Mendocino County Today: Friday, July 22, 2016

• Blackbird Bye-Bye
• Semi Search
• Witty Heds
• Greenies
• Strump Speech
• Denouncing 57
• Hare Creek
• Pot Raids
• Half Staff
• Terpene Festival
• Religious Tracts
• Yesterday's Catch
• William Faulkner
• Police Appreciation
• Ballot Disgust
• Fisher Shame
• Redwood Symphony
• College Transfer
• Literary Events
• Radio Competition
• Gimme Shelter

IT’S UNANIMOUS!

Blackbird Ranch Expansion Proposal Sent Back To Drawing Board.

After a lengthy meandering descriptive introduction from Planning Staff and four Blackbird representatives — which raised several new subjects that the public has not had an opportunity to review — everybody in the room besides the Blackbird people — including County staff and the Planning Commissioners — had good reasons to put off Blackbird's application to expand their “ranch” from a 38 person facility to a 292 person combo resort-group home-charter school facility at Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting in Ukiah.

A parade of over a dozen Anderson Valley People, most of them neighbors of the proposed large expansion, denounced the project for a wide range of reasons: size of the proposed expansion (almost as big as downtown Philo itself), traffic (students, guests, construction, service vehicles, etc.), road conditions, emergency access, water inadequancy, unanswered septic questions, non-habitability of yurts, comingling of “non-profit” “education” and for-profit resort activities, safety of guests, students, neighbors and animals, the unreliability of the applicant and their failure to deliver on earlier promises, their complicated and suspicious conglomerated corporate “non-profit” structure, the “sloppiness” of the County’s “mitigated negative declaration,” the incompatibility of the project with the rural characteristics of the area, the removal of a large number of acres from timber production to vineyard and resort use (the remote property overall is about 250 acres), the “disingenuousness” of their proposed methods of bringing students and guests to and from the facility, mistreatment and underpayment of worker-“interns,” misguided conversion of a private road to a public road, increased fire danger, lack of communications with neighbors and the public in general, crude and unsuccessful attempts at legal intimidation of neighbors (“we’re not stupid” was uttered several times), lack of analysis of the many impacts the project will have, unfairness of the loose permit terms compared to strict rules imposed on neighboring facilities, nuisance generation, deed restrictions on nearby roads not taken into account, inadequate definition of the project and its various stages and lack of benchmarks over the seven year proposed project period, lack of adequate access to medical care, inadequate parking, potential impact on endangered species in area, and the general lack of any support for the project from the community.

UPSHOT: Send the project back to the Planning Department for “refinement” and bring it back to the Planning Commission again perhaps in December. (We’ll have more on the Planning Commission meeting later.)

FALLING DEBRIS from this truck was initially thought responsible for the death of the young Redwood Valley woman Wednesday on 101 near Willits...

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ORIGINAL REPORT: Young Woman Killed Yesterday Near Willits — CHP seeks public’s help in finding the semi driver whose lost load caused the accident.

On July 20, 2016, at about 11:55am, an as yet unidentified 23 year old female driver from Redwood Valley was driving her 2014 Subaru northbound on Hwy 101 south of Willits (south of Walker Road) in the fast lane. She was traveling behind a truck-tractor pulling a semi-trailer when for unknown reasons vehicle debris was dislodged from the truck-tractor and trailer. The vehicle debris struck the Subaru and the driver causing the Subaru to cross the southbound lanes and off the west shoulder of Hwy 101. The driver succumbed to her injuries during incident. The truck-tractor and trailer continued traveling northbound on Hwy 101. The Ukiah CHP is seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the truck-tractor and its occupant(s). The truck tractor had a red cab and the semi-trailer had a tarp covering its load. The truck-tractor or trailer may have damage to a wheel and brake drum. The truck tractor was last seen traveling northbound on Hwy 101 towards Willits at about 11:55 am on Wednesday, July 20. If you have any information regarind this collision/accident please contact the Ukiah Area CHP dispatch Center at 707/467-4000.

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UPDATE: Victim of freak accident near Willits identified

The CHP is pursuing leads it hopes will help identify a big rig involved in a freak accident that resulted in the death of a Mendocino County woman whose car was struck with parts from an exploding brake assembly Wednesday.

The 23-year-old victim, Willits resident Sugey Garcia, died when the impact of the flying debris caused her to drive off the side of Highway 101 and over a steep embankment just south of town, authorities said.

The CHP said Thursday the woman was driving northbound near Walker Road just before noon when she came up behind a tractor-trailer rig and her car was suddenly struck by at least one airborne object, initially thought to be scrap material or cargo being hauled by the tractor-trailer in front of her.

Later investigation indicated it more likely was part of a metal brake assembly from a rear trailer that blew apart, CHP Officer Kylar Adams said.

It’s possible the truck driver didn’t even notice, Adams said.

But “the pieces were pretty big,” he said. “We’re talking about football size.”

The resulting impact caused Garcia’s 2014 Subaru Impreza to careen left across the oncoming lanes and over the opposite side of the highway, missing several trees but landing quite a way down the embankment, Adams said.

Garcia was pronounced dead at Ukiah Valley Medical Center, the CHP said. No cause of death has been determined.

A large dog in the back of her car survived, Adams said. He said the animal did not appear to be injured.

There were multiple witnesses to the crash, and, after reinterviewing some of them Thursday, the CHP said it was looking for a white three-axle conventional tractor-trailer, possibly a Volvo, hauling a dark orange or rust-colored trailer similar to the color of a Conex shipping container, Adams said.

The CHP said the truck also likely had wheel or brake drum damage but could have traveled some distance before the driver realized anything was wrong.

“The size of the debris leads us to believe it’s a larger truck, mostly likely a multiple axle vehicle,” Adams said.

A request for information from the public has elicited “good leads, good possibilities,” he said. “....But as of yet, the truck is still MIA, missing.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Ukiah Area CHP Dispatch Center at (707) 467-4000.

(by Mary Callahan, courtesy of the Press Democrat)

WITTY CHRON HEADLINE over the story of the Giants loss to the Red Sox last night: "Boston tee-off party is no fun." Here at the exhausted AVA, we try to come up with witty heds but only occasionally manage it. The New York Post is best among the daily papers. Locally, the Press Democrat leads in witlessness.

MICHAEL MOORE, a lefty, says he thinks a Trump presidency is a real possibility. "I think Trump is going to win. I'm sorry," he said. "People are in denial of this, but the chance of him winning is really, really good." Moore said such is the disgust with Hillary that Trump will ride his denunciations of her and the Democrats right on in to the White House because working (white) people especially are sick of the pseudo-liberal piety and general political correctness the Democrats roll out as they roll jobs overseas and roll wages down here at home, not to mention their continuation of Bush's disastrous wars. Moore didn't mention the alienation of the millions of people who turned out for Bernie, many of whom will now either vote for Jill Stein or Trump — or not vote for anyone for President.

WE'RE GOING FOR STEIN, although we have very little enthusiasm for the Green Party. On the Northcoast, as in many areas of the country, the Greens are merely an adjunct of the Democratic Party, historically not challenging Democrats in states where they might harm the Democrat's presidential candidate. And, locally, the Greens, now non-existent, were pretty much a collection of nuts whose hippie rituals turned off conventional people. When Mendocino County's One True Green, Richard Johnson, shuffled off to his reward (perhaps an eternal Green Party "stack") in 2011, the Mendocino Greens, down to a half-dozen crackpots, died with him.

THERE ARE LOTS of people so disgusted with Democrats generally, and Hillary in particular, they'll go for Trump simply to blow up the Democrats. (Count us among the demolitionists, but Trump, like Hillary, is unthinkable but Trump at least provides great entertainment.) We'll probably go for Jill, but if she and the national Greens go for their usual "safe states" strategy, we'll write in Richard Johnson.

BACK IN 2000, the AVA's Olivia Dugan wrote up a typical Green Party meeting, this one at Lauren’s Restaurant in Boonville...

GREENS GRIDLOCK IN ANDERSON VALLEY: POT PARTY II

by Olivia Dugan

Greg Krouse was appointed emergency vibes-watcher because someone had to tell Ike he was being “too negative.”

Ike leaned forward, raised his voice and called out a river of words in a thick German accent. I had stopped paying attention to him. He had been childish and intrusive from the beginning of Monday night’s Mendocino Green Party Meeting in Boonville and finally Krouse had to let him know that, “Ike, man, your vibes — they’re like way over the edge, OK?”

Dan Hamburg, the Northcoast’s former Congressman turned Green, lead the meeting. Hamburg rubbed his forehead and sighed. All 27 people sat in a large circle in the empty dining room at Lauren’s restaurant and looked at Hamburg, waiting for him to continue. A few hands went up. Hamburg started pointing and verbally designating a speaker’s order or, as the Greens call it, “a stack.” He called out names, “first Bruce, then Patricia, Liz and C.J.”

There was a loud groan. It was Ike. He jerked his arm above his head in short, angry bursts.

“Yes, Ike, you too,” said Hamburg, and rolled his eyes.

The stack was thus stacked. All people called upon spoke in the order facilitator Hamburg had stacked them. At Mendocino Green Party meetings everyone sits in a circle and everyone raises their hands. It sounds fair: everyone equal, everyone included and a vibes-watcher to keep the peace.

So why did I feel like I was in the resource room at a junior high school rather than at an adult political meeting?

First of all, it was unclear what the purpose of the meeting really was. Some said it was a regular Mendo Green Party meeting, while others claimed it was a meeting to discuss forming a local Anderson Valley group to work specifically on the Nader campaign. Some attendees wanted only to work on the Personal Use Marijuana Initiative (PUMI). Finally, some said the meeting was an informational session to educate undecided folks on what it means to be Green. It turned out everyone was there for a different reason.

An argument broke out. Hands shot up and Hamburg resumed stacking. I put my pen down and watched.

The Green Party meetings in Mendocino are supposed to rely on consensus for reaching any kind of decision. No one could agree on what the purpose of the meeting was, so someone changed the subject.

The meeting had begun with a detailed agenda that included time allotments for each discussion item. Hamburg did his best to stick with the schedule, but as hours passed the gathering slipped further and further into chaos.

Hamburg exhausted his supply of peace and good vibes; he tried to keep the discussion moving along by summarizing and making suggestions aimed at efficiently getting the meeting headed in a productive direction. But during one of Hamburg’s patient mini-speeches a man named Richard Johnson suddenly shot both his arms up into the air.

Hamburg stopped and paused for a moment. “Did you make a touchdown, Richard? Is that what you’re doing over there?”

“No, I wanted to let you know that your time is up on this issue,” Johnson said.

If I had to vote for the most ludicrous person in attendance, it would be a tie between Ike and Richard Johnson.

At one point Johnson announced that six spaces were open on the Green Party county council. Johnson mentioned that anyone interested in running for council had better be prepared to work with him. He said that might not be easy, that he is currently in the middle of his term as a council member, and most other Mendo Greens have expressed severe antagonistic feelings toward him.

Johnson is a wild-eyed Green Party enthusiast and private businessman who seems to function as a one-person anti-advertisement for progressive politics. He carried on about all the money he has raised for the party. Someone confronted him about apparent math discrepancies and wanted to know how much of the money he collected for the Greens went to his personal business. Johnson became defensive and raised his voice and said “I can’t do that math for you right now.”

Later Johnson nominated himself for Green Party chairman and suggested everyone vote at the next meeting. Hands went up. Hamburg stacked again. A lengthy argument followed.

Next came gridlock via a discussion about finances. No one could agree on how or where to donate money. Several people wanted to save money. One smart man pointed out that the election is just around the corner and the Greens need to be working, donating funds, whatever it takes to help the campaign.

“What’s with this fiscal conservatism?” he asked. “We can raise more money later.”

Despite all the confusion, there were some worthwhile announcements made during the meeting.

A Nader campaign headquarters is opening up in Fort Bragg at 250 N. Main Street. A grand opening celebration is scheduled for September 16 starting at 2 p.m.

A representative from the Alliance for Democracy said she has raised money, signed up Green voters, and prepared tabling kits for anyone who wants to volunteer. Patricia Kovner has raised more than $1,300 for the Green Party and also has worked hour after hour to sign up Green voters and spread the good Nader news. Greg Krouse, the impromptu vibes-watcher, is hard at work to protest pesticide abuse in vineyards and backyard spraying, and called for volunteers to help him out. The meeting attracted several intelligent and devoted Greens, but together they seemed unable to muster enough critical mass to create coherent discussion.

The man seated next to me was a registered Democrat who had driven to the Boonville meeting from Point Arena to learn about the Green Party. He had heard it was to be an informational session. “That’s O.K., though, I see what it’s like now,” he said with a short laugh.

He had moved out to the sidewalk, looking exhausted, when I finally burst free of the place. It was 9:30pm and the meeting still raged inside. Three hours of stacking and vibes-watching had taken a toll on both of us. I just hope that he hasn’t been scared off permanently. A committed Green myself, I think I might enjoy a trip to the dentist for some novocaine-free tooth extractions before enduring another bout with Richard and Ike.

TRUMP'S AMERICA-FIRST ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night with an unusually emphatic appeal to Americans who feel that their country is spiraling out of control and yearn for a leader who will take aggressive, even extreme, actions to protect them. …

Portaying himself as a bold truth-teller who would confront and retaliate against threats to the United States, Mr. Trump challenged Republican orthodoxy as he promised to end multilateral trade deals and limit American intervention in global crises. He insisted he would somehow renegotiate all the “bad” trade deals the political establishment has made and said he would walk away from the table if individual countries wouldn’t cooperate.

He denounced “15 years of wars in the Middle East” — a rebuke of his own party’s last president, George W. Bush — and pledged to help union members, coal miners and other low-wage Americans who have historically supported Democrats.

“These are the forgotten men and women of our country,” said Mr. Trump, a billionaire with a mixed record of job creation and layoffs. “People who work hard but no longer have a voice — I am your voice.”

Facing a restive party on the final night of a convention that has been unusually turbulent and divided, Mr. Trump undertook a last-ditch attempt to galvanize the audience by focusing sharply on their Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and on multiple enemies to American stability.

He dwelled particularly on illegal immigrants and lawless Americans, saying they are as dangerous for the nation’s security as the Islamic State and Syrian refugees. In doing so, Trump advisers said, he sought to win over undecided voters who are sickened by the recent violence against police officers and worried about safety yet are unsure if Mr. Trump has the temperament and abilities to be commander in chief.

“I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country.”

While nomination speeches are traditionally optimistic and personal, full of hope and revelations that cast candidates in the best possible light for voters, Mr. Trump largely shaped his speech to resonate with a tense nation.

Sounding often like a wartime president, Mr. Trump used the word “threat” several times as he promised to “defeat the barbarians of ISIS” and take a strong hand in dealing with Iran, China, and other countries that he regards as adversaries. He also recited homicide rates in American cities and the thousands of illegal immigrants with criminal records, promising to control violence at home and abroad.

“It is time to show the whole world that America is back — bigger, and better and stronger than ever before,” Mr. Trump said.

He was blistering about Mrs. Clinton, too, and her tenure as Secretary Of State, arguing that her diplomatic strategy in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and other countries had led to civil unrest and political chaos and rendered her unfit to be president.

He speculated audaciously that President Obama regretted putting her in charge of the State Department.

“America is far less safe — and the world is far less stable — than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy,” Mr. Trump said.

In a bid to appeal to Democrats unhappy with their party’s embrace of Mrs. Clinton, he invoked the political message of her chief rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, and suggested that Mr. Sanders shared Republicans’ critique of her record.

“Her bad instincts and her bad judgment — something pointed out by Bernie Sanders — are what caused many of the disasters unfolding today,” Mr. Trump said. “But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now — poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad — will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them.”

Championing his “America First” foreign policy theme, he played on the anxieties of some voters that the rest of the world no longer respects the United States. And he pledged to act quickly to make Americans feel better about their country and put foreign allies and adversaries on notice that the nation would focus exclusively and forcefully on protecting its own interests.

“My message is that things have to change — and they have to change right now,” Mr. Trump said.

Boldness has been an enduring theme of Mr. Trump’s campaign, which has defied political tradition and the usual rules for candidates: Mr. Trump rose in the polls last summer even as he made statements about women, Mexicans, and prisoners of war like Senator John McCain that would normally doom presidential contenders.

(Courtesy, the New York Times)

SHERIFF ALLMAN AND DA EYSTER are already denouncing Prop 57, which will appear on the November ballot, placed there by Governor Brown. Brown who just keeps on keeping on, coming up with humanely disguised measures whose true purpose is to reduce state prison populations. Prop 57 says inmates could "earn credit toward their sentences by working on rehabilitation in education, vocational training, and treatment," meaning prison staff would sign off on people for release who've been enrolled in these classes. The measure would also leave it up to judges to decide if young offenders should be tried as adults. DAs presently make that decision.

57'S OPPONENTS SAY in reality that although 57 promises the early release of only non-violent offenders, loopholes will permit release of lots of very bad people, many of whom will soon re-appear in county jails.

TWO PREVIOUS STATE-MANDATED measures have filled county jails to overflowing, including our County jail here in bucolic Mendocino County, which has already compelled the County into triage mode, forced to release people who really ought to be sequestered for much longer periods and playing catch and release with others who deserve more time.

HERE ARE A FEW of the “non-violent crimes” for which early release would be possible if this measure is passed: rape by intoxication, rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving sex acts with minors, drive-by shooting, assault with a deadly weapon, taking a hostage, domestic violence involving trauma, possession of a bomb or weapon of mass destruction, hate crime causing physical injury, arson causing great bodily injury, discharging a firearm on school grounds, corporal injury to a child, and false imprisonment of an elderly person. (As an elderly person, I often feel falsely imprisoned, especially at public meetings.)

DA SPOKESMAN Mike Geniella says the DA's office will come up with a few local examples of just who might be coming home to the scene of their Mendo crimes if Prop 57 passes.

FORT BRAGG DOES NOT NEED THIS

Hare Creek Center Environmental Impact Report

Item 6C on the Fort Bragg City Council agenda for July 25, 2016: "Receive Report and Consider Adopting City Council Resolution Approving Professional Services Agreement with Michael Baker International for Preparation of Hare Creek Center Environmental Impact Report and Authorizing City Manager to Execute Same (Amount Not to Exceed $66,105; Funded by Developer Deposit Account DDA-016)."

Read the agenda and its attachments by clicking on this link: City Council Agenda 7/25/16

ANOTHER RAID ON NORTH COUNTY

On July 20, 2016 around 07:00 AM deputies of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, members of the California National Guard Counter Drug Team, BLM Rangers, Prevention Officers with Cal Fire, and members of the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force served a search warrant in the 52200 Block of North Highway 101, in Laytonville. This warrant resulted in the seizure of 2137 marijuana plants with two people, Timothy Trygg, 48, of San Francisco, and Samuel Kim, 36, of Laytonville, being arrested. Trygg and Kim were both booked into the County Jail on charges of marijuana cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale. Kim was also booked for being armed during the commission of a felony. Bail on Trygg was set at $25,000 and bail on Kim was set at $50,000. Wardens of the Department of Fish and Wildlife are also investigating possible charges of illegal water diversion, solid waste issues, and illegal grading.

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AND ANOTHER

On July 20, 2016 during the afternoon deputies of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, members of the California National Guard Counter Drug Team, BLM Rangers, Prevention Officers with Cal Fire, and members of the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force conducted three "open field" eradications of marijuana gardens in the area of the "Lodge Fire" south of the town of Leggett. These efforts resulted in the following seizures; Site 1- 2445 growing marijuana plants, site 2- 6637 growing marijuana plants and site 3- 1855 growing marijuana plants. No suspects were located in these grows and no arrest have been made at this time. Investigations are continuing. Wardens of the Department of Fish and Wildlife are also investigating possible charges of illegal water diversion, solid waste issues, and illegal grading.

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WELL, LOOK AT IT AS A PRICE BOOST FOR ALL THE DOPE THE COPS DIDN'T TAKE OFF LAYTONVILLE THIS WEEK…

18,396 Pot Plants, 11 Arrests In Laytonville Area Multiagency Raid

by Glenda Anderson

Local, state and federal law enforcement officers seized 18,396 marijuana plants and arrested 11 people while executing multiple search warrants in the Laytonville area this week, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office reported.

They also uncovered multiple cases of suspected illegal water diversions, grading and waste disposal, said Sheriff’s Lt. Shannon Barney, and confiscated four firearms.

“There’s a lot of concern with environmental” damage at grow sites, he said. Erosion, pesticide contamination, poisoned wildlife, clear cut forests and dried up streams are among the problems officials often uncover in connection with illegal marijuana growing. Environmental degradation is one of the reasons a mix of government agencies participate in eradication operations.

In addition to sheriff’s officials, law enforcement officers from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California National Guard Counterdrug Task Force, the Bureau of Land Management, Cal Fire and the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force participated in serving the warrants.

The diversion of water continues to be an acute problem. Although estimates on the amount of water a pot plant uses daily vary from less than 6 gallons per plant up to 15 gallons per plant. If so, the 18,396 plants seized would have used between 16.5 million to 41.4 million gallons of water over the average 150-day growing cycle for outdoor plants.

According to a 2014 state Fish and Wildlife study, just the illegal marijuana plants confiscated in California by law enforcement in recent years — between 2 million and 4 million annually — use upward of 1.8 billion gallons — or about 600,000 water tanker trucks over the five-month growing season. The impact has been felt in streambed alterations, algae generated from fertilizer runoff and unpermitted grading.

Monday morning, the multiagency team seized 701 plants near Branscomb Road, where Laytonville residents Julie Bailey, 49, Eric Bailey, 42, and Cacidy Bailey, 20; Dru Bailey, 41, of Colorado and Steven Colombo, 40, of Fort Bragg, were arrested, according to the sheriff’s office. They all were booked on suspicion of marijuana cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale, officials said. Eric and Dru Bailey additionally were charged with being prohibited persons in possession of firearms. The bail for each was set at $25,000. Fish and Wildlife is considering filing additional charges over water diversions, waste disposal and grading, Barney said.

Six more people were arrested in the Cahto Peak Road area Monday morning at a location where law enforcement officers seized 1,477 cannabis plants and 400 pounds of processed marijuana, officials said. They included Jonathan Marker, 33, of Colorado; Johnny Bassett, 34, of San Diego; Dakota Polito, 25, of Ukiah; Sean Hagen, 36, of McKinleyville; and Marina Connel, 35, of North Carolina.

Monday afternoon, the multiagency team seized 1,362 marijuana plants near Highway 101. No suspects were located in that case nor during another eradication effort that afternoon in the Cahto Peak area, where more than 6,880 plants were seized from two garden areas.

On Tuesday, officers seized 1,092 plants from another parcel near Highway 101 north of Laytonville and more than 6,000 plants in five garden sites in the Hunt Ranch area near Laytonville and the Red Mountain area near Leggett, sheriff’s officials said. No suspects were at the locations at the time, officials said.

Law enforcement officials arrested a Santa Rosa man and seized 882 marijuana plants at another Laytonville-area pot operation along Highway 101 on Tuesday. James Butler O’Conner, 28, was booked in the county jail on suspicion of marijuana for sale, officials said. Wildlife officials also are considering charges over suspected illegal water diversion, illegal grading and waste issues.

Such eradication operations are routine this time of year, triggered by observations of people growing more pot than allowed and Laytonville has long been a hot spot of marijuana cultivation. Currently, the maximum amount of pot that can be grown with a special permit is 99. Without the permit waiver, only 25 plants are allowed per parcel.

“This is an area where it has gotten a little out of control,” Barney said.

(Courtesy, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

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AT LEAST the wine industry's gargantuan straw in Northcoast water got a single mention in the above story, but the sacrosanct industrial wine industry has seriously overdrawn the Russian River and we will say it is also overdrawing the Anderson Valley's finite streams and aquifers. The wine industry also uses far more industrial chemicals than the dope business, and certainly more than the hack and squirters at the Mendocino Redwood Company. Not to make invidious comparisons here, but the total draw by the Northcoast's two intoxicant's industry on Northcoast water, not to mention their wholesale use of herbicides and pesticides, seem to be delivering a one-two punch to what's left of the Emerald Triangle's eco-viability.

ANDERSON VALLEY IGNORES HALF-STAFF PROCLAMATION

File this under "Ignorance is Bliss."

(Noted by MendocinoSportsPlus)

While the nation mourns the loss of the police officers ambushed in Baton Rouge, and the President issued a proclamation for flags to be flown at half-staff in their memory and as a show of respect for their sacrifice, Anderson Valley either didn't get the memo — or chose to ignore it.

While cruising through Boonville Wednesday, we noted everyone from the CalTrans office to the fire department to the county fairgrounds (and private businesses) were NOT flying the flag at "half-staff." The only flag at half-staff was at the Post Office.

CORRECTION: The Terpene Festival is Saturday, July 23 (I had the date right but the day wrong). And Emerald Pharms dispensary is at the "Solar Living Center" in Hopland, not "Real Goods."

— Fred Gardner

ANDREA LUNA ASKS:

2 women put up a rack of religious tracts on the entrance to the North Fort Bragg Headlands Trail. I requested that they remove them and respect our separation of church and state, since it is a public space. They refused, and when I asked again on my way out, they asked me to respect their freedom of speech. I complained to City Hall (yes, they are violating a city ordinance); if you're heading to the Trail this morning, please request that they remove the rack and literature, and please call City Hall.

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 21, 2016

DELBERT ALFORD, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ANGELA FERNANDEZ, Redwood Valley. Domestic assault.

OTONIEL GARCIA, Ukiah. Arson, vandalism.

LUCAS GARRISON, Garberville/Ukiah. Drunk in public.

KENNETH HANOVER JR., Covelo. Probation revocation.

SAMUEL KIM, Pot cultivation, sale, armed with firearm.

MICHAEL RAY, Willits. Probation revocation.

WILLIAM FAULKNER: VOICES IN THE MUD

By Manuel Vicent (from Poker of Aces)

(Translated by Louis S. Bedrock)

When William Faulkner was already a grand figure and John Kennedy was collecting such objects to adorn some of his private dinners, the writer received an invitation from the President for one of these events in the White House. At this table had already sat many of the Great: Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, and the Sinatras, to name a few. Pablo Casals and his cello had aggrandized some of the exquisite desserts.

Faulkner responded immediately:

“Mr. President:

I am just a farmer and do not have the proper clothes for such an occasion. However, if you are interested in dining with me, with great pleasure I invite you to my house of Rowan Oak, in Oxford Mississippi.”

The pride and courtesy implicit in such a response define the southern gentleman who, to round off his life, only needed to die while inebriated from a fall from his horse--and he almost achieved this. He was an unusual man. Of himself, at times he said he was the heir of a large landowner in the county; other times, that he was the son of a Negress and a crocodile. Both stories were dreams of grandeur.

As a young man, he had gotten off to a bad start in life. Neighbors called him, “That poor boy of the Faulkners who got fired from the Post Office for reading the letters,” when they noticed that he had begun to sauté in alcohol his tenuous jobs as mailman, house painter, bookstore clerk, and even as doorman at a whorehouse. Small, quiet, educated, short tempered, bird-faced, fine-lipped with a good nose that he highlighted with his famous moustache--this is the image of this genius.

From his early childhood, there are two photographs: in one he is dressed as a pilot of the Royal flying Corps, and in the other he sports a bohemian beard in Paris; in both pictures, he’s smoking a pipe.

He was not able to fulfill either of these desires. He wanted to be a pilot, but was initially rejected because of his short stature and when he finally was admitted to the RAF in Canada, the Great War had ended. He was not able to participate in the literary coterie of Gertrude Stein nor enter the circle of Sylvia Beach. Perhaps he crossed paths with James Joyce on The Boulevard Saint Michele without being recognized. Although his was not among the list of names of the “Lost Generation” but rather in the list of lost individuals, nevertheless he was the only one to discover the avant guard of Paris and to bring it back to Mississippi. Faulkner applied to literature the Cubist style of shattering the subject into various planes by transforming reality into several layers of simultaneous voices.

He had better luck in New Orleans where he made another attempt at the Bohemian life style. There he met the wife of the writer Sherwood Anderson, who exclaimed when he learned of Faulkner’s literary pretensions, “I’ll recommend you to an editor if you don’t oblige me to read any of your manuscripts.”

Following a vulgar book of poems, Faulkner published his first novel, Soldier’s Pay, and thus his ego began to follow the trajectory it had planned.

In 1930 he bought a large run down old house, Rowan Oak, which lacked running water and electricity, for $6,000, paid in installments. This was a manifestation of his desire to be a gentleman with the scent of the stable since one of his obsessions was to accumulate land surrounded with the whinny of horses, a luxury he couldn’t afford. The reconstruction of this mansion acclimated Faulkner to the development of his literature as if a metaphor for creating a great work.

The first thing he did was to hang a portrait of his grandfather over the fireplace, the Colonel William Clark Faulkner--banker, railroad owner, author of a successful romantic novel. To live like him, in style, disdaining money and at the same time doing everything possible to obtain it, was his design and his condemnation. This ancestor served as a model for Colonel John Sartoris, protagonist of Flags in the Dust, the first novel to take place in the imaginary county of Yoknapatawpha, a territory as large as a postage stamp. With all of this, his wife Estelle Oldham, from an aristocratic southern family also in ruins, was already getting things moving in the dilapidated living room of this mansion of old time cotton growers: the black housekeeper ruled the kitchen, the rich whites lived on the hill, the negroes in the cabins, the caimans in the swamps, while the Mississippi River, the cesspool of North America, flowed by, full of putrid whirlpools in the estuary which disseminated a whiff of slime in the air.

Although Faulkner was a poet of unsuccessful verse, one cannot understand his prose without understanding the profound penetration of poetry in his images. All his important stories evolve from a hallucinatory vision. It may be that of some children who have climbed a tree to observe the burial of their grandmother, the little girl who exhibits her mud soiled panties, that of the young girl who has been raped with a corncob by an impotent man, or the image of a barefooted woman who is pregnant and is walking along some forsaken highway.

From this initial image emerges a tree whose trunk has no branches, but whose roots submerge beneath the marsh where human passions share the same mud as the caimans. In The Sound and the Fury, the monologue ruminated by the idiot Benjy cross-pollinates with other stories that are glimpsed among the currents in the winding waters of the Mississippi--multiple voices submerged and superimposed in the putrid slime, images released in the asphyxiating atmosphere of the South: a literature difficult to digest, defended by Faulkner from the bastion of his own self esteem against editors.

Paying for his mansion was the source of much drama as he continued to add rooms, sheds, new wings, when he earned more money from his mercenary work in Hollywood where he went when he was desperate, as one would go to a salt mine. There he would remain stabled for a time with other salaried writers like Scott-Fitzgerald whose battery was already almost dead, and who had the floor of his small apartment covered with empty Coca-Cola bottles as he tried to kick alcohol. Faulkner participated in the adaptation to film of Hemingway’s novel, To Have and Have Not, and when he was presented to its director, Howard Hawks, before even shaking hands, he said, “I know perfectly well who you are. I’ve read your name on a check.” Faulkner was thanking him. Thanks to that check, Rowan Oaks had running water coming out of its faucets.

Faulkner didn’t get to be a military pilot, but he bought a small plane for his brother Dean who killed himself in it as soon as he learned to fly. His daughter Alabama also died shortly after she was born and that day was the only one in which Faulkner did not get drunk. This southern gentleman’s soul was divided between Puritanism and the delirium tremors: he saw rats along the walls as well as the brutal, poetic, mysterious passions of a dying world. It’s possible that he didn’t have the proper clothes to attend a dinner at The White House, but the truth is that no gentleman shares an intimate dinner with someone he doesn’t know. He died of a heart attack July 6, 1962. He was quite drunk--and two days earlier he had fallen off a horse.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME I feel compelled to post something. With all of the evil going on in the world, the anti-police movement growing stronger, and the all around hate being spread daily by the media, sometimes it is really hard for me to go to work, let alone have a good attitude while doing it.

But my shift tonight was a breath of fresh air. It started out with a wave to a citizen, who in turn expressed his gratitude for my service. Then, as I drove around for the first part of my shift, I had multiple people smile and wave at me. A short while later, I learned that a citizen had called in during the previous shift and left a message with my lieutenant David McQueary basically giving my beat partner Tony De Lapo Jr a glowing compliment for his good work the night before.

Later, I went through the McDonald's drive thru (one of the only places at night that is open) and when I got to the window to pay, the employee told me that my order had already been paid for. I asked him if the car in front of me had paid, and he told me that he had paid for the order himself. He then expressed his gratitude for police.

I know these things don't sound like much, but right now I wear a mourning band over my badge to honor the officers who lost their lives over the last week and a half. These officers paid the ultimate sacrifice protecting the citizens in the communities in which they served. It is nice to know that the citizens in my own community, the community in which I live and serve, still care and show their appreciation for what I do. Thank you for those people who have made myself and the officers I work with feel appreciated today, it means a lot knowing that you have our backs.

— Ukiah Police Officer Josh Cooper

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I mail in my ballot and as I said before, I will not be voting for any candidate for any office, including the incumbents--nobody is suitable for public office these days and given how the system has worked in recent years, nobody will be suitable for public office anytime soon.

And rather than vote for the least worst candidate on the ballot election-after-election, I choose to vote for no person given the way Alameda County does its November ballots, where only the top 2 candidates that garnered votes in the Primary are allowed on the November ballot and there is no option for a write-in candidate.

As an independent voter in the June Primary, I was barred from picking even the Democratic Party's choice for President and with that kind of system in place, I find that people like me should not be participating in somebody else's run for office and instead, noticing the option to write in a candidate, wrote "none of the above" and cast my vote, not just for President, but for all other public offices.

Unfortunately, given the way the dictators at the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Office run things, there will not be an option to write in a candidate on the November ballot and one may not have the choice to vote for their candidate unless that candidate is one of the "top two" candidates in the primary, which means one may not even see any third-party candidates on their ballot.

GOING AFTER THE FISHERS, OWNERS OF THE MENDOCINO REDWOOD COMPANY

Fisher Brothers Shaming In San Francisco Thursday, August 18

Thursday, August 18, three contingents of Mendocino County folks will caravan to San Francisco to shame the billionaire Fisher Brothers, owners of the Mendocino Redwood Company, who also dominate the upper echelons of San Francisco culture. Our vans are leaving from Comptche; Fort Bragg, Mendocino, Albion (passing through Anderson Valley); Ukiah and Willits,. PLEASE JOIN US for a DAY of innovative demonstrative activity. We will not be engaging in activities that lead to arrest.

Why we are doing this: Within days of the County Clerk’s release of the first election results re. Measure V, MRC’s contracted crews (vulnerable, inadequately protected young Latino men) were in the Half Way to Hell thp on the outskirts of Comptche, hack & squirting Imazapyr on large oak trees, spraying glysophate (Garlon) and tricholopyr (Round-Up) on brush in forestland already so belabored it made the ground-truthers gasp. Sending in the hack & squirt crews was an immediate retaliation by the 3 billionaire Fisher Brothers who own the Mendocino Redwood Company—Comptche being the hive of citizen organizational genius that conceived, generated and pushed Measure V to victory. 62-38% of the vote despite the Fishers spending ¼ of a million dollars on advertising against it. You could say the Fishers pissed on Comptche. We need to break our stories through the Redwood Curtain. Dependent as they are on GAP, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta advertising, the SF Chronicle news department and their environment feature writer Peter Fimrite have refused to cover our story as it developed over the past 2 years: Not the Measure V Citizens Initiative victory. Not the conundrum of hack & squirting so much forestland: the wildfire hazard intentionally killed dead trees left standing poses to landscape, 90,000+ residents and firefighters. Not the lack of liability the 3 Fisher brothers enjoy for damages due to escaped wild fires on MRC’s mis-managed lands, due to MRC’S lobbyist Mike Jani’s successful lobbying of the State Assembly for a piece of AB1492, which now protects timber companies from liability for damage caused by wildfire escape from timber lands. The bill was signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2012. Before their marriage, Gov. Brown’s wife Anne Gust, worked 12 years for Robert Fisher, CEO of the GAP at the time, as his personal and chief attorney. She landed on the GAP Inc. board of directors. Let me inject here Bernie Sanders’ last communiqué to his supporters: “It is true that in terms of winning the Democratic nomination, we did come up short. But this election was never about me or any candidate. It was about the powerful coming together of millions of people to take their country back from the billionaire class. That was the strength of our campaign and it will be the strength of our movement going forward in the months and years ahead.” ROBERT, JOHN and WILLIAM FISHER ARE OUR BILLIONAIRES. We can and must directly deal with their greed.

Our first stop Thursday August 18, is 1 Maritime Plaza, the 14th floor headquarters of Sansome Partners, the Fisher family’s investment company, which through a limited partnership owns 237,000 acres of Mendocino County, 25% of its forestland, 10% of the landscape of which they have already hack & squirted 90,000 acres, leaving millions of trees standing dead (and counting the carbon in those stalks to meet a measure required by the state, so that they can go after the large 2nd growth redwood which keeps what is left of Mendocino County forests shaded and moisture in the ground.) MRC is laying bare the forest floor with swathes of dead zones. In 2008, the year of the Lightning Strike Complex fires, MRC hosted 42% of the burned acres; 23,196 acres, four times what the odds would expect. 26% of that burned acreage was in their dead zones. We will be emphasizing the consequences of the climate change the billionaire brothers activities lead to—less fog drip, parched forests floors, the destruction of a mixed species redwood forest, an increase in lightning strikes and the resultant wildfire escapes. If San Francisco is oblivious to hack & squirt, Climate Change is much on its citizens’ minds and that is the connection we will be making: How the hand-down decisions of three billionaire brothers is causing climate catastrophes.

From the Rally/press conference at 1 Maritime Plaza we drive to the residences of two of the Fisher brothers for a chain saw concert. Followed by a parade to one of the GAP Inc. stores in the commercial district adjoining their residential neighborhood. A store linking the billionaire brothers to the factory fire in Tazreen, Bangladesh where 112 women were burned to death in 2012. We will finish the day at the recently reopened San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where Robert Fisher (appointed by governor Jerry Brown as co-czar of ‘Climate Change and Economic Growth’) is president of the Board of Trustees. Robert Fisher’s collection of Pop Minimal & Figurative Art is currently the museum’s main exhibit. We will be bringing our own art. . . . As co-czar of ‘Climate Change and Economic Growth’ and co-owner of the Mendocino Redwood Company, former GAP CEO Robert Fisher sold Caltrans 800,000 cubic yards of slightly contaminated dirt. The dirt was dug from the scenic mountainside of the abandoned Apache mill, leveling an area for a future commercial junk stop just north of the new Willits Bypass. Caltrans needed the dirt to fill in the largest wetland in northern California for an unnecessary bypass that has already collapsed once.

We did a Fisher Greed Shaming once before, 15 years ago, in concert with Global Exchange. We had a motorcycle escort. We coordinated our activities with the SF Community Relations Unit of the SF PD. The Shaming benefited our forests then. They pulled back from an odious thp on the unstable slopes of Kaisen Gulch. Replaced by a canopy retention selection protocol provided in detail by activists protecting that portion of Albion forestland. William Fisher’s wife is chair of the San Francisco Symphony. Besides calling the shots at MRC, John is chief investor in the Oakland A’s, a founding director of KIPP. Together Robert and Randi steer the PICES Foundation (also housed on the 14th floor of 1 Maritine Plaza) claiming philanthropic investment in environmental education, water policy, CLIMATE & energy. This is a family very protective of their reputations as stellar civic leaders. All the activities on Thursday, August 18 are non-arrest scenarios. Shame is a mighty tool. If you are interested in joining the Shaming please call or email us for more details. We are coordinating transportation and covering the costs. Each one of you is a specific voice representing a specific aspect of Mendocino County. We need you. This is also a recruitment call for local artists who have done environmental art, and folks wishing to engage in short spurts of street theatre. –beth bosk 937-5703 nsi@mcn.org (inland coordinator) Lara Anderson 234-3234; 357-5365 laraanderson44@gmail.com

Here is some additional background. Preamble: In 2011 (after a decade of small fires and building collapse) Bangladeshi and international labor groups put forth a detailed safety proposal, which entailed the establishment of independent inspections of garment factories. The plan called for inspectors to have the power to close unsafe factories. The proposal entailed a legally binding contract between suppliers, customers and unions. The inspections would be funded by contributions from the companies of up to $500,000 per year. It was called the Accord of Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. It would replace government inspections, which were infrequent and easily subverted by corruption. The proposal was presented at a meeting in 2011 in Dhaka, attended by more than a dozen of the world’s largest clothing brands and retailers European and North American retailers, including the Swedish clothing giant H&M, Walmart, including GAP Inc. (founded by the Fisher family of San Francisco. William and Robert Fisher are both on the GAP Inc. Board of Directors. Off and on, Robert is Chair.) The GAP rep walked out of the conclave telling a reporter: “It did not want to pay factories more money to help with safety upgrades. That the Agreement would present a liability and expose the company to potential litigation against it in the United States”. The discussions collapsed. Non-participation would give GAP Inc. an economic edge. Three Months later 112 women perished in a fire in a factory in Tazreen, Bangladesh. The fire started in the basement in a bundles of material specifically designated for GAP clothes. The doors were locked, the windows barred. Six months after that a building in Rana Plaza collapsed, killing 1,129 workers who had evacuated the building the day before after noticing a running crack in the cement. The garment workers came back the next day for their monthly paycheck, and were bludgeoned back to work by goons hired by the manufacturer who told them he would not be paid until he finished a GAP rush order. The building collapsed as soon as the generator was turned on.

ALBION: April 2013. A discussion of the pending J-Road THP under the awning of the Albion Grocery with Mike Jani and 3 of his foresters. It is a rainy day. This is a substitution for the scheduled walk-through offered the community by MRC. Krista Eiber lives 6 miles up the Albion Ridge Road. Referring to the Lightning Strike Complex Fires of 2008, which sent ashes onto her roof from an escaped wildfire on MRC land, she asks chief forester and then-president of MRC Jani, should her roof catch fire from another escaped fire from a mismanaged MRC logging plan and her homestead burn down, would MRC be liable. She had to ask three separate times, until finally, Mike whispered: “No MRC would not be liable for the damages.” Unbeknownst to most, a new bill, AB 1492, then being lobbied by Mike Jani in Sacramento on behalf of the industry, protects timber companies from “excessive liability”` due to damage by fires initiated on their mismanaged lands. Measure V, an Emergency Nuisance Ordinance addresses the issue of liability by tying it to non-concurrence with the requirement to remove trees deliberately killed left standing dead within 90 days of treatment.

–beth bosk 937-5703 nsi@mcn.org (inland coordinator) Lara Anderson 234-3234; 357-5365 laraanderson44@gmail.com Lara is president of the board of the Mendocino Environment Center

SYMPHONY OF THE REDWOODS 2016-2017 SEASON

www.symphonyoftheredwoods.org

SEASON SPONSOR: North Coast Brewing Co.

Contact Information: Alex Pierangeli, Executive Director, 707.964.0898, symphony@mcn.org

All performances at Cotton Auditorium - 500 N Harold St, Fort Bragg, CA,

Tickets are $20, guests age 18 and under free,

Fall Concert

Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016, 7:30pm

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016, 2pm

• Marquez: Danzon No. 2
• Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, feat. Paul Psarras, guitar
• Piazzola: Libertango
• Stravinsky: The Firebird

Concert Sponsors: Charles & Olivia Hasty

Winter Concert

Saturday, January 28, 2017, 7:30pm

Sunday, January 29, 2017, 2pm

• Weber: Overture to Oberon
• Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante, feat. Livia Sohn, violin and Sharon Wei, viola
• Sibelius: Symphony No. 5

Concert Sponsor: Bob Wheat – Edward Jones

Spring Concert

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 7:30 pm

Sunday, April 9, 2017, 2pm

• Brahms: Symphony No. 3
• Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4, feat. Spencer Myer, piano

Concert Sponsors: John & Kathryn Hughes

FORT BRAGG COLLEGE CAMPUS SAVED!

Pat yourselves on the back! We did it!

Your support for keeping College of the Redwoods from closing down the FB campus has paid off. The petition to transfer that property to Mendocino College has been granted. We sure took the long way around to be where we should always have been. Now all we have to do is support MCC. –Ginny

Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2016 12:38 PM
Subject: Yippeee!

Mendocino College petition for transfer of territory from College of the Redwoods granted

NORTH COAST, Calif. – The California Community Colleges Board of Governors approved the proposed transfer of territory from Redwoods Community College District to the Mendocino-Lake Community College District at its meeting on Monday.

As a result of this action, the coastal communities of Fort Bragg and the town of Mendocino along with the surrounding areas will be incorporated into the ...Mendocino-Lake Community College District on July 1, 2017.

The transfer of territory will allow the Mendocino-Lake Community College

District to formally take charge of the programs and facilities in the service area and assure local residents the opportunity to attain a first rate education with exceptional support services close to their home.

“This is an incredibly exciting time for our district and the entire county,” said District Superintendent/President Arturo Reyes. “Our trustees had the vision and courage to believe in this idea and the strong support of our staff and faculty brought it to fruition. Now, we must partner with the coastal communities to ensure the Mendocino Coast Center becomes a thriving educational hub for the region.”

Mendocino College began offering courses at the instructional center on Del Mar Drive in Fort Bragg in the fall of 2014 under an agreement with the Redwood Community College District. Since then many new course offerings have been added and the class schedule continues to grow.

With this transfer, Mendocino College will extend its high-quality and innovative instruction with individual attention to student needs in an inclusive and accessible learning environment to the coast.

As stated in its mission statement, Mendocino College truly “embraces its role as an intellectual, economic and cultural anchor” for the entire region.

Such a significant community college district transfer of territory has not taken place in California for over a quarter of a century.

This multifaceted and lengthy process required the complete support, attention, and collaboration of Mendocino College administrators, trustees, staff and faculty; the Mendocino County Office of Education; the Mendocino County Board of Education; the California Department of Education; the California Community College Chancellor’s Office staff; legal counsel; bond counsel; the Mendocino County Committee on School District Organization; Tom Henry and the College of the Redwoods team; and the Community College Board of Governors.

The district thanked these individuals for their participation, thoughtfulness and excitement in this endeavor.

—Norma Watkins, Fort Bragg

WRITERS CONFERENCE OFFERS FREE LITERARY EVENTS

The 27th Annual Mendocino Coast Writers Conference (MCWC) invites the public to a free “First Friday” literary event from 5:30 to 7:30 PM on August 5th at Fort Bragg’s Town Hall (corner of Main and Laurel). Open to all ages and family friendly, the evening will include readings by visiting authors Les Standiford, Reyna Grande, Lori Ostlund and Laura Atkins. Refreshments will be provided courtesy of MCWC, North Coast Brewing Company and Frey Vineyards.

Les Standiford has received the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His most recent nonfiction title is Water to the Angels.

Reyna Grande’s memoir, The Distance Between Us, about her life before and after illegally crossing from Mexico to the United States as a child, was hailed by the L.A. Times as ‘the Angela’s Ashes of the modern Mexican immigrant experience.’ Grande’s first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, received a 2007 American Book Award, and the 2006 El Premio Aztlán Literary Award.

Lori Ostlund’s novel After the Parade (Scribner, 2015) is a Barnes and Noble Discover pick. Her first book, a story collection entitled The Bigness of the World, won the Flannery O’Connor Award, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the California Book Award for First Fiction.

Laura Atkins is an author, teacher and independent children’s book editor. Forthcoming books include a light-hearted picture book Sled Dog Dachshund and a middle grade biography, Fred Korematsu Speaks Up about Japanese internment during WW2.

On Thursday, August 4, 6:30 p.m., the community is also invited to meet mystery writer James W. Hall, poet Jessica Piazza, and author Jordan Rosenfeld and hear their work at a reception at St. Anthony’s Hall, 10700 Lansing Street, Mendocino. Refreshments courtesy of MCWC with wine poured by Handley Cellars. Please be prompt, seating is limited.

Another free, public literary event is the Paths to Publishing panel on Saturday, August 6, 1 p.m. featuring debut authors Hi-Dong Chai, Heather Mackey and Marian Palaia with moderator Virginia Reed. Paths to Publishing takes place at the Mendocino College—Coastal Campus, 1211 Del Mar Drive, Fort Bragg (room 112/114).

While the three-day writers conference is sold out this year, a few seats are open in Publishing Boot Camp, a one-day intensive focused on current publishing options for authors in any genre. Publishing Boot Camp takes place on Sunday, August 7, at Mendocino College-Coastal Campus. Advanced registration is required.

The conference receives support from Poets & Writers through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation and the Hearst Foundations; also from the Community Foundation of Mendocino County and many generous friends who fund scholarships and contest prizes. Featured authors’ books are available for sale at all public events thanks to Gallery Bookshop.

For further details about Publishing Boot Camp registration and public events, please check www.mcwc.org, contact staff by email to info@mcwc.org or leave a message at (707) 485-4031.

(Submitted by Wendy Roberts, PR & Marketing, Mendocino Coast Writers Conference wendy@mcn.org 707-937-4702.)

PUBLIC RADIO COMPETITION COMES TO UKIAH

Hey KMEC family,

After 25 years in Philo, the competition has finally arrived in Ukiah. See below.

Having KZYX next door threatens our funding base. Let's get busy, my KMEC brothers and sisters. Let's recruit those those new members and new underwriters.

KZYX is a fundraising juggernaut -- they raise a budget of $550,000 every year. Most of the money goes to salaries, of course. But KMEC is better, as small as we are. KMEC does a better job as a true community radio station. KMEC is a people-powered community radio station. We're democratic. Meanwhile, KZYX is not democratic. KZYX has an authoritative top-down management model.

And we here at KMEC have better broadcasters and better content than KZYX. And we do it with only with volunteers (no paid staff) and only with a budget of $20,000. Yet we get huge audience numbers and we have a high profile. For example, my show with Sid gets thousands of hits and we have national guests. All of KMEC's shows are excellent.

That said, we at KMEC no longer have the Ukiah Valley market all to ourselves. We have competition. So, let's get busy.

I start by donating a soccer ball autographed by Mexico national soccer team star, Jesus Corona, No. 10.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Corona_(footballer,_born_1993).

We can use the autographed ball for a raffle. Maybe sell tickets to the raffle every Saturday at the Ukiah Farmers Market. Just a thought.

John Sakowicz, Ukiah.

GIMME SHELTER

Seeking a More Permanent Residential Address

Please know that I am considering a more permanent residential address, in northern California. If you could recommend a suitable rental, I will consider that. This will be the beginning of a movement which is worthwhile! I look forward to hearing from you soon. Emails continue to be read at: CraigStehr@inbox.com Thank you,

Craig Louis Stehr