled with the inherent limitations of its economic base.

Credit Profile

Mendocino County is located in northern California, along the Pacific coast, approximately 115 miles north of San Francisco. The county's estimated population of 90,000 is little changed from the 1990s and is dispersed across 3,500 square miles - a land area larger than several states.

Financial Improvement Continues

The county ended fiscal 2014 with a fourth consecutive year of strong general fund operating results. The operating surplus after transfers for 2014 equaled 6.2% of general fund spending, raising the unrestricted fund balance to 19.6% of spending ($27.3 million). This is a notable improvement from just 3.6% ($5.4 million) in fiscal 2011 and negative fund balance in fiscal 2010. Year-end cash balances also rose substantially for the fourth consecutive year, from just $14,000 in fiscal 2010 to $30.8 million in fiscal 2014. As such, the ratio of cash to liabilities, less deferred revenue, stood at over 3.0x.

Unaudited fiscal 2015 results are similarly positive, with a surplus equal to 5.1% of spending increasing the unrestricted fund balance to 23.7% of spending. Year-end cash increased to $41million.

The county's strong performance follows substantial expenditure reductions over the past several years, primarily through workforce and payroll reductions. Workforce reductions eliminated approximately one-fourth of the county's full-time employees after the recession, while remaining employees experienced permanent wage cuts of 10% to 12.5%. Most of the most recent two-year labor contracts through fiscal 2017 have 2% - 3% annual compensation increases. In addition, the county eliminated other post-employment benefits (OPEB) for current and retired employees.

Management projects further, albeit smaller, additions to fund balance going forward, which Fitch considers reasonable given prior year expenditure reductions and revenue improvements through mid-year.

Limited Economy

The county continues to face a long-term economic contraction that dates from the late 1990s. Population growth has been very slow over this period and employment levels dropped steadily before increasing modestly the past few years. Tourism and wine production have provided some opportunities for growth, but overall employment and labor force levels have not recovered to prerecession levels.

Unemployment rates for the county, which have generally been slightly higher than statewide averages, declined to 5.0% as of October 2015. Income and wealth indicators are weak at 71% and 80% of state and national averages, respectively.

Taxable assessed valuation (TAV) was relatively unaffected by the national housing boom and has been insulated from subsequent declines. TAV dropped by just 2.2% between 2010 and 2013 after many years of steady increases, and resumed growth in fiscals 2014 and 2015 (cumulative 3.3% increase).

Positive Management Reforms

The county has made notable progress the past few years in addressing management weaknesses cited in prior rating reviews. The county adopted a general fund reserve policy in 2012 that increased targets for its stabilization, counter-cyclical and emergency reserves from a cumulative 2% to 6.35% of general fund expenditures, or a minimum of $10 million. The policy also provided a mechanism for incremental additions to reserves until targeted levels are reached, which occurred in fiscal 2015.

The county also made substantial revisions to its investment practices in 2012, diversifying investment categories, increasing credit quality, and reducing maturities in general. These actions appear likely to improve the county's ability to meet its chief investment goal of principal protection, and to better serve its cash management needs.

The county adopted and last updated in May 2014 a five-year capital plan (fiscals 2014 - 2018) after having been without one since 2006; it is also planning a 2016 update. The general fund CIP totals $15.5 million and includes county roof replacements at $6 million and ongoing facilities maintenance at $2.3 million and will be funded on a pay-as-you-go basis. The largest cost facing the county long-term is a remodel or replacement of the county jail at $21 million. The county's application for a $20 million state grant was denied and it plans to apply for future grants, as management estimates the facility has sufficient capacity for the next five to ten years.

Moderate Debt; Elevated Pension Costs

Overall debt levels are moderate at $3,398 per capita or 2.9% of TAV. Amortization of direct debt is average with 67% of outstanding principle retired in 10 years. Management has no current plans for debt issuance. In addition, fiscal 2016 is the third consecutive year it did not require short-term cash flow borrowing, due to its improved financial position.

As of June 30, 2014, the Mendocino County Employees' Retirement Association had a funded ratio of 69.3%, or 67.4% under Fitch's alternate investment assumption of 7% returns. County contributions have increased by 64% over the past five years, largely due to lower than expected investment results.

Total pension costs, including POB debt service and pension contributions, have accounted for a growing share of governmental spending in recent years. Pension costs represented 4.5% of governmental expenditures in fiscal 2010 rising to 8.3% in 2014. As overall governmental spending has declined (due largely to workforce and payroll reductions), such fixed costs have increased as a share of remaining expenditures.

Total carrying costs for pensions, other post-employment benefits (OPEBs), and debt service were a moderate 14.1% of governmental expenditures in fiscal 2014. The county began a phased elimination of OPEBs in 2010, which was effective Dec. 31, 2013.

For more information, please contact the Mendocino County Executive Office at (707) 463-4441.

Carmel J. Angelo, Chief Executive Officer

JANUARY FOLLOWING FRIDAY ARTWALK

Jan 8, from 5-8 pm in Ukiah

Enjoy one or all of the venues, art, music, and refreshments!

artwalkukiah.org

Main Branch Library

Artist Dorothy Gayle Hass will lead an evening of SoulCollage®, a creative collage process using found images to create cards that reflect your inner self. In this introductory workshop, participants will create a SoulCollage® card and have the opportunity to "read" and name their card. This event is graciously sponsored by the Ukiah Valley Friends of the Library. The Friends of the Ukiah Library Book Sale will be open Friday Jan 8th from 4:30- 7:45pm and Saturday, Jan 9th 10am - 3:30 pm. 105 N. Main St. Ukiah CA Contact us for more info: 463-4493

Corner Gallery World traveling artist Rock Sand Clay (aka Roxanne Hampl) will be creating a multi media curation at the corner gallery for the month of January with the opening reception Friday January 8th.  The installation will exhibit ceramic sculptures, multi media mosaics and paintings, giving glimpse of the large array of artworks she has aesthetically engineered around the globe. "Here & There" by Lech Slocinski is a collection of photographs inspired by nearby and far away locations. These realistic and abstract images, colors and shapes, are impressions of the moments that caught photographer's eye during his travel through Europe and Mendocino County. Lech Slocinski currently teaches photography at Ukiah High School. The Corner Gallery is located at 201 S. State Street Ukiah, 462-1400 cornergalleryukiah.com

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Art Center Ukiah

Art Center Ukiah's hosts an evening with seafood appetizers, wine, live music and local art.   An exhibit of the juried art show of “The Sea & The Shore”: photographs, paintings, textiles, mosaics and more.  Other galleries in Ukiah will be open this evening for the Art Walk.  Appetizer plate $5.00 a benefit for ACU Community Gallery. 201 S. State St. Ukiah,  462-1400. cornergalleryukiah.com

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Bona Marketplace

Bona Marketplace will be open for First Friday on the 2nd Friday of January.  The featured artists will be Christina Hill with her serene but vibrant acrylic epoxy pours and Jesse Ryun with his American Artwork collection. The name of the show is Universal Beauty. Bona Marketplace, 116 W. Standley St. Ukiah 468-1113

IT WAS NEW YEAR’S EVE ON THE EL,

It was New Year’s Eve down Division Street

It was Happy New Year’s Eve

for the boys from the Tug & Maul

and the girls hustling drunks at the Safari.

It was Happy New Year in Junkie Row at 20^th and California…

It was Happy New Year everywhere

except in Molly Novotny’s heart;

Neither her heart nor her nest

Give sign of the season.

The stove was smoking again

and she thought carelessly,

“we get the ones the landlords buy up for old iron,”

of both the stove and her heart.

The day comes when both feel past throwing heat.

— Nelson Algren

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May all your verbs and subjects pleasantly agree.

May you not say them when you mean He or She.

May you not say envy when you mean jealous

And may you have a story to tell us.

A story about something that is near and dear

And it will be a happy new year.

— Garrison Keillor

=============================

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

No more champagne

And the fireworks are through

Here we are, me and you

Feeling lost and feeling blue

It's the end of the party

And the morning seems so grey

So unlike yesterday

Now's the time for us to say

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

May we all have a vision now and then

Of a world where every neighbor is a friend

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

May we all have our hopes, our will to try

If we don't we might as well lay down and die

You and I

 

Sometimes I see

How the brave new world arrives

And I see how it thrives

In the ashes of our lives

Oh yes, man is a fool

And he thinks he'll be okay

Dragging on, feet of clay

Never knowing he's astray

Keeps on going anyway

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

May we all have a vision now and then

Of a world where every neighbor is a friend

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

May we all have our hopes, our will to try

If we don't we might as well lay down and die

You and I

 

Seems to me now

That the dreams we had before

Are all dead, nothing more

Than confetti on the floor

It's the end of a decade

In another ten years time

Who can say what we'll find

What lies waiting down the line

In the end of eighty-nine

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

May we all have a vision now and then

Of a world where every neighbor is a friend

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

May we all have our hopes, our will to try

If we don't we might as well lay down and die

You and I

— Abba

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uo0JAUWijM

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Twas the night before New Year out on Low Gap

The Supes settled in for a Pinot nightcap

A Toast to Carmel! She’s mommie and boss

No backtalk or griping: she can get kinda cross.