Mendocino County Today: Friday, Feb 26, 2016

• Cryer's Reign
• Renner Arrested
• Sequiera Leaving
• Ballers Win
• Dollar Boycott
• 172 Transparency
• Where's Cheyenne?
• Old Coast Meeting
• Taqueria Ricarda
• FB Notes
• FB Drone
• No Drones
• Solar News
• Yesterday's Catch
• Trump Roll
• Rubio Attacks
• Student Data
• iPhone Privacy
• Firearm
• Antonin Scalia
• Fish Bill
• Tech Week

A READER SPECULATES on Stacey Cryer's exit:

“Cryer probably resigned from equal parts personal and professional reasons. Considering she was responsible for too much — Child Welfare Services, Mental Health, and even Animal Care have all gone sideways. The Kemper report focused on what the County, including the CEO, County Counsel and Board of Supes, did and didn't do, but the main responsibility falls on the Mental Health Director, Pinizotto, and the HHSA Director, Cryer, who are the ones who should have been expected to stay on top of the process, make sure it was implemented properly, and sound the alarm if there were serious problems. The Animal Care Request for Proposal also languished for six months while morale and conditions at the Shelter deteriorated and the frustrations of staff and volunteers increased.

“CRYER may also have been distracted with personal issues. AVA readers will recall that her husband was featured in the booking logs for a DUI while wearing a t-shirt that joked about problem drinking. In the end, HHSA may simply be too big and unwieldy for one person to manage effectively.”

(TO BE FAIR, because the County has essentially no management reporting systems in place, Cryer was left on her own with no oversight, supervision or support. If the County required the kinds of monthly departmental status reports we’ve long called for things would never have gotten this bad. She was also burdened with some very limited underlings in the various components of HHSA.)

BIG NEWS in Crescent City the last couple of days. One of their most prominent citizens and businessman, Chris Renner of C.Renner Petroleum, was arrested Monday (22 February) in Ukiah for molesting a child.

(From the C.Renner Petroleum website: “Owned and operated by Chris Renner along with his wife Sabina, it is a family oriented business with multiple locations and approximately 20 full and part time employees. … Chris gives much back to the community helping with annual donations and physical labor to organizations such as Del Norte Fair Livestock Auction, Lake Earl Grange, Little League, Del Norte Youth Soccer Organization, and St. Joseph School to name just a few. Chris is also a member of CIOMA, PMMA, Crescent City, Orick & Brookings Chambers of Commerce, Association of California Loggers and the California Trucking Association.)

ACE PROSECUTOR PAUL SEQUIERA is leaving the Mendo DA's office for a position with Solano County. Sequiera's departure means Mendo is left with the DA himself as the only prosecutor in the office who brings the experience and the ferocity required to put away the more clever crooks. We're sorry to see Sequiera go. Smart guy, nice guy, and how often do you find that combination in a Mendo public job?

BOONVILLE'S BOY'S BASKETBALL TEAM has breezed past visiting North Hills Christian (Vallejo) 88-55 Tuesday night in the first round of NorCal's small school hoops playoffs. Abraham Sanchez lead the Panthers with 18 points, 12 of which he hot-handed in the 1st quarter. Cesar Soto contributed 11 points to the lopsided victory as Will Lemons went 8/10 from the free throw line. Every player scored for the high flying homies, including three JV players competing in their first varsity game.

THE BOONVILLE BOYS are again at Saturday, 7pm against St Elizabeth (Oakland). Local sports fans will recall a joyous upset of St. Elizabeth's pulled off by a scrappy Anderson Valley squad last year. Saturday night, Boonville gym. Be there for this re-match. It will be a good one.

TAKE BACK REDWOOD VALLEY

To the Editor:

Europeans first came to the Americas about 500 years ago. To their view, the land belonged to “no one” so they could simply claim it as theirs and the church’s. In their arrogance and ignorance, the native people simply did not count. No European colonial power cared what the locals thought, felt or needed or that they were being robbed of what was valuable to them.

The second colonial invasion occurred when big business came to rural America (read, big box stores and the Walmart model). “Colonial” power invades other people’s territory and literally takes advantage of their size and power and removes substantial profit from the local area and sends it elsewhere in the U.S. or overseas. Yes we get cheap goods and yes there are some jobs produced. (But cheap goods are really cheap goods. You get what you pay for. The jobs are poor, low wage, etc.) Bottom line: Box stores win/locals lose.

We are now in the midst of a new wave of box store invasions. This time it is Dollar General and their newest invasion is really rural, i.e., Redwood Valley.

Colonialism is never kind. A bit of an exaggeration: Nobody in Redwood Valley wants Dollar General in our downtown. They are attempting to invade us even though no one who lives here supports this corporate trash moving in to take advantage of our poorest, and to risk changing the quality of life here for the worse.

Folks, do we really not understand history? When do We The People say: Enough is enough? When will federal, state and local laws reflect the will of the people rather than the “Divine rights of Business?”

I obviously hope Dollar General will be stopped legally or administratively. If the store is built, there is a strong feeling locally to boycott it.

Maybe it’s time to wipe out “colonialism” and the business model of “Take the Money and Run.” Maybe it’s time to heal the wounds of colonialism and return the power to the people.

And a final no thank you to our “neighbor” who dropped a big “poop bomb” on us by selling to Dollar General. Legal, yes; moral?

Dollar General stay out.

Peter Mayland, Redwood Valley

GRAND JURY CALLS FOR PROP 172 TRANSPARENCY

The 2015-16 Grand Jury Final Report titled:

Summary: In 1993, California voters approved Proposition 172 which required a one-half cent sales tax in each county be reserved for public safety purposes. Mendocino County currently accounts for its use of Proposition 172 funds using a methodology that is not transparent to the public or the departments affected. This has resulted in a perception that public safety is not receiving all of these funds as required by law. The Grand Jury recommends that the County change its annual budget format to make clear to the public the distribution of Proposition 172 revenues to County public safety agencies.

(Full report to be published soon at:

www.co.mendocino.ca.us/grandjury)

Prop172Final.2.3.16

WHERE’S CHEYENNE?

Cheyenne Spacieday is wanted on a $15,000 felony warrant for theft of a vehicle.
 Height: 5' 2"
 Age: 22 years old. 
Hair: Brown 
Eyes: Brown. 
Weight: 120 lbs
. If you have any information regarding this individual's location, please call MCSO Dispatch at (707) 463-4086.

FROM THE ADVOCATE:

Fort Bragg tours the Coast Hotel

(The city is now pretending to have no responsibility in the huge homeless problem here…)

http://www.advocate-news.com/general-news/20160225/ews-report-old-coast-tour

RANDOM PLUG

If you want good, authentic Mexican food, please go to Taqueria Ricarda’s rather than Taco Bell (local vs. corporate business). We went out to dinner there last night and were shocked to be the only customers there. Ricarda said that her business has dropped off recently. We don’t want yet another home-town enterprise going out of business, do we? Our food was delicious, and we got it fast. You get a basket of chips and salsa while waiting, and there are maps on the walls that you can stare at and make travel plans/daydreams w/ your kids. Contact info.: 647 E. Oak St., Fort Bragg 95437. 707/964-8684

ANOTHER FEW DROPS FOR FORT BRAGG

City Notes

February 25, 2016

State Water Board Issues Crucial Permit for City’s New Reservoir

Last Friday, the Water Board’s Division of Water Rights signed off on a requested amendment to the City’s licensed right to divert water from a tributary to Hare Creek. The amendment does not change the amount of water from the City’s Waterfall Gulch source that can be diverted and used, but it allows the City to store the water in the new Summers Lane Reservoir. The Summers Lane reservoir will hold up to 45 acre-feet of water in an off-stream pond which covers about 6.5 acres. It will be constructed on a City-owned property at the north end of Summers Lane (near the Mendocino Coast Humane Society shelter). The project will be put out to bid within the next couple of weeks, so the Water Board’s approval was issued in the nick of time. Construction will begin this spring and be completed by early summer allowing the reservoir to be at least partially filled by this fall.

A Friend to Everyone Joins our Police Force

This week, the Fort Bragg Police Department’s youngest member, a one-year old German Shepherd, joined the force. The Department’s K-9 handler, Officer Brandon McGregor, has chosen a new name for the dog which had been named “Jerry” (not a suitable name for a police dog). Jerry has been renamed “Takoda” - which is a Native American word meaning “friend to everyone.” Officer McGregor and Takoda are heading off to a five-week long, intensive training camp for K-9s and their handlers. We are very excited to have Takoda in the Department and expect that he will be making the rounds with Officer McGregor real soon.

Police Department Acquires a Drone

The Fort Bragg Police Department recently acquired a drone (i.e., unmanned aircraft). Drones can be a useful tool to assist law enforcement agencies with investigations. The drone also will be helpful in deterring and identifying abalone poachers and in responding to emergencies along the coastal bluffs.

Free Public Wifi in Downtown Fort Bragg!

The Fort Bragg Wireless Internet Project was the brainchild of John Naulty, Jr., a bright young man who graduated from Fort Bragg High School in 2008. John spearheaded the conversation with the City Council’s Technology ad hoc committee (Dave Turner and Scott Deitz) and helped get other key players to the table. In response, the City Council agreed to use $10,000 from the Waste Management Community Benefit Fund to get free public wifi up and running in the heart of downtown Fort Bragg. The City of Fort Bragg and Mendocino Community Network (MCN) are partners in the endeavor. For more on the project’s background, check out its website at http://fortbraggwifi.com. The free public wifi service went live this week. Technicians from the City and MCN are continuing efforts to optimize the service.

Public, Education, Government (PEG) Television

Over the past year, Mendocino TV has worked under contract with the City of Fort Bragg to “light up” the public access television channels provided by Comcast in accordance with the City’s franchise agreement. At this time, programming is available on Channel 3 and includes live and replayed broadcasts of Fort Bragg City Council and Planning Commission meetings. Adding more programming is the next priority for the PEG start-up. A volunteer PEG Advisory Committee has been meeting intermittently to share creative thoughts regarding programming. In the March Comcast CATV bills, customers will receive a survey regarding the PEG. We urge Comcast customers to please complete and return the survey and tell us about your viewing habits and preferences- as this will help guide the programming.

Mark Your Calendars

Information on upcoming public meetings can be found on the “Upcoming Agenda Items” pages on the City’s website or by signing up for meeting notifications using the “Notify Me” feature at https://city.fortbragg.com. The following public meetings are planned in March: · Wednesday, March 2nd at 3 PM – Finance & Administration Meeting – City Hall Conference Room. Agenda will include an update on the Facilities and Equipment Internal Service Fund Reserve Analysis. · Thursday, March 10th at 3 PM – Special City Council Work Session – Fort Bragg Town Hall. The City Council and staff will conduct a “Mid-Year Budget Review” for FY 2015/16. · Monday, March 14th at 6 PM – City Council Meeting – Fort Bragg Town Hall. Agenda will include an update on various topics related to the City’s water supply. · Thursday, March 17th at 3 PM – Public Works & Facilities Committee Meeting – City Hall Conference Room. Agenda will include a status report on the Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrade Project. · Friday, March 25th from 8 – 10 AM – City Dialogue Meeting- Fort Bragg Town Hall. The City Dialogue meetings are held quarterly and provide an opportunity for members of the public to have an informal discussion with the City Manager and the City’s management team about City projects and activities and other community matters. · Monday, March 28th at 6 PM – City Council Meeting – Fort Bragg Town Hall. Tentative agenda has not been set.

MORE BAD NEWS for paranoids. Check out the Fort Bragg Police Department's drone at:

https://www.facebook.com/154811847891628/videos/1022220814484056/?fref=nf

PG&E RATE CHANGE ALERT;

Watch a Coast home go solar in less than 60 seconds.

http://mendocinosolarservice.cmail20.com/t/r-e-vuhkhjy-jhthlilkli-m/

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 25, 2016

JAMES ANDEREGG, Fort Bragg. Disturbing the peace.

JUAN BARRERA, Fort Bragg. DUI, suspended license, probation revocation.

JAMES BELDEN III, Ukiah. Receiving stolen property, burglary tools, controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

LAURA CANTARONI, Ukiah. Receiving stolen property.

TED DEMITS, Fort Bragg. Meth for sale, maintenance of drug facility, probation revocation.

MATHEW GARDINER, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

THOMAS HANOVER JR., Ukiah. Domestic battery.

GARRIE HOAGLIN, Covelo. Failure to register.

RICHARD KLAISNER, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

DARIO LOPEZ, Rio Rancho, New Mexico/Laytonville. Pot possession for sale, sales.

DAVID MEINN, Sacramento/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ALEXANDER POULIDES, Willits. Probation revocation.

DANNY RAY, Fresno/Ukiah. DUI.

ZANE ROESNER, Redding/Fort Bragg. DUI.

ZACHARY SIMONS, Possession of/under influence of controlled substance, probation revocation.

TERESA SMITH, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

CHERYL TURNER, Fort Bragg. Disturbing the peace.

CLAUD WALKER, Willits. Resisting, probation revocation.

EVANDER WILLIAMS, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

SEEMS awfully premature to call Trump a fascist, let alone a Nazi. He'd have to be smarter, have to have a plan, have to be a lot more coherent than he is. But he is in the American fascist tradition of Father Coughlin, Billy Sunday and farther back, the xenophobes of the Know Nothing Party.

TODAY'S fascist-oriented thinking has the big megaphones, though, what with Limbaugh and the whiz-bang excitements of Fox News and the rest of the shills for the rich, but the fascists of yesteryear were nowhere nearly as influential as the propagandists of reaction are today. Trump has benefitted from years of site prep, although he doesn't have coherent opinions about anything — yet. Wait til he signs on his Cheney.

WHAT AMAZES ME is how the rich have managed to convert themselves into underdogs, persuading millions of wage workers that government is their problem, not the rigged system the rich have put in place. As late as the middle 1950s, the one percenters were taxed at 95%. Ordinary incomes weren't hit hard at all. And the revenue went mostly to basic amenities that we could all see and benefit from, except the ever-expanding cost of empire squandered on a demagogic military. Trump will make the economy even more unfair, and a lot uglier. And he'll beat Hillary like a drum on his way to the presidency.

I THOUGHT for sure Rubio would get the Republican nod, but Trump is rolling them all up.

ROBOT RUBIO TURNS TERMINATOR ON DONALD TRUMP

Highlight of the night:

“Here’s a guy that inherited $200 million. If he hadn’t inherited $200 million do you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan!”

— Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio was on a mission on Thursday night: destroy the Donald. How much damage did he really do?

The Florida senator delivered what was easily his best debate performance yet Thursday night, hammering frontrunner Donald Trump repeatedly on his character, his business record, and his claims to being a conservative. It was the performance he needed. The question now is whether it will matter at all.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/26/robot-rubio-turns-terminator-on-donald-trump.html

FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS HUGE EDU-DATA DUMP

http://www.times-standard.com/general-news/20160224/federal-judge-orders-state-officials-to-turn-over-student-information

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

“How about forcing companies to withhold taxes from paychecks” – Q

Q, we are talking apples and oranges. The government forcing companies to withold taxes from paychecks does not in any way endanger the continued existence of the company.

Apple sells a product which cannot be hacked, not even by Apple itself. Apple intentionally made privacy of personal data a selling point. People buy Apple products because Apple cares about protecting personal privacy from government prying.

Now the government wants to force Apple to create a company task force and dedicate company resources to figure out a way to break that privacy guarantee their business model is built upon. The government wants to force Apple to create a “key” that would invalidate the privacy of data of millions of iPhones which people bought because they knew their privacy was protected.

If the government can force a company to dedicate company resources to destroy the company, by destroying the privacy that promotes sales of its product, that is much different from forcing the witholding of taxes, which does not destroy the company or force allocation of company resources to realize the company’s mission.

In any event, an employee can use a revised W-4 form to prevent witholding of taxes. I have done that in the past through Line 7 of the W-4 Form: “I claim exemption from withholding” to prevent the government/company from witholding any taxes from my paycheck.

LOOKING BACKWARD

by Jeffrey Toobin

Antonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed. Belligerent with his colleagues, dismissive of his critics, nostalgic for a world where outsiders knew their place and stayed there, Scalia represents a perfect model for everything that President Obama should avoid in a successor. The great Justices of the Supreme Court have always looked forward; their words both anticipated and helped shape the nation that the United States was becoming. Chief Justice John Marshall read the new Constitution to allow for a vibrant and progressive federal government. Louis Brandeis understood the need for that government to regulate an industrializing economy. Earl Warren saw that segregation was poison in the modern world. Scalia, in contrast, looked backward.

His revulsion toward homosexuality, a touchstone of his worldview, appeared straight out of his sheltered, nineteen-forties boyhood. When, in 2003, the Court ruled that gay people could no longer be thrown in prison for having consensual sex, Scalia dissented, and wrote, “Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” He went on, “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a life style that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”

But it was in his jurisprudence that Scalia most self-consciously looked to the past. He pioneered “originalism,” a theory holding that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the beliefs of the white men, many of them slave owners, who ratified it in the late eighteenth century. During Scalia’s first two decades as a Justice, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist rarely gave him important constitutional cases to write for the Court; the Chief feared that Scalia’s extreme views would repel Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court’s swing vote, who had a toxic relationship with him during their early days as colleagues. (Scalia’s clashes with O’Connor were far more significant than his much chronicled friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.) It was not until 2008, after John G. Roberts, Jr., had succeeded Rehnquist, that Scalia finally got a blockbuster: District of Columbia v. Heller, about the Second Amendment. Scalia spent thousands of words plumbing the psyches of the Framers, to conclude (wrongly, as John Paul Stevens pointed out in his dissent) that they had meant that individuals, not just members of “well-regulated” state militias, had the right to own handguns. Even Scalia’s ideological allies recognized the folly of trying to divine the “intent” of the authors of the Constitution concerning questions that those bewigged worthies could never have anticipated. During the oral argument of a challenge to a California law that required, among other things, warning labels on violent video games, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Scalia’s harangue of a lawyer by quipping, “I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?”

Scalia described himself as an advocate of judicial restraint, who believed that the courts should defer to the democratically elected branches of government. In reality, he lunged at opportunities to overrule the work of Presidents and of legislators, especially Democrats. Scalia helped gut the Voting Rights Act, overturn McCain-Feingold and other campaign-finance rules, and, in his last official act, block President Obama’s climate-change regulations. Scalia’s reputation, like the Supreme Court’s, is also stained by his role in the majority in Bush v. Gore. His oft-repeated advice to critics of the decision was “Get over it.”

Not long ago, Scalia told an interviewer that he had cancelled his subscription to the Washington Post and received his news from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times (owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church), and conservative talk radio. In this, as in his jurisprudence, he showed that he lived within the sealed bubble of contemporary conservative thought. That bubble also helps explain the Republican response to the new vacancy on the Court. Within hours of Scalia’s death, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, announced that the Senate will refuse even to allow a vote on Obama’s nominee, regardless of who he or she turns out to be. Though other Republican senators have indicated that they might be a little more flexible, at least on hearing out a nominee, the chances of a confirmation before the end of Obama’s term appear to be close to nil.

This Republican intransigence is a sign of panic, not of power. The Court now consists of four liberals (Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan) and three hard-core conservatives (Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Alito), plus Anthony Kennedy, who usually but not always sides with the conservatives. With Scalia’s death, there is a realistic possibility of a liberal majority for the first time in two generations, since the last days of the Warren Court. A Democratic victory in November will all but assure this transformation. Republicans are heading to the barricades; Democrats were apparently too blindsided to recognize good news when they got it.

Like Nick Carraway, Scalia “wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.” The world didn’t coöperate. Scalia won a great deal more than he lost, and he and his allies succeeded in transforming American politics into a cash bazaar, with seats all but put up for bidding. But even though Scalia led a conservative majority on the Court for virtually his entire tenure, he never achieved his fondest hopes—thanks first to O’Connor and then to Kennedy. Roe v. Wade endures. Affirmative action survives. Obamacare lives. Gay rights are ascendant; the death penalty is not. (These positions are contingent, of course, and cases this year may weaken the Court’s resolve.) For all that Presidents shape the Court, the Justices rarely stray too far from public opinion. And, on the social issues where the Court has the final word, the real problem for Scalia’s heirs is that they are out of step with the rest of the nation. The public wants diversity, not intolerance; more marriages and fewer executions; less money in politics, not more. Justice Scalia’s views—passionately felt and pungently expressed though they were—now seem like so many boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

CONGRESSMAN DENHAM INTRODUCES BILL TO ELIMINATE STRIPED BASS DOUBLING FROM FEDERAL LAW

by Dan Bacher

On February 22, Congressman Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) introduced a controversial bill, the Save our Salmon Act (SOS), that eliminates the doubling requirement established by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992 (CVPIA) for striped bass.

The “striper” is a popular California gamefish that has been devastated by Delta water exports and declining water quality over the past three decades.

The CVPIA required the doubling of all naturally-spawning anadromous fish species, including Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead, striped bass, American shad, green sturgeon and white sturgeon, by 2002. Unfortunately, not only have the state and federal governments failed to meet the doubling requirements for these fish species, but many of these fish populations have instead declined to record low levels.

Denham described the striped bass, a fish introduced into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River from the East Coast over 130 years ago, as “a known predator fish of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.”

According to a news release from Denham’s office, “The CVPIA mandated population doubling for all anadromous fish as part of an effort to protect the fish populations. Under this requirement, both native species and predator fish, specifically striped bass, are included.”

Utilizing the false claim by corporate agribusiness interests that Sacramento and San Joaquin River water needed to sustain the fish, wildlife, ecosystem, farms and cities of the San Francisco Bay-Delta is “wasted,” Denham said, “This law has led to sending millions of acre-feet of water to the ocean and millions of dollars being spent every year to protect fish populations across the Central Valley.”

“Our devastating drought has been made worse annually by the Obama administration in conjunction with environmental extremists who prioritize fish over families,” claimed Denham. “Yet they push out millions of acre-feet and fail to address predator species, which their own estimates have shown eat 98 percent of endangered fish species. We must stop the crazy cycle of spending money on both the fish we want to save and the fish that kill them.”

Rep. Denham has previously introduced two other pieces of “predation-related legislation,” a bill to establish a pilot program to “study predator fish” on the Stanislaus River in 2013, and an amendment to make salmon and steelhead recovery plans “more effective” by “ensuring focus on predation control efforts” in 2015. Both years, his legislation passed the House.

Denham and his corporate agribusiness allies are cynically blaming the striped bass for salmonid declines in order to divert attention from massive water exports to agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the key factor in the decline of salmon and other fish species. In fact, these species coexisted for many decades until water exports, combined with declining water quality and state and federal dam operations, drove these species to record low levels in recent years.

In fact, reducing numbers of striped bass, as Denham has proposed in his two previous bills, could actually have a negative impact on Delta ecosystem, according to prominent scientists.

An article by Dr. Peter B. Boyle, UC Davis author and fish biologists, and William A. Bennett, fish ecologist with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences in the California Water Blog in 2011 states:

“If the striped bass is indeed the dominant predator on other fishes (the reason for a control program), then their decrease should have the most impact on species that are most frequently consumed. The ‘release’ from predation by striped bass is highly likely to benefit many other alien fish that are also known predators and competitors on endangered fishes. For example, Mississippi silversides are important in the diets of 1-3 year old striped bass, so bass predation may be regulating the silverside population. Fewer striped bass could result in greater silverside numbers, which may have negative effects on delta smelt through predation on eggs and larvae.

Reducing the striped bass population is quite likely to have a negative, rather than positive, effect on the species a control program is supposed to protect. By messing with a dominant predator (if indeed it is), the agencies are inadvertently playing roulette with basic ecosystem processes that can change in unexpected ways. Of course, if it is not a predator that is regulating native fish populations, this issue is moot.” (https://californiawaterblog.com/2011/01/31/striped-bass-control-the-cure-worse-than-the-disease)

The striped bass, along with salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt and other fish species, is a victim, not a cause, of water export-induced fishery declines. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s s 2015 Fall Midwater Trawl demonstrates that, since 1967, populations of striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad have declined by 99.7, 98.3, 99.9, 97.7, 98.5 and 93.7 percent, respectively, according to Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). (www.counterpunch.org/...)

The natural production of Sacramento winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon has declined by 98.2 and 99.3%, respectively, and is only at 5.5 and 1.2 percent of doubling levels mandated by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, California Water Code and California Fish & Game Code.

“Failure to enforce temperature criteria on the upper Sacramento River led to the loss of 95% of winter-run, 98% of fall-run and virtually all of the spring-run Chinook salmon in 2014,” said Jennings.

Then in 2015, over 97 percent of the winter-run Chinook salmon perished in lethally warm water conditions on the upper section of the Sacramento River above Red Bluff, due to mismanagement by the state and federal water agencies. (www.facebook.com/...)

“Since 1995, The California Department of Water Resources and US Bureau of Reclamation have fully complied with Bay-Delta water quality objectives in only 8 of 21 years. The State Water Board has never taken an enforcement action for the thousands upon thousands of violations,” said Jennings.

To restore salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, striped bass and others species, “sending millions of acre-feet of water to the ocean,” something that Denham detests, is exactly what is needed to restore the estuary. The mixing of fresh and saltwater in the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary, the largest estuary on the West Coast, provides a nursery and spawning ground essential to the life histories of dozens of fish and shellfish species.

Not only are Chinook salmon, steelhead, striped bass and Delta smelt dependent on a healthy estuary, but halibut, leopard sharks, sevengill sharks, sixgill sharks, soupfin sharks, Dungeness crabs, starry flounder, Pacific anchovies, Pacific herring, Pacific sardines and other species need a healthy bay and estuary to survive and thrive.

To read the bill, go to: denham.house.gov/…

Note: the bill hasn’t been assigned a number yet.

TEEN TECH WEEK AT UKIAH LIBRARY

March 8th-12th - Zine-Making Workshop, Minecraft, Wii-U Gaming, Coding Camp & a Teen Lock-In District Teens at Ukiah Library will be hosting five events during Teen Tech Week: Zine-Making Workshop, Minecraft Build-Off, Wii-U Gaming, Coding Camp, & a Teen Lock-In. Please spread the word!

The Ukiah Library will be hosting five events during Teen Tech Week 2016 (March 8th -March 12th)

Zine-Making Workshop, Tuesday, March 8th 3-6 pm Minecraft Build-Off, Wed. March 9th 2-6 pm Wii-U Gaming, Thursday, March 10th 3:30-5 pm Coding Camp for Teens, Friday March 11th 3-5 pm Teen Lock-In, Saturday March 12th 6 pm -12 am

Local teens will be tuning in at the library as Mendocino County Library celebrates Teen Tech Week* [March 8th - March 12th]. They join thousands of other libraries and schools across the country who are celebrating this year’s theme, Create It at Your Library, to raise awareness about how Mendocino County Library creates a space to extend teens’ learning beyond the classroom where they can explore, create and share content. Zine-Making Workshop - On Tuesday, March 8th from 3-6pm, we’ll be learning how to make our own zines (pronounced “zeens”). Zines are cut-and-paste, self-published magazines that are reproduced on copiers and can be distributed to friends and others in your community.

We’ll present a Minecraft Build-Off for Young Adults (aged 11-18) on Wednesday, March 9th from 2-6pm. The build-off will incorporate STEAM learning methods through playing and building in Minecraft. There will be small prizes awarded for speed, agility and creativity. Registration is required: 467-6434 or carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us

Wii-U Gaming for Teens * Challenge your friends at our weekly gaming for teens program! We meet every Thursday from 3:30-5 pm.

Coding Camp for Teens - Teens are invited to participate in Coding Camp on Friday, March 11th, 3-5 pm. Level Up! Participants can use Game Maker, Code Academy, or Code.org to grow their coding skills.

Teen Lock-In - Teens entering 7th-12th grades are welcome to attend Teen Lock-In at the Library, an after-hours event to take place on Saturday, March 12th from 6pm-midnight. With games & activities like Minute*to-Win-It, Super Smash Bros, Sharpie Tie-Dye, & Zombie Tag in the Stacks, fun & adventure are guaranteed. Pizza, snacks, refreshments & materials will be provided. Registration and parent/guardian permission are required for teens to attend. To obtain a permission slip or for more information * please contact Melissa at the Ukiah Library: 467-6434 or carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us

Teen Tech Week is a national initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) aimed at teens, their parents, educators and other concerned adults. The purpose of the initiative is to ensure that teens are competent and ethical users of technology. Teen Tech Week encourages teens to take advantage of the various current & emerging technologies available at libraries for education and recreation, and to recognize that librarians are qualified, trusted professionals who can help them achieve greater digital literacy.

Teen Tech Week is held annually the second week of March. For more information, please contact Melissa at the Ukiah Library: 467-6434 or carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us Sponsored by the Ukiah Valley Friends of the Library.

Melissa Eleftherion Carr

Teen & Adult Services Librarian Ukiah Library 105 N. Main Street, Ukiah CA 95482 carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us (707) 467-6434 www.mendolibrary.org