Mendocino County Today: Friday, Dec. 23, 2016

• Chilly Christmas
• Boatwright's Caspar
• Little Dog
• Mendo GJs Recognized
• The Sellout
• Perv-o-rama Prose
• Thug Boy
• Yesterday's Catch
• Prop 13
• Fake Stuff
• AG Press Release
• Delta EIS
• Two More Days
• MCOE Thanks
• Craig's SF

A WET CHRISTMAS? More like a damp Christmas, and a cold one. Rain started early Friday morning and is expected to continue most of the day with clearing by Christmas Eve/Saturday. Conditions will turn chilly and windy again on Christmas Eve and on into Sunday with the clearing. Friday will see around half an inch to an inch of rain accumulation. A little more rain may drop on Tuesday but otherwise mostly clear and cold for the rest of next week. As MendocinoSportsPlus reports, the Coast remains fogged in and overcast for the second week in a row.

CASPAR

by Wayne Boatwright

The urge to return grew as my doom approached. Visions of fog shrouded trails, tidepools and craggy coves filled my restless sleeping.

Like a salmon thrashing and plowing back up its origin stream to spawn and die, I struggled facing my doom. I realize that I must return to Caspar with my children, for my children. My very existence demands it.

Home? I guess that is the right word. My childhood was a nomadic one — never staying anywhere long enough to make a home.

I had always seen myself a Valley boy, having lost my innocence under LA's smog red moon. I know better now. Caspar was a one-street ghost town between Mendocino and Noyo Harbor far up the California coast, but as I prepared to say goodbye to my family, it was Caspar that haunted me, defined me.

To take form as a person requires courage. I found mine in Caspar. I discovered a sense of adventure and independence by scaling cliffs of rock and sand searching for hidden treasures in tidepools, nests and grottoes. I developed confidence crossing razor-sharp rocks between crashing waves and using landmarks and the setting sun to work my way home at day's end.

Unlike that magnificent fish that thrives in both fresh and salt water, I fear my transition from free citizen to inmate. Soon, I must perform my citizen's duty to serve sentence in a new different brutal world. As I steel myself to face this doom, I worry for my precious little ones. They must navigate life’s waters guided solely by their mother. Father is going up the river, to be gone longer than their entire existence; their life course permanently altered by my crime.

How could I say goodbye? Give something to guide them across the years of separation. What signs and tokens could serve to keep alive our family bond?

I marvel at how the salmon finds its way across the vast Pacific to the mouth of its creation stream. I have only a map and vague memories to prod me back. At this test I cannot fail my family again. I was forged exploring Caspar’s magic wilds. No map exists to develop such traits in the next generation. Still, Caspar calls me — an incessant demanding that only there would I be able to retrieve and impart something of vital importance to my children.

Behind the wheel and a manufactured confident smile, we headed north on the 101 toward Willits as I desperately searched my mind for the key to unlock my childhood treasure trove of memories. Upon arrival, we performed the customary tours of lighthouse, harbor and old town. I discovered that Caspar had been swallowed up and become a mere Mendocino suburb. I recognized none of it.

On this last weekend before my incarceration, I could find no path back to my memories. We checked into the Skylark Lodge’s last available room around 11pm. My family fell asleep to the crash of waves below. I could not rest.

As the morning broke, the sea, she called me overriding the constraints of adulthood and I knew. As must the salmon, my passage to the Lodge's private cove was swift and sure. Out of the morning sea mist, a beach materialized strewn with long tangles, bulbs and ribbons of kelp. I inhaled the pungent scent with the waves and watched the undulating kelp forests suspended on the ocean surface by iodine colored bulbs. Here was the key!

The smells transported me back — the memories like waves crashed. The riptide of recognition pulled me under and I held my breath as memories swirled in my mind.

I was taken back to the house and barn with a path lined by blood orange poppies to the stream across which lay fields of blackberries. As a boy, I had battled those bushes until my fingers were scarlet and arms scratched up to the elbows — evidence of my victory, loaded buckets of berries I would give my grandmother to bake into pies and fill Mason jars with tart sweetness. Over the horizon was the trail through the pygmy forest to the Jug Handle Park waterfall. The cove’s kelp scent had awakened these magical memories for me to share as treasures with my little ones.

As with the salmon, I spread these gifts on the streambed of my little ones’ experiences before the current pulled me to prison. Over those next few fleeting days my children collected tokens of driftwood, sea shells and beach glass as emblems of a father's love. I could only trust instinct that such take hold in their fertile souls and keep them safe until my return.

The current of time was pulling me to a new existence; yet Caspar had renewed me. When the sun sets on this adventure, I know I can find my way home.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Hey! Who needs the liberal "talent" for Trump's inauguration? Why doesn't the Orange Guy get the Marine Corps band? Have 'em play some Souza? Wait!! I got it. Maybe Trump's buddy, Putin, could send over some dancing Bears and those very muy cool-o Cossack dancers, the guys with the big hats!”

MENDO GRAND JURY GETS AWARD — but not for its best work.

Grand Jury Foreman Kathy Wylie addressed the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors with a summary of the 2015-16 Grand Jury report and responses at their regular board meeting. Past Foreman Finley Williams was also present to announce that the California Grand Jurors’ Association has granted the Robert Geiss Excellence in Reporting Award to the 2014-15 Mendocino County Grand Jury for its report, “The Library.”

Two Mendocino County grand juries, 2013-14 and 2014-15, questioned the ways that county officials were interpreting state law and county accounting records with regard to the Mendocino County Library. These two reports resulted in major changes to library management and operations.

The juries particularly questioned library record keeping and fund disbursement. Charges for certain costs were claimed to be made from the general fund. However, those costs were paid from dedicated or donated funds. The juries and the county disagreed as to whether or not the library is a special district. The juries expressed concern about the control being exercised by the county chief executive officer in managing the library as if it were a county department. The district librarian was paid out of the dedicated revenue rather than the county general fund, and the county charged the library for indirect support. This practice prevented the library from spending its dedicated revenue for its services, particularly with regard to information technology.

The tension between the library and county officials led to the district librarian resigning. The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, county administrative officers and elected officials negatively responded to the 2013-14 grand jury report. The 2014-15 grand jury report led to reconsideration of the issues by the Board of Supervisors, who decided to implement many of the report’s recommendations that largely mirrored those of the 2013-14 report.

Funds taken improperly from the library have been restored. The Board of Supervisors says that it will request clarification from the State Legislature on payment of librarians’ salaries. That action may result in a change in how tax-supported librarian salaries are paid across California. The annual Robert Geiss Excellence in Reporting Award recognizes a grand jury report that is of high quality, has a positive impact on the community and increases awareness of the California grand jury system.

The California Grand Jurors’ Association is a statewide nonprofit organization of former grand jurors with the mission “to promote, preserve and support the grand jury system through training, education and outreach.” (More info at www.cgja.org).

BLACK AND WHITE RELATIONS being what they are, only a black person, specifically a black man, could have written The Sellout. It made me nervous just reading the review, like maybe I should have a special permission from the NAACP to even consider what was being said by the approving black writer, Darryl Pinckney.

PINCKNEY sold me on the book by Paul Beatty. I found the excerpts from the review funny as hell, though it's a hellish experience that produced them. It's satire, which is always risky in a country whose colleges turn out thousands of people who not only can't read with full comprehension. Anything outside the PC catechism, satire or not, will be painful going for them.

ONLY A BRAVE WRITER, satirist or not, black writer or not, would dare write this about Maya Angelou's oppressively sentimental, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which Beatty's narrator says, he got from his school as a gift.

“I made it through the first couple of pages or so before a strong sense of doom overwhelmed me and I began to get very suspicious… I ventured another paragraph, growing ever more oppressed with each maudlin passage. My lips thickened. My burr headed afro took on the appearance and texture of a dried out-out firethorn bush… My eyes started to water and the words to 'Roll, Jordan, Roll,' a Negro spiritual I'd never heard before, poured out of my mouth in a surprising sonorous baritone. I didn't know I could sing. Quickly, I tossed the book into the kitchen trash. For a black child like myself who was impoverished every other week while waiting for his mother's bimonthly paydays, giving me a copy of ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ was the educational equivalent of giving the prairie Indians blankets laced with smallpox or putting saltpeter in a sailor's soup. I already knew why the caged bird sings, but after three pages of that book I now know why they put a mirror in the parakeet's cage, so he can wallow in his own misery. Thank goodness they didn't send me her poems."

THE NARRATOR REWRITES classics from what he says is an Afrocentric perspective: Uncle Tom's Condo, The Point Guard in the Rye, The Great Blacksby, or the Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protege, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.

THIS BOOK is a scorcher, for sure. Demand that the County Library order it up. Failing that, you can borrow my copy as soon as I'm ready to part with it.

‘THE SELLOUT’ is unlikely to sell well in Mendocino County, and I doubt many black readers will be too keen on it, but in a country drowning in untruth, knee jerk piety and pure mawk, Paul Beatty is definitely a go-to guy.

COPS ALL SEEM to have gone to the same prose school. Their reports are stuffed with "perpetrators" and “suspects” and "victims," but without the embellishments that might spice up the ordinary, non-cop narrative. Of course all police reports go to the DA who sorts them out for prosecution or no prosecution. Our DA, fortunately for Mendo taxpayers, does not drag everything into court. Most DA's, given the deluge of criminal behavior, are in triage mode anyway. But this report from the Richmond District police in San Francisco, is the prose equivalent of, say, radio bleep-outs. As if SF cops, of all people, have to resort to crude Victorian avoidances not to describe what this particular pervo-rama consisted of:

"Appalled citizens called 911 reporting that a male suspect was engaging in lewd conduct in public. The suspect made no effort to hide his inappropriate behavior, which could easily have been seen by children in the area. He was openly engaging in the behavior when responding Officers arrived on scene and interrupted him. Officers detained the suspect and ran a criminal history check. Not surprisingly, he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. This deplorable individual was booked at County Jail on his warrant and indecent exposure charge."

THE SCENE, a convenience store at a service station, early morning Healdsburg, jolly Pakistani, at the cash register. A stocky, thug-looking character — baggy sweat shirt, sags, neck tat. He's looking around in a way that prompts the clerk to look nervously at me, as we might be together in what happens next. It's Healdsburg. Nothing bad happens in Healdsburg, except for..... I linger near the coffee, as if at my age and advanced decrepitude I could be of any practical help if thug boy does something "inappropriate," in Mendocino County's elastic pejorative. Thug boy is just standing there, looking around, smirking to himself. There's the clerk, there's me, and there's him. "Marlboros!" he says suddenly and, throwing a ten at the clerk, says to me, "Merry Christmas, Pops!" He walks out the door chuckling to himself. The clerk sighs. "You never know, do you?"

CATCH OF THE DAY, December 22, 2016

BRANDON CLELAND, Willits. Vehicle theft, receiving stolen property conspiracy, probation revocation.

LEE CROCKETT, Napa/Ukiah. Controlled substance, drunk in public.

LEIF IBSEN, Carmel Valley/Ukiah. DUI-drugs, possession of more than an ounce of pot.

MOLLY KATZEFF, Mendocino. Controlled substance, false ID, court order violation.

SEAN MADDRY, Willits. Vehicle theft, receiving stolen property, conspiracy.

ISMAEL MARTINEZ, Fort Bragg. Probation violation.

TAJ MCMINN, Potter Valley. Domestic battery.

RYAN MORGAN, Ukiah. Battery.

TONY PAUL, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

BILLY JOE RICKMAN, Ukiah. Battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, conspiracy, resisting, community supervision violation.

JUSTIN SLAGLE, Redwood Valley. Metal knuckles.

CRAIG TRONOFF, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI.

PROP 13 HELPED PEOPLE — AND BILLIONAIRES

Editor,

In response to Todd Walton's article "The Greater Good" - Proposition 13, at least as I understand it, was originally supposed to allow old people on fixed incomes to keep their homes. I lived in Oakland at that time, having moved there in 1969 to go to college. Through good luck (and wizardry?) and just being a "darn nice person,” I managed to acquire a house in a very run-down section of what had once been a lovely family neighborhood. All people with any means to do so had left the city a few years before when the freeway projects started. Since they didn't know the exact route the freeways would take, buildings and homes were condemned willy-nilly; the construction noise was horrendous, and the dust so permeated every surface that gardens died within days if not hosed off every night. Who would want to stay if they could possibly leave? Freeways done, dust gone, there were still a lot of older people left in the homes they'd had since the '20's and '30's. My neighbors, from whom I was told much of this information, said to me: "You paid 25 thousand for THAT? We could'a bought it for 3 thousand in the depression!" But of course, who had 3 thousand extra to buy it then.

Then the property values started going up, and with it the property taxes; the old folks had just enough to live on with their social security, but no extra. I saw them start to lose their houses. I, too, lived on practically nothing, so when Prop 13 came along, we were happy to vote for it. Jarvis and Gann, of course, were silent about the part that also kept business taxes low, so something that started out to help lower income people was corrupted into a tool to help corporations get wealthier. Sort of like how politicians still, at the last minute before something can be done about it, throw riders onto good bills — like Feinstein just did with the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, with her rider that agribusinesses in the Central Valley love, and the Sierra Club and other people concerned about the environment and fish see as very bad. I think it's good to have low property taxes on an individual’s primary residence; raise the taxes back where they can do some greater good: on corporations and income property. I think it's a bit harsh to say that when we voted in Prop. 13 we got to keep more of our money for ourselves, and wrecked our society! What we got was to stay in our homes! And the political sleaze bags who wrote the bill and misrepresented it? They probably ended up happily counting their millions…billions, by now. So, who really ruined our society?

Nancy MacLeod, Philo

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Fake news. Those hipper than thou will stare you down and poke you in the forehead and say “fake news.” Well, here we go again, dress up something up that’s been around since the inception of sapiens (lies and bullshit and misdirection and propaganda) with a new name, fake news, and act all cool and intellectual and world weary. Make it sound like this has never ever ever been seen before. Fake news, like the latest fake unemployment stats and fake GDP numbers.

KAMALA VS. THE FRACKERS

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and the California Coastal Commission… filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior’s final environmental assessment, which clears the way for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), acidizing, and other advanced well treatments on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of California. In addition to extending our reliance on fossil fuels, research links these types of well stimulation treatments with increased water and air pollution, as well as the potential to harm marine life.

“We must take every possible step to protect our precious coastline and ocean,” said Attorney General Harris. “The U.S. Department of Interior’s inadequate environmental assessment would open the door to practices like fracking that may pose a threat to the health and well-being of California communities. We must balance our energy needs with our longstanding commitment to protecting our natural resources and public health.”

In 2013, it came to light that advanced well treatments were being used off California’s coastline, prompting two environmental organizations to file lawsuits challenging the use of fracking and acidizing off-shore without adequate environmental review.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s environmental assessment, issued in May 2016, found that fracking poses “no significant impact.” This assessment runs contrary to substantial evidence in the record identifying significant environmental effects from fracking, as well as numerous other unique risks posed by offshore fracking. The Department of Interior’s failure to adequately consider these, and other, concerns associated with fracking off California’s coastline prompted the Attorney General to file this lawsuit alleging violations of federal environmental protection laws.

Among those who formally expressed grave concerns about the coastal fracking proposal are the California Coastal Commission and three members of Congress from California, Lois Capps (CA-24), Sam Farr (CA-20) and Jared Huffman (CA-2). In addition, 11 state legislators urged the continuation of the moratorium on offshore advanced well treatments “until a more comprehensive evaluation focused on impacts to marine life, ecosystems, and coastal communities is completed.”

The Attorney General’s complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that in issuing this environmental assessment and finding no significant impact the Department of the Interior violated the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act.

The California Attorney General has long been involved in efforts to protect the state’s resources from negative environmental and public health impacts of oil and gas production.

Last month, Attorney General Harris announced a $14 million settlement with BP West Coast Products LLC, BP Products North America, Inc., and Atlantic Richfield Company over allegations that the companies violated state laws regarding operating and maintaining motor vehicle fuel underground storage tanks. The Attorney General’s office and several district attorneys across the state allege that BP failed to properly inspect and maintain underground tanks used to store gasoline for retail sale at approximately 780 gas stations in California over a period of 10 years and violated other hazardous material and hazardous waste laws.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Harris, 8 other states, and the city of Chicago filed a motion to intervene in support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) New Source Performance Standards to limit greenhouse gas emissions, specifically methane, from oil and natural gas operations. The new EPA standards mark the first time the EPA has directly limited greenhouse gases from the oil and natural gas sector and tightens existing limits on emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from oil and natural gas operations.

In November 2015, Attorney General Harris and 17 other state Attorneys General filed a motion to intervene in support of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s first-ever national standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Attorney General Harris has vigorously defended AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which has received global recognition as a leading example of legislation that promotes reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Attorney General’s office has also defended challenges to California’s cap and trade auctions and its precedent-setting Low Carbon Fuels Standard. [See copy of the complaint here.]

(Attorney General Press Release)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! STATE AND FEDS WILL RELEASE EIS FOR DELTA TUNNELS PLAN TOMORROW

by Dan Bacher

California Governor Jerry Brown today lauded the release of the “final” environmental documents for the controversial Delta Tunnels, a plan that fishermen, Tribal leaders, conservationists, family farmers and environmental justice advocates consider to be the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history.

Brown touted the California WaterFix, his proposal to build two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, as “California’s effort to modernize the state’s water infrastructure.”

“This project has been subjected to 10 years of detailed analysis and more environmental review than any other project in the history of the world,” said Brown in a statement. “It is absolutely essential if California is to maintain a reliable water supply.”

Brown also made his case for the tunnels in an article in the Sacramento Bee, “Jerry Brown plunges ahead on twin tunnels,” written by Dan Morain, the Bee’s Editorial Page Editor.

“We’ve put everything we have into it,” Brown told Morain in an interview. “The best scientific thinking says California needs the project.”

The decision to grant the permits for the Delta Tunnels won’t be made until next year after President-Elect Donald Trump enters office, so you can bet that Brown, in spite of his posing as the alleged "resistance" to Trump's environmental policies, will be doing everything he can to convince Trump to support his “legacy" project.

Referring to Trump, Brown told Morain, “I don’t think the president wants to destroy the economy of California… It’s not about being conservative or liberal. It’s about having the plumbing that meets the needs of the 21st century.”

In a statement, Restore the Delta, a coalition opposed to the Delta Tunnels, contested Governor Brown’s claim that the tunnels plan is backed up by the “best scientific thinking.”

“Governor Jerry Brown told the Sacramento Bee that Delta Tunnels proposal is based on the best scientific thinking,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD). “That is simply not true. He left out that fish do worse with the tunnels, and that millions of Delta residents will be left with degraded water that will not meet Clean Water Act standards.”

“The Governor failed to remember the dangers for Delta residents associated with the project, from toxic algal blooms, to increased boron and selenium in drinking water, to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 600,000 new cars on the road each year from construction," she said.

“This forgetting on Governor Brown's part is reckless and dangerous as he makes his appeal to President-elect Trump to support the project. Governor Brown is supporting a project that will leave Stockton, California, a majority-minority city, and other Delta environmental justice communities with degraded water -- all for the benefit of rich water exporters in the San Joaquin Valley, Southern California, and Silicon Valley,” she stated.

“Shame on Governor Brown. What dishonest pandering,” Barrigan-Parrilla concluded.

To read all of the environmental documents in the 90,000 page Environmental Impact Report/ Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/ EIS) for the Delta Tunnels, visit the Final Environmental Impact Report webpage.

Yesterday, Restore the Delta also pointed out the 90,000 page document is “not a green light for the Delta Tunnels but rather should be understood as the submission of homework by sponsoring agencies (California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) to be evaluated by state and federal regulators who will determine if proposal can meet environmental and water quality standards under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). A feat no previous version of the proposal has achieved.”

Not “The Resistance” — Brown’s real environmental legacy exposed

I'm constantly amazed how Jerry Brown constantly receives fawning coverage from the mainstream media when he appears at climate conferences in California and across the globe, even though his actual policies on fish, wildlife, water and the environment are among the most destructive of any governor in recent California history.

Many mainstream reporters and editors have done very little research into the actual environmental policies of Jerry Brown, preferring to act as virtual stenographers and press release writers for the Governor. Although I have written about Brown’s environmental policies in many articles published in an array of media outlets, it’s a good idea to review them once again as this year nears its end.

The Governor’s “legacy project,” the Delta Tunnels/California Water Fix, undoubtedly poses a huge threat to the ecosystems of the Sacramento, San Joaquin, Klamath and Trinity river systems, in contrast to the Brown’s claim in Morain’s article that the tunnels, combined with “Delta restoration,” ”could help native fish rebound from the edge of extinction.

The project is based on the untenable premise that taking more water out of a river before it reaches the estuary will somehow “restore” the San Francisco Bay Delta and its precious fish and wildlife species.

Unfortunately, the California WaterFix is not the only environmentally devastating policy promoted by Governor Jerry Brown. Brown is promoting the expansion of fracking and extreme oil extraction methods in California and is overseeing water policies that are driving winter run-Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt and other species closer and closer to extinction.

As if those examples of Brown’s tainted environmental legacy weren’t bad enough, Brown has promoted carbon trading and REDD policies that pose an enormous threat to Indigenous Peoples around the globe; has done nothing to stop clearcutting of forests by Sierra-Pacific and other timber companies; presided over record water exports from the Delta in 2011; and oversaw massive fish kills of Sacramento splittail and other species in 2011.

Jerry Brown also oversaw the “completion” of so-called “marine protected areas” under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, overseen by a Big Oil lobbyist and other corporate interests, in December 2012. These faux “Yosemites of the Sea” fail to protect the ocean from oil drilling, fracking, pollution, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.

Brown’s “Dirty Hands” exposed in groundbreaking report

Governor Brown’s anti-environmental policies, particularly his fervent support of fracking in spite of his cynical eco-babble about "green energy” and “defending science,” are the result of the millions of dollars that Brown has received from Big Oil, Big Ag and other corporate interests in recent years.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) on September 23 opened an investigation into the California Democratic Party in response to a report by a prominent consumer group claiming that the party acted as a “laundry machine” to funnel donations from oil, energy and utility companies to Brown’s 2014 election campaign.

Consumer Watchdog released the report, Brown’s Dirty Hands, on August 10, 2016, at a time when Brown faces increasing criticism from environmental, consumer and public interest groups regarding administration policies they say favor oil companies, energy companies and utilities over fish, water, people and the environment.

The report tabulated donations totaling $9.8 million dollars to Jerry Brown’s campaigns, causes, and initiatives, and to the California Democratic Party since he ran for Governor from 26 energy companies with business before the state, according to Court. The companies included the state’s three major investor-owned utilities, as well as Occidental, Chevron, and NRG.

The report alleges that energy companies donated $4.4 million to the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party gave $4.7 million to Brown’s re-election between 2011 and 2014. Consumer Watchdog submitted its report to the FPPC as a sworn complaint.

As this FPPC investigation proceeds, the big corporate money behind Governor Jerry Brown's controversial environmental policies is facing increasing scrutiny from public trust advocates. November 4 was the second anniversary of the passage of Proposition 1, Brown’s controversial water bond, a measure that fishing groups, California Indian Tribes, grassroots conservation groups and environmental justice advocates opposed because they considered it to be a water grab for corporate agribusiness and Big Money interests.

Proponents of Proposition 1 contributed a total of $21,820,691 and spent a total of $19,538,153 on the successful campaign. The contributors are a who’s who of Big Money interests in California, including corporate agribusiness groups, billionaires, timber barons, Big Oil. the tobacco industry and the California Chamber of Commerce. They provide a quick snapshot of the corporate interests behind the questionable environmental policies of Brown. For more information, go to: www.counterpunch.org/...)

Brown spouts “green” rhetoric when he flies off to climate conferences and issues proclamations about John Muir Day and Earth Day, but his actions and policies regarding fish, water and the environment should be challenged by all of those who care about the future of California and the West Coast.

To read Brown’s Dirty Hands, go here: www.consumerwatchdog.org/...

For more information about the real environmental record of Governor JerryBrown, go to: www.dailykos.com…

BLYTHE HOPE GIVES CHRISTMAS THANKS FOR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Dear Editor,

Every year, generous individuals donate their time, money, skills and love to support children who really need and deserve it. I would like to thank the following community members and groups for their involvement with the MCOE Foster and Homeless Youth Services Program:

1) Employees at MCOE who generously provide more than 100 kids with Christmas presents each year. I am honored to work amongst such amazing people.

2) Alisa Susan, my family outreach program assistant who helps me keep my head on straight. Your dedication to our families is astonishing. Thank you.

3) Community Cares Committee for driving the work that we do

4) Ukiah Kiwanas Club for continued support through this whole project

5) Monty and Heidi McDowell with Ukiah Grocery Outlet for purchasing wholesale foods

6) First Baptist Church for allowing the space to make our Community Cares project possible

7) Community members who dedicate time weekly to packing bags of food for our kids

8) Gwen Rassmusen’s students at Willits High School for packing bags of cereal

9) Guy Mills, Manager of Willits Taco Bell, for donating 8,000 utensils for our weekly food bags

10) Savings Bank of Mendocino County for their “Casual for a Cause” group donation

11) Judy Waterman and staff at Price Waterman for their monetary donation

12) Mirabel, the manager at Payless Shoe Source, for donating shoes

13) Steve Miller/Glenn Miller Foundation for monetary donation and time packing bags

14) Ukiah Valley Medical Center Physical Therapy Office for sponsoring 40 students with jackets this year in lieu of their annual office Secret Santa gift exchange

15) River Church for sponsoring homeless children with warm coats

16) United Postal Service for agreeing to deliver homeless food bags throughout the whole county at no cost

17) Dan Baldi at Woody’s Laundromat and his team for providing a space for our families to use vouchers so they can wash clothing

18) Ukiah Dentistry for donating toothbrushes and toothpaste for our homeless students

19) Elaine Carpenter and Laytonville Quilting Bee for providing endless warm quilts for kids who have nothing. Your generosity warms children and brings such joy to their faces.

20) Melissa and David Milovina for your annual monetary donation

Thank you to each and every community member who has donated time and energy to our programs. Whether it is in the form of $20, a pair of shoes, a coat, time packing a bag for a homeless child, $1,000, or a warm sleeping bag for those without heat, YOU all are making a difference, and I am so proud to be a part of a community that cares.

Happy Holidays!

Blythe Post

Manager IV-Foster and Homeless Youth Services Program
Mendocino County Office of Education
2240 Old River Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482
(707) 467-5104 | (707) 468-3364 Fax

CATCHING UP WITH CRAIG

Yo AVAistas, relax with this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeSsuJcovrk

Eliane Elias, piano & vocal
Ruben de la Gorta, guitar
Marc Johnson, bass
Rafael Barata, drums

* * *

Please know that I am sitting in my comfortable room at Post & Taylor in the "lower Nob" neighborhood of San Francisco, surrounded by art schools, the theater district, Union Square all Christmas decorated (complete with an ice rink) two blocks away, plus my Mechanics Institute private library is straight down Post Street. Am keeping up with the visionless direction that postmodern America is going in via the pages of the New York Times; the big Sunday edition I read at the Kabuki Spa in Japantown every Monday morning. I routinely go to Ocean Beach for a couple of miles of walking, ending up at the Cliff House. This gives me adequate time to contemplate the news I've been taking in. A midweek visit to the Haight Ashbury is important, to confer with my Thai women friends who own the Love of Ganesha gift store. They are raising money for Amma the hugging saint's charitable work, and easily comprehend the Earth First! radical environmental attitude which I have shared. They believe that Divine Intervention will be necessary to rescue the planet earth before full ecological implosion begins this summer. And by the way, City Lights Bookstore still hosts the best radical literary gatherings, with extended discussions and strategizing upstairs at Vesuvio's next door. If you visit, don't leave your heart in San Francisco. Seriously, take it with you when you clear out. P.S. I understand that Crimethinc has organized a statement of sorts for the presidential inauguration in Washington D.C. January 20th. Will cocktails and hors d'oeurves be served at Freedom Plaza like we did during D.C. Occupy?

Craig Louis Stehr

December 21, 2016

Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com