Since becoming top-heavy administratively, with both a City Manager AND a City Clerk, Jane Jarlsberg is the current office staff individual for the City of Point Arena. Jane is running for Point Arena City Council this November. While being a well-intended individual who wants good things for the City of Point Arena, she lacks level-headed business acumen and there is some doubt that she would fare any better than Deborah Heatherstone-Szantos in her ability to understand the depths of Muni-Code as it relates to State and Federal regulations. A grand-parent who raised her grand-children, kudos go out to her for her commitment in raising her grand-children for much of their lives. She may show some interest, therefore, in developing low-income housing - or any housing at all - in Point Arena, a town which is predominately, single mother-households with children, and without a man in the household. So far not one City Council member has given a damn about housing in Point Arena.
Scott Ignacio is a local, raised here and active in his community as a first responder/rescue EMT and as a thespian (he acts in local theatre productions with his children - also talented and having performed in several plays together). Scott is an experienced computer tech, and rescue paramedic. He is the best candidate for City Council in that he might be the least biased, possesses business acumen, and is intelligent(!). However, he is a homeowner in the City limits, and it pays to be on Council in order to get things approved, as has been proven by the City of Point Arena time and again.
Torrez is a new candidate. I know nothing about him, but would give him a try with my vote, as he sounds like the only minority of those running.
Richie Wasserman, "Again!?" Richie Wasserman gets on City Council so that he can be the LAFCO rep for the City of PA for a whopping $400/month! Best paid of all the City Council persons, I read his lame interview in the ICO a few weeks ago. Richie has been nothing but self-serving in all his years on Council and several shots at Mayor. I sat on Planning Commission when he recused himself from voting on approval of the Coast Guard Bed and Breakfast Inn's number of parking spaces, brought before City Council by the new owner, Kevin Gallagher, who'd just purchased the property from Wasserman and Whatley. Just as Mayor Leslie Dahlhoff opened the can of worms that became the great fiasco and slight of hand regarding two alleged missing parking spaces on the Gallagher's deed all of a sudden filed "at the last minute" by Wasserman sans enuf parking, as previously indicated to new owners, Wasserman got up and conveniently left the room as to not be required to answer any questions in that particular City Council meeting about his real estate shenanigans! He wound up paying the Gallaghers something on the order of $85,000 for his "error". Richie's worse than a band of gypsies. In fact, I'd put him up against an entire band of gypsies and woe the poor gypsies! And another thing, if Richie has not thus far (in all his times at bat!) procured any additional housing at all for the City of Point Arena's onslaught of newly arriving public, don't bet on it happening after he gets elected, because he's been elected so many times now, and been Mayor redundantly, also, that if he hasn't taken care of the housing problem thus far, you can bet it ain't gonna happen after he gets elected once again to sit, and be paid $400/month to sit on LAFCO. DO NOT VOTE FOR RICHIE WASSERMAN EVER AGAIN.
My vote is on Sherylynn Smith for newly elected by write-in vote! It's not that I'd vote for her, because she is one of the oddest people I've ever met, but I can see several Point Arena Pirates casting enuf write-in votes for her to win the election. Point arena loves pirates! If you haven't heard, Sheryl (who goes by several different names according to record checks) has some history with former mayor Doug Burkey (ex of Barbara Burkey, who is also running for elected office), as they were arrested August 21st for fraud and jailed for about a week while investigators investigated the fraud and possible murder (listed suspicious death) of her ex, who was allegedly defrauded pre- and post-mortem, in part. She says the case has been thrown out as a horrible misunderstanding, but when the AVA sent an intrepid investigator to Sonoma County to get a copy of her ex's (suspicious) death certificate, it was let known to her that the (suspicious) death was still under investigation. The paper trail on the fraud is absolutely damning (see ICO website for documents). Stay tuned on this one. Even tho Point Arenans suffer from an immense amount of apathetic doldrumism; fraud by lovers, after the suspicious, undetermined death of a missing person, reported by the man's actual ex-wife and mother of his children, doesn't bode well, or does it?... in the dumbed-down political ring of 2016. Well, ...Point Arena loves a pirate!
Speaking of which, Jim Koogle is still acting as Mayor without legal living situation within the City limits, a condition of elected office, if you're anyone but him, evidently. A bully, folks have been pushed around and intimidated by Koogle (See ICO regarding resignation of Phil Burfoot, Councilman), a large man with shit for brains. (I just say that, because he says that about others so often in his regular tirades.) Maybe he suffers from his own dissatisfaction. His stated "home" on his election application was 53 Lake Street, an abandoned building for about 30 years now. A blight on a community that is in dire need of housing for ...teachers, at least. DO NOT VOTE FOR JIM KOOGLE FOR ANY REASON. Definitely don't buy weed from him, because of mold...
Anna Dobbins is a great horse woman, so I'm already in her corner! She's been on City Council and Planning before as I remember, so she contributes to her community and has lived here for most of her adult life. Anna is aware of variances, building code and State and Federal regs, so that's half the battle. I'd vote for Anna for PA City Council even tho I don't know if she'll last once elected. Previously, she's tired quickly of the bullshit (a common City Council Cancer) and quit, replaced conveniently by another "appointment". Here's hoping she can last the limit.
Barbara Burkey is the former owner of the Point Arena Bakery and is currently scaring locals out of 215 Main, the restaurant and bar she manages for the new owner, former DEA agent just having moved to town a few years ago, known jokingly as "Terrorist Tim". (You're not real in Point Arena til you've been dubbed with an adjectively adverbial name.) It is true, Barbara has alienated most of the locals who frequented the bar on a daily basis. As quickly as she drives them out of the bar, tho, owner Tim is offering them a free drink to bring them back in. Barbara has business ability with numbers, but is either black or white with people. Having run the last Fishermen's Festival with the best budget yet, making a whopping $18K for the Pier Fund, which is frequently robbed for deposits into the City's General Fund budget, it is my hope that, in voting for Barbara Burkey, she will continue to run a tight ship and drive all those bad acting self-servers off City Council, to mostly include: Jim Koogle and Richie Wasserman, for whom no one should vote (I repeat)!
Shut Out Koogle And Wasserman For Point Arena City Council! They've had their turn!
Bwaahahahahhahaaaawwww! Great article Deb! – Big Al your Point Arena Pal
Saw some further description of Jonathan Torrez here:
https://m.facebook.com/groups/642728659107251?view=permalink&id=1140695889310523
Any specific affordable housing projects in the pipeline, now that the danco one for across the street from city hall “drowned”, so to speak?
10 fourplexes on the space across feom the hay industrial park sounds good for an idea (revived).
Yep! Hay property is dry, compared to that part behind “Lake Street” originally planned (twice) for housing over the last twenty years. But City Hall will not support Hays in any way, even if it IS the best building site. Will not do any more business with him since Leslie Dahlhoff and before… *See below…
Hay tried to match issues thru Raven Earlygrow’s Mayoral win by bringing in Tony (Gwison – pronounced, but not spelled that way!)from San Diego to also run for Council. Raven didn’t live legally within the City limits, like Jim Koogle, current Mayor. But when another factor (perhaps republican) tries to bring in the same, City Hall follows enforcement!
Oh, and Jane Jarlsberg already won a seat by previous election on Council several years ago, but had to move out of the City limits and quit Council, therefore, as defined in the “rules” for living in the City limits.
Again, enforcement enforced only selectively, and one might say, sexistly in the case of Jane having to quit Council because she then, after election, finally found housing not inside the City limits where there obviously is none, but it was on the ridge, outside the City limits. She was at least honest in this way. Unlike Earlygrow and Koogle.
Just sayin’…
When Leslie Dahlhoff was Mayor, she was found in conflict of interest for selling the corner lot at Main and Mill to the Medical Center to install a “mental/dental clinic”. (The County had decided to put in a methadone clinic in Point Arena!). Finally, after complaints by local residents having to drive the roads here, the methadone clinic was dropped and it was simply developed into a dental clinic. However, Dahlhoff voted on the outcome of the property as she sat as Mayor then, in the 11th month after she sold the property to the Medical Center, and was therefore found in conflict of interest (completely ignored by politicians within the City of Point Arena).
*Several citizens and some on Council suggested that the medical clinic be located at the top of the hill on the Hay property, which Billy would have gladly donated to the City for use as a medical clinic with appropriate helicopter pad outside in the parking lot of said medical clinic, where it handily SHOULD be located. Currently, if anyone is in crisis from the address of the Point Arena medical clinic, they are driven by ambulance for a transport fee which should now be around $1500-2000, to one of two helicopter locations in Point Arena: Cherry Iversen’s empty lot on Port and City Hall across from Billy Hay’s empty lot for sale.
Argument being that if the medical center would build and relocate to the Hay property across from City Hall, there would be no additional transport fee for patients from the medical clinic to the helicopter pad. And, also, in case of emergency services due to major earthquake, all EMT and services needs could bet met in one location, easily accessible by copter and ambulance. – Not so downtown where there is no parking, and definitely no landing pad.
But, noooooooooooooo, Dahlhoff, Wasserman, et al, would not have anything to do with any land owned by Bill Hay, et al.
And, due to short-sighted politicians of the green kind who say they are also democratic, still, the City of Point Arena remains landlocked by unused Hay property: The Hay property in question across from City Hall, and the Hay Annex, where additional “housing” would be located, if it were to ever come to fruition.
Well, those two guys need the boot.
One is in race 1, other in the 2nd.
Everyone, mark off on ballot:
Jarlsberg
Torrez
Ignacio
Dobbins
Burkey
Leave unmarked:
Wasserman
Koogle
When they 1st started talking about that lot, the danco project, alice devens told me it was a waste of time due to it having been determined to be too swampy years ago.
What a waste of time that was!
For sewer main up eureka hill, 0.6 mile, get a grant from dept of agriculture.
Available for places like PA!
Go for it, Point Arena!
Let me get this straight….but first why in the world would we take any of your “recommendations” since you are are a non person in Point Arena, never attend City Council Meetings and few Community events, don’t shop in the stores, just frequent the bar and the cove? What acumen do you have for politics, except to bully and lie as Donald Trump does? Oh, must be the coffee, alcohol and horse shit you so love and ingest daily. Isn’t it time you got a grip on reality and realized you are not considered a Pirate Journalist, but a pathetic older woman who has failed at most things? Especially with your writing….tho I must say this article held together, had some cohesiveness to the end unlike your other ramblings of fantasy and evil! So back to my response, you must have some serious penis envy going on – both Jim Koogle and Richey Wasserman have given more to the city (yes, more positive selfless energy than your relentless poorly founded criticisms and lies) and helped the town progress. Something you obviously have no interest in by your well noted lack of participation and continual fallacious, demented and ill intentioned writings. You would vote for someone you don’t know, Mr. Torres, or have an opinion about because he’s a minority? Uh huh….and since when is “business expertise” a qualification for a public servant? What demographics are you referring to “…Point Arena, a town which is predominately, single mother-households with children,”? Ever visit with your neighbors? The families, and the couples? Seriously D K (say it out loud and hear your “adjectively adverbial name”) where do you pull this crap from? Your pot and alcohol infused brain has become boring and sad, who reads your quarterly spew anyway? Oh right, the guys in the bar and the prisoners who get a free rag from Bruce. I could never understand why people give a shit about your ideas – maybe 25 years ago you had some charm and intelligence – but now the Pirates and People of Point Arena laugh and judge you for the lost soul you are. Try being honest and objective rather than twisted and misguided – Pirates and people like that.
Dear Lollygaggle2, which also says PA City Council wrote this! Need I say more? Maybe not! Suffice it to say, you know little history. And, if you’re pulling from memory, it must be drug infused. You make assertions that I drink. NOT! But you don’t know me well enough, or come into the bar to see what’s going on there – also besides drinking. Yah, I failed all right – at getting Koogle OFF council!!!! Who’s shit for brains, now? Yes, I’ve spent HOURS at PA Shitty Council meetings. On Planning as well as Council. Only to have all the work we did on Muni Code lost and/or destroyed, copies missing from City Hall presently. Many of us have taken our turn on Council! I vote, I live in PA and have mostly since ’93. Are you new here? Unidentified as a PA Pirate? Not! Oh, maybe you’re that old cocaine dealer…
I like your little note. Shows you like Wasserman and Koogle. Tells me alot about you. Or, that you are one of them… I guess I’m pissing off just the right assholes, egh?
Oh, Christ, Valerie-Valerah again!?!?
Not Valerie-Valerah, just one of many watch-pirates who see through your increasing dementia. No answers to MY questions or comments – just lame responses to ??? Why don’t you join the 21st century and move forward instead of beating your dead horses? The Medical Center is not news, not really relevant to these elections. Why are you continuously referring to PAST events? Your criticisms are decades old – break out of your lost life, tell some truths and help change things NOW with some realistic and accurate observations. Oh, I was also wondering if YOU are registered to vote in the city of Point Arena since you camp in a driveway, and have no “residency” to speak of….will you answer that one?
If these factors are past….does that now mean stuff can be developed now on hay annexation land?
BTW, everyone knows how to discern the wheat and chaff in DK’s reportage. And, factor in her biases.
Reading this article outloud to a few PA folks, they confirmed the factual accuracy on fronts they knew about.
Did you know that it is pretty darn easy for you or anyone else to submit reportage to the ava for publication?
For one issue, the pending rise of sewer rates for upgrades: you all can get grants instead! I looked it up and read the material.
WTF I never saw this thread until it was, just now, brought to my attention. Do read the AVA. Keipp, though she has created her image through her attempts to destroy the city of Point Arena, does, in fact, NOT reside here.Or at least not legally. She is the pot that calls the kettle black. A woman steeped in vitriol.a woman, in short, whose Karma is such that she will surely reincarnate as a cockroach.