Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 2, 2017

• Mayday Rallies
• 25 Years Ago
• 101 Open
• Dude Fest
• Farmers Market
• Opioid Deaths
• Ai Origake
• Boontling Classic
• Local Tourism
• Gualala Hotel
• Navarro Store
• Education
• Proposed Proclamation
• Cram Plea
• Little Dog
• SCP Explained
• Special Glasses
• Online Meetings
• Yesterday's Catch
• Bad Fruit
• Manson Blogging
• Calm Surface
• SNWMF Tickets
• Cracked Windows
• Peoples Services
• Trump Salad
• School Vouchers
• Diabetes Class
• Personhood
• Green Tara

MAY DAY RALLIES ACROSS BAY AREA; FOUR ARRESTED AT ALAMEDA PROTEST

Four people were arrested early Monday after they blocked an entrance to the Alameda County Administration Building in the first of several May Day rallies in the Bay Area.

More than 100 protesters gathered at the building — chaining themselves to the doors and lying on the street — demanding an end to the county’s corroboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The protesters also were demanding the county not go forward with a planned expansion of Santa Rita Jail.

Later Monday afternoon, about 1,000 demonstrators marched in Oakland’s Fruitvale District and then convened in San Antonio Park in East Oakland.

Elsewhere, thousands of workers and activists from across the Bay Area rallied and marched Monday in honor of International Workers Day, or May Day, and to support immigrant rights.

In San Francisco several hundred people demonstrated at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in downtown, closing down streets around the Sansome Street.

Those demonstrators then marched to a May Day rally at Justin Herman Plaza at the foot of Market St. Members of the Service Employees International Union and other workers’ group then held a march in support of immigrant rights to Civic Center Plaza.

In San Jose, hundreds of workers, including tech industry employees, turned out for a May Day rally at the Mexican Heritage Plaza on Alum Rock Ave.

In Concord, activists scheduled a May Day rally and march to begin at 4 p.m. at Meadow Homes Park at 1351 Detroit Ave. Participants will rally to defend immigrant rights and to call on city leaders to make Concord a sanctuary city.

(CBS News 5 San Francisco)

(Ed note: According to MendocinoSportsPlus, a few people showed up in Fort Bragg, but not enough to notice.)

MAY 1, 1992 — Capping a day of protest that closed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge and turned to wanton destruction, looting and arson downtown, Mayor Frank Jordan declared a state of emergency in the city last night and imposed a 9 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew. It was believed to be the first curfew in San Francisco since the looting that followed the 1906 earthquake and fire and came as multiracial bands of youths and young adults roamed downtown streets, engaging in guerilla-style confrontations with police, burning police motorcycles, setting fires and looting businesses, shops and department stores. Looters, mingling with terrified tourists and anxious office workers trying to get home, broke windows and carted off goods from stores like The Gap, Banana Republic and Rochester Big and Tall. Windows at the Fairmont Hotel and Macy’s were smashed ...

In one incident, demonstrators stormed Copeland’s Sporting Goods, where they stole baseball bats that they then used to break windows at other stores. By the time Jordan declared the emergency shortly after 9 p.m., 340 people had been arrested in San Francisco. Earlier in the day, Highway Patrol officers cornered demonstrators on the Bay Bridge and arrested 380 of them. Downtown BART stations closed for several hours, forcing thousands to find alternative transportation. These incidents did not remotely resemble those that occurred in Los Angeles in reaction to the not-guilty verdicts in the Rodney King beating trial. Yet their intensity appeared to take authorities by surprise.

— Rick Delvecchio, Clarence Johnson, Louis Freedberg, The San Francisco Chronicle

CALTRANS: US 101 TRAFFIC ALERT: 101 at Leggett Open 1-way.

101 north of Leggett will be experiencing delays of up to 30 minutes 7 am to 7 pm weekdays to stabilize the hillside at the location of recent rockslides and install a cable mesh system. The work may take 2-3 months to complete and reopen both lanes.

DUDE FEST has come and gone. Thousands of beer drinkers descended on the Anderson Valley for Saturday’s crowded event at the Boonville Fairgrounds and, by Sunday night, they were gone. Quite rare in these times that thousands of mostly young people can assemble in one place, get absolutely hammered over a few hours, and totter off to their campgrounds without so much as a fistfight. Hats off to the organizers at the Boonville Brewery. Much of the gate money goes to our volunteer fire department, and wherever he is these days, Ken Allen, founder of the Boonville Brewery with David Norfleet, should know he’s been a long-term boon to Boonville that all of us deeply appreciate.

IT’S HERE!

Barbara Goodell writes:

Boonville Farmers Market Grand Opening 2017

On Saturday, May 6^th the summer Boonville Farmers’ Market will commence with fanfare in the parking lot of the Boonville Hotel at the corner of Highway 128 and Lambert Lane from 9:30-noon. The first market of the season is traditionally the big plant sale of the year where you can not only find all the favorite, locally-grown summer garden starts you want, but also late spring plantings, herbs, and flowers. You’ll also be able to buy freshly-picked, crunchy spring veggies for your palate in anticipation of the fruition of the summer season as well as olive oil, meat, and crafts.

While Old River Road serenades us with music the vendor preview looks like Petit Teton with jams, krauts, pickles and other preserved foods, eggs, pork, beef, stewing chickens, squab, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Blue Meadow Farm will initially join us with Pam’s tried and true plant starts. Anderson Valley Community Farm will be there with plant starts and spring veggies plus their array of meat. WildeAcre Farm has plant starts galore. Bramble Family Farms will come with their local Mediterranean blend of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Patchwork Goat will display their handmade artisan goat milk soaps made with milk from their small herd of Nubian/Alpine goats raised on their farmstead in Boonville. Ron Black will feature his abalone jewelry. BFM hats and T-shirts will adorn the manager’s table with Amanda Bontecou at the helm for her third year. If Ron Rice doesn’t make it to the first market with his Yorkville Olive Oil, he will be there soon; so will Geoffrey and Trout with their mushrooms and potatoes. Brock Farm will join the market in June and throughout the summer you will find chef demos, special events, kids activities, and music.

So, mark your calendars for each Saturday morning from May through October to find excellent food, ingredients, food workshops, local color, and camaraderie.

KYREE KLIMIST is Mendocino County’s Public Health person who keeps our drug abuse stats, which, of course, have been upward trending for years. He (she?) says two young people died in April from overdosing themselves with “powered fentanyl,” an opioid. There were deaths from fentanyl patches some years ago, but the desire for the drug seems to have returned among some of the more despairing sectors of the young. Mendocino County’s population of a mere 90,000 people ranks 9th in the state in opioid deaths, a skewed statistic given relative population figures but worrisome enough even if only a relative handful of young people are numbing themselves with this stuff.

THE CHP’S edited (by the AVA) presser on the death on 128 last Tuesday, the 25th of April: About 2:30pm, Mr. and Mrs. Origake, of Honolulu were driving a 1939 classic Jaguar SS-100 just west of mile marker 9.37 not far from Navarro. The Jaguar was part of the California Mille classic car tour. The driver, Mr. Origake, was traveling at an unknown speed when he unaccountably allowed his Jaguar to leave Highway 128 and crash into a tree. He was partially ejected from the vehicle and sustained fatal injuries on impact. Mrs. Ai Origake suffered serious injuries in the collision. She was transported to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Mr. O was not wearing a seatbelt, but Mrs. O was. Drugs or alcohol were not considered to be a factor in the collision. It was cloudy and misting at the time of the crash. The California Mille is an annual car tour showcasing vintage cars made before 1958, inspired by the famed Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles), an open-road race in Italy that ended in 1957. The California Mille runs one thousand miles from San Francisco through the state’s scenic backroads, including Highway One along the Northern California coast. Original 1939 Jaguar SS-100s can cost several hundred thousand dollars each depending on condition, but replicas and restorations typically cost about as much as a late model sedan. It is not known whether the car involved in this crash was a classic or a replica.

THE 35TH ANNUAL BOONTLING CLASSIC 5K Footrace is right around the corner — just a few days away on Sunday, May 7th at 10am. It is shaping up to be a terrific event. Many runners of all ages have already entered, the 2017 t-shirts are fabulous, and there are more raffle prizes than ever before! So, if you are looking for fast competition, a good spring jog, or just an enjoyable walking event with friends, the Boontling Classic is for you. Once again, the Day of the Child celebration after the race promises to be loads of fun for the entire family. For more information or registration forms contact race director Flick McDonald at (707) 621-2701, flick@mcn.org

I KNOW lots of locals who have never been to Gualala, never driven to the South Mendocino Coast over Fish Rock Road, have barely heard of Covelo let alone traveled there, confuse Laytonville and Leggett, Westport and Rockport. It’s always struck me as peculiar that some locals will fly off to do a bike tour of Scotland, say, or hike Machu Pichu, without it occurring to them that their home county is so beautifully varied that a weekend exploring it can be as interesting as a month in a totally foreign place. We need a Mendocino County-specific guide book, a kind of insider’s tour of this fascinating, far flung place. I nominate Katy Tajha and/or Jendi Coursey, both of whom already know much of the history of this unique place and have undoubtedly visited every part of it.

ON THE SUBJECT of local history, it is downright exhilarating that the stately old Gualala Hotel has been rehabbed by one South Coast family, the Sundstroms, and will eventually be re-opened by another, Beverly and James Pederson.

NO, DAVE, NO! Dave Evans has the Navarro Store up for sale. For purely selfish reasons, I hope it doesn’t sell because Dave has singlehandedly put the N back in Navarro with his revitalization of the multifaceted institution, and he’s done it in a ah, er, well, let’s say “troubled neighborhood” and leave it at that. Not only has he managed to create a viable business in a difficult context. Dave’s a heckuvan amusing guy into the bargain. No one will forget his truly amazing summer night concerts under the redwoods starring world renowned musicians. If the store sells, Dave himself absolutely must stay.

THE APRIL edition of Home&Land describes the Deepend enterprise this way: “The historic Navarro General Store located on Hwy 128 in the heart of the redwoods and Pinot Noir country on the way to the Mendocino Coastline. Full service deli, convenience store, gas station, living quarters, and a renowned live music venue. Profitable, turnkey business op with the real estate and off business FF&E, license, and inventory included. Truly a one of a kind property! $995,000.”

SPEAKING of the schools, I popped into the dependably bleak high school cafeteria last Tuesday night where young parents and some teachers had assembled to wish-list what they wanted the schools to do. I quickly understood that I had nothing helpful to contribute and went away because I know I didn’t share the edu-assumptions of the people in the desensitization tank. Overall, I think the schools do all right given the state and federal mandates they work under, their added burden being the long-gone community consensus about what schools should be teaching. But while I have you here, I’ll say the schools do accomplish the basics of reading and simple math. Writing instruction disappeared years ago. But beyond the sixth grade pedagogical confusion reigns, and it’s coupled to the onset of puberty and, on top of raging hormones, the evil influence of a decadent and relentlessly stupid popular culture. Few people share my analysis, but to be of real use to Our Nation’s Future, young people should, beyond the 6th grade, get maybe a couple of hours of reading, writing and a little more math every day then spend the rest of their school time apprenticed out to adults who actually know how to do stuff. The way the upper grades are organized now most kids just sit there disengaged from the cerebral processes until they get a diploma that means absolutely nothing because they haven’t learned anything practical, let alone marketable, since the sixth grade.

HOLLOW LAUGH OF THE WEEK: from the Proposed Mental Health Month Proclamation sponsored by Supervisor Dan Hamburg, Mendo’s master of the empty gesture:

“Whereas, the Mendocino County Health and Human Services Agency is committed to transforming the way mental health services are provided to include: evidenced based treatment, support, integration of mental health, substance use disorders and primary care services, early intervention with a help-first rather than fail-first approach and community Wellness and Recovery Centers where clients can find hope, empowerment, personal responsibility, and a meaningful role in life…”

THIS JUMBLED, half-cracked declaration is typical of local government and the array of allied non-profits. If you went purely by their vacuous and often self-congratulatory public statements, you’d think Mendocino County was a kind of Norway of civic functioning rather than the neo-Appalachia it is for a good hunk of its citizens, especially children.

JENNIFER ROSE CRAM pled out at the last moment this afternoon before her jury trial was set to go. I came in late and missed the verbal fireworks, but apparently she unloaded some choice expletives on her free lawyer, Mr. Leveroni of the Office of the Public Defender. All I heard was a tearful apology to Judge Ann Moorman. But Her Honor said the person she really needed to apologize to was her court-appointed lawyer. Cram had been charged with petty theft, and issued a stay-away order from WalMart. (—Bruce McEwen)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “The nerve of some species! Look at this guy. He suddenly shows up outta nowhere and says to me, ‘Bet you didn't know we were cousins, did you?’ He makes himself right at home, and two minutes after he got here he's calling me ‘Cuz’!”

SONOMA CLEAN POWER PLAY: MENDO JOINS THE REVOLUTION

by Thom Elkjer

What if the revolution came, and we missed it because we tossed out the announcement? Seems like that’s what happened last month, when PG&E customers in Mendocino County got word that the utility no longer has a monopoly on selling us electricity.

Most people I talked to don’t remember getting the letter, didn’t read it, or didn’t realize what it meant. The reality is, this change matters to you for three reasons: your democracy, your climate, and your money. I don’t know about you, but those three are pretty high on my list of concerns these days.

You’d think the folks bringing us this change would have prepared us a little better, but hey, we’re the ones who decided to live in the deep countryside. So the best we can do is catch up with the story and make good choices about it. Let’s start with what the letter explains (which is not much). Then we’ll look at what’s behind it.

On June 1^st, an outfit called Sonoma Clean Power will take over generating and sourcing the electricity that comes into our homes and businesses. PG&E will still deliver that electricity, take care of all the power lines, send us the monthly bill, and take our calls if power goes out. Unlike PG&E, which charges us enough to earn generous profits for the investors who own it, Sonoma Clean Power is a non-profit aiming to save us money.

The other big difference is that we now get to choose how much renewable electricity we receive. With PG&E, less than 30% of the electricity we get comes from renewables such as solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric. With Sonoma Clean Power, that immediately goes up to 36% for the base service called “CleanStart.” You’ll get this base service automatically if you do nothing.

You can also choose a higher tier that gives you 100% renewable electricity. This is a good deal if you’re into climate protection, because you pay 11% more (less than $10 for most people) to get 277% more renewable electricity, and the carbon emissions associated with your electricity drop to nearly nothing.

The third option available is to “opt out” of Sonoma Clean Power and stay with PG&E for everything. (If you’re wondering why anyone would do that, keep reading.)

There’s almost nothing in the letter from Sonoma Clean power about what we will actually pay. It mentions “great rates” that are “competitively priced,” but you won’t find a figure. More on that in a moment.

Whatever we choose, the transition is going to be pretty much seamless. If you get discounts from PG&E now, you’ll get those with Sonoma Clean Power. If you’re already generating solar energy that goes into the PG&E grid, you will still get credit for that (and it will be more advantageous). There will be a small change for people using the “Balanced Payment Plan” from PG&E, which averages out electricity usage through the year so people can pay the same amount every month. The charges for delivery from PG&E will still be averaged in the Balanced Payment Plan, but the charges for the electricity from Sonoma Clean Power will vary from month to month depending on your usage.

Okay, that’s the news, at least according to what Sonoma Clean Power wrote us in the letter. Now we get to democracy, the climate, and your wallet.

Hardly anyone remembers, or ever knew, that California passed a law back in 2002 to create a competitive market for electricity. This legally broke the regulated monopoly enjoyed by PG&E and other investor-owned utilities in the state. It happened because PG&E had laughably failed in its obligations to customers in the years before that, getting famously screwed by Enron and others who were manipulating the energy market. So state legislators had a window of political opportunity to inject democracy into the state’s electricity market, against the wishes of big, wealthy utilities with decades of entrenched political power.

PG&E used that influence to keep democracy from actually happening until 2008, when communities in Marin County banded together to create Marin Clean Energy (MCE). This was the first “community choice aggregation” organization, or CCA, meaning that communities were using the law to pool their purchasing of electricity and then choosing to buy it from someone other than the monopoly utility. In Marin’s case, that meant PG&E.

Back in 2002, state legislators had recognized that the big utilities were not going to like this, so they wrote the law in a way that allowed communities with elected local governments (city councils and boards of supervisors) to choose the CCA route. No special elections would be required, because the elected leaders would be acting on behalf of their constituents. Furthermore, the change would be automatic for customers – they would not have to do anything to benefit from the CCA once it was established.

PG&E really hated that part. It responded by putting a misleading proposition on a state ballot in 2003 and spending $46 million on advertising for it. The proposition would have changed the 2002 law to require elections won by a super-majority of more than 60% of voters before communities could escape PG&E’s clutches. This sick move backfired – voters figured out whose wallets that $46 million came from – and the proposition failed. MCE was able to go ahead and pioneer the CCA approach, and it’s already grown beyond Marin County to include communities in Contra Costa, Napa and Solano Counties.

Sonoma Clean Power got rolling in 2014, to serve cities and unincorporated areas of Sonoma county. The cities include Cloverdale, Cotati, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma, and Windsor. Healdsburg has its own electrical utility (as does Ukiah). The cities and counties operate under a “joint powers authority” that allows them to operate collectively with regard to electricity, and the board of directors of Sonoma Clean Power is made up of elected officials from participating communities.

Starting in 2015, Mendocino County entertained proposals from a number of CCAs and other groups proposing to unseat PG&E as Mendo’s electricity provider. Last summer the county’s Board of Supervisors accepted a proposal from Sonoma Clean Power. Our own 5^th District supervisor, Dan Hamburg, was instrumental in getting Mendocino to study Sonoma Clean Power’s success – a third-party study showed that it has saved Sonoma residents and businesses $70 million in its first few years of operation – and he now represents Mendocino County on Sonoma Clean Power’s board of directors.

“The Board of Supervisors looked at this opportunity carefully from multiple perspectives, including creating a separate CCA for Mendocino,” he says. “In the end, we chose Sonoma Clean Power because they were so committed to the big benefits of lower electricity rates, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and more local investment in clean power. There was no hard sell. They just wanted to help, even if we took another route.”

Time and money were also big factors in the decision. It would have taken at least two years and could have cost up to a million dollars to establish a separate CCA, and our County has a spotty record on big projects with long timelines. Turns out even our Supervisor knows this. “Playing in the competitive market for electricity is the kind of big, long-term decision we really need to get right,” Hamburg says, “and I think we checked all the boxes by choosing Sonoma Clean Power.”

There were five operational CCAs in California in 2016, with four more set to go live this year. Another five are expected to follow in 2018, and at least 15 additional cities and counties are in the early stages. Six states besides California have passed CCA legislation in recent years: Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island. Cities and counties in those states are pushing the movement as hard or harder than those in California. For example, more than 700 communities in Illinois were looking at CCA options as of last month.

This is democracy in action: giving us a choice, at the community level, about who provides our electricity, how clean it is, and how much we pay for it. It’s also a great way to slow the growth of carbon emissions.

If you follow the news about environmental sustainability at all, you know that government is rarely the solution (even before the current crowd took over in Washington, D.C.) Take organic foods. The government provides some complicated, often opaque or inexplicable regulations on organic food labeling, and that’s it. Thanks a lot.

It’s when consumers vote with their dollars that things change. Say what you want about Whole Foods, but it was customers of “Whole Paycheck,” willing to pay top dollar for organics, that woke up the sleepyheads at Safeway and Walmart. Now those companies sell so much organic food that Whole Foods has to lower its prices. Organic farmers are expanding nationwide to keep up with the demand.

CCAs, including Sonoma Clean Power, give us the same process with electricity. If enough of us vote with our dollars for clean energy, our capitalist economy is going to give us more clean energy, at lower prices than before. The more CCAs there are, the more robust this process gets. Yes, investor-owned utilities around the country are tugging against it. But the genie is not going back in the bottle, because no matter who is in the White House or Congress, this country follows the money.

And that’s the third reason to care about Sonoma Clean Power: it wants to save you money. It’s a non-profit public agency, run by our communities, for us. It’s not owned by institutional investors that collect the profits. We’re the investors in a sense, because we invested in living here and elected supervisors who got us a CCA.

The biggest savings over time should come from lower rates for electricity, because there will be more clean power generated to meet the demand. Not only that, CCAs can invest locally to create the power they need. Marin Clean Energy built a big solar installation at Marin’s local airport, which is paying for itself in a hurry. Sonoma Clean Power gets geothermal electricity from The Geysers near Cloverdale. Hard to get more local than that for one of the more exotic renewables.

It’s even possible to imagine shopping malls roofing their parking lots with solar panels to make their electricity costs disappear. You think a CCA county is going to complain? You think local residents are going to complain? Okay, in this county we know that someone is going to complain, but a lot of other people are going to be watching happily for another reduction in their electricity bill – and another reduction in carbon emissions.

The bad news is that Sonoma Clean Power and other CCAs in California are currently handcuffed in how much they can reduce electricity rates. Please don’t grind your teeth when you find out why. PG&E is so blindly opposed to the growing democracy in the electricity market that is has purchased way too much conventional electricity – and is legally allowed to make CCA customers pay for it.

CCAs now account for a big chunk of the state’s electricity needs, but PG&E continued entering into long-term contracts to purchase electricity for its whole territory anyway. Now it says it’s stuck with energy it can’t sell. So it’s charging Sonoma Clean Power $13 dollars per customer – every month – to pay for that bad management. It’s like making us pay the tobacco companies if we quit smoking, because (sob!) they’re losing customers.

The law allows this for now, but it’s under assault. California’s CCAs have their own lobbying association, CalCCA, and it is energetically active in Sacramento. The state legislature seems open to changing the rules. In a future article, we’ll bring you a lot more blow-by-blow on how the CCA movement is advancing both politically and economically.

Meanwhile, Sonoma Clean Power is finding other ways to cut rates. The best is paying more for the solar power we generate on our own panels than PG&E did. It can do this because getting power locally is cheaper than buying hydroelectric from a dam 500 miles away. Sonoma Clean Power also says it will write us a check in May every year that we generate at least $100 more electricity than we use; below that, we still keep the credit against future electricity use. PG&E, in contrast, zeroes out our excess solar power generation every year and doesn’t pay us a dime.

What all this means is that we now have stronger and more direct economic incentives to use and generate clean power. This is absolutely vital to slowing the progress of climate change. The Paris Climate Agreement is a wonderful thing, but it’s not binding on the U.S. or any other country. For most of us individuals and families, electricity is binding. We’ve got to have it, and if enough of us use our purchasing power to make it cleaner, the climate will benefit.

I mentioned earlier that some people will decide to opt out of Sonoma Clean Power. So-called “opt-out rates” were surprisingly high in the early days of CCAs – more than 10 percent – but they are coming down fast. The CCA in Santa Clara County that launched last month, for example, reports opt-out rates under 1%. This is probably the more likely figure long-term. Some people will resist anything new, even when it benefits them and pays for itself. But with every new CCA it becomes easier to cut loose from the past and embrace the future. As Hamburg puts it sardonically, “When did people ever fall in love with their investor-owned utility?”

Oddly enough, there are some people who oppose CCAs because they are not green enough. These are the folks who point to nuclear energy as the only source that can deliver enough carbon-free electricity to stop global warming. They believe that promoting any other form of clean power is a snare and a delusion that keeps us from the Promised Land. This is a respectable if extreme position, and I urge you to be gentle with those who espouse it. (For example, don’t mention Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima right away.)

For now, go find that letter from Sonoma Clean Power if it’s still in your mail stack or recycling bin. Read it (again) carefully, and also the companion letter that came if you have your own grid-connected solar system. If you can’t find the letters, point your browser to sonomacleanpower.org. By opting in – which means doing nothing – you will help bring more clean power and a smaller carbon footprint to Anderson Valley and the Highlands. If you can afford it, opt for 100% renewable; the monthly cost should be in the neighborhood of a nice glass of something at the Buckhorn, which you will richly deserve.

HERE, IN OUR DENIAL, behind the Redwood Curtain, we hide within our tidy wholesome mythology of “Mom and Pop,” “back-to-the-land” growers, growing superior, world renowned marijuana of unapproachable quality by practicing impeccable watershed stewardship and sustainable, all organic, biodynamic, permaculture farming practices. Meanwhile, back in reality, Google Earth shows a vast network of clear-cuts, garbage dumps and stream diversions connected by a million miles of quad trails and illegal roads. Like the original Emerald City in The Wizard of OZ, what goes on here only looks good if you wear the special sunglasses that make the grime of the black-market sparkle like gemstones. Everything is beautiful here in paradise, just don’t take off those special glasses.

— John Hardin

DEAR REX

To Rex Gresset Re: City meetings on line

It is true that over the years your writing skills have improved.  But not getting facts correct is something you need to work on, unless like some people  in our national government, you prefer to stick with “alternative” facts.

The latest information you twisted to fit your argument against Linda Ruffing, et al, is that city meetings were not seen on-line until recently. That is just not true, here is a little history: The city council and planning and many other meetings were recorded and played on channel 3 beginning in the 1990’s — before on-line was available.  Starting in about 2005 the meetings began to be on line and in fact they are still available on line in a few different places. What is relatively new in the last 5 years is that the meetings can been seen on-line live, which began in 2013. If you are interested is seeing any of the city meetings before MCTV was destroyed by The Footlighters in 2013, go to Archive.org and under category type in "Mendocino Coast."  I haven’t checked recently, let me know if there is a problem.

While it is true the city council meetings were poorly attended for many many years except when certain issues came up — historically that was often around land use, just as today.  Some say the poor attendance was because people could sit at home and watch the meeting. Indeed some people would watch the meeting and come down to town hall in their slippers to comment on something they just noticed on tv of city council. Almost all the city council meetings  MCTV recorded up to June 2013 were watched on line by hundreds of people according to the stats that were available from mcn.org.

Elizabeth Swenson

Fort Bragg

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 1, 2017

CHRISTIAN ALCANTAR, Reno/Ukiah. Transporting, importing or manufacturing a 50-caliber assault rifle, and .50 caliber BMG rounds (Browning Machine Gun)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Caliber_BMG_Regulation_Act_of_2004

WILLIAM BARRY, Ukiah. Drunk in public. (Frequent flyer.)

CHRISTOPHER CUADRA, Little River. Failure to appear.

ELIZABETH DOCKINS, Ukiah. Failure to appear, offenses while on bail, probation revocation. (Last Wednesday’s Warrant Wednesday featured no-show.)

ALAN GRAHAM, Albion. Drunk in public.

DEVIN KESTER-TYLER, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

SHAWNEESUREE LAIWA-MCKAY, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

BRICE MCKINNON, Willits. Embezzlement, parole violation.

THOMAS SANDERS, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

MICHAEL SANDOVAL, Talmage. Drunk in public.

SHARLA SMITH, Fugitive from justice.

KEVIN STARNES, Willits. Drunk in public.

JAMIE STOVER, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

My wife and I eat four apples per day. I have had the conversation with many produce men about the inconsistency of produce that often the oranges are dry inside, the peaches taste like cardboard and even the most consistent apples can be soft and almost mealy. I have pointed out that the most consistent things are donuts and that if one purchased a package of donuts that tasted in reality like garbage compared to being advertised as a sweet donut that one would be back in a heart beat. And one apple or one orange at $1.99 per pound is not cheap, but how many times have you just thrown away “bad” fruit.

MENDOCINO COUNTY'S PREMIER RESEARCHER goes national. Deborah Silva writes:

Earlier this month I did a piece for mansonblog.com, where I'm a regular writer.  I try to find and write about things that were previously unknown about that whole saga.  The early books on the Manson Family like Sanders's "The Family" and Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter" relate that Manson was picked up by the US Marshal's at the Mexican border in 1960.  What the books don't say is the reason why the US Marshal's picked him up.

Well, after doing a bit of searching through newspaper archives I found the reason.  Manson was kicked out of Mexico for being an undesirable alien!  I clipped the two articles I found and created a post for the blog.  The Mexico deportation was only a part of the article I wrote, I went on to include information about Charlie's second wife and child as I was expanding on what was known about that specific time period in Charlie's life.

This is the article I did for the blog:

http://www.mansonblog.com/2017/04/charles-manson-1959-1960.html

On Friday, 4/28/17, I received an email from Eric Owens who writes for The Daily Caller, an online Alt Right news site that is owned by Tucker Carlson of Fox News.  Carlson was given O'Reilly's time slot on Fox News after O'Reilly was let go from Fox.

Owens wanted my permission to use my images and the general content of my post.  He also asked for a more formal name than the DebS I use at the blog.  So, I gave him permission and told him my full name,

Owens article ran yesterday and by this morning had gone viral and picked up by all of the Alt Right leaning websites.  Just Google Charles Manson deportation.

The Daily Caller article:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/29/flashback-mexico-deported-charles-manson-as-an-undesirable-alien-in-1960/

Unbelievable…

THE SOUND OF ONE WING FLAPPING

by James Kunstler

And suddenly the storms of early Trumptopia subside, or seem to. The surface of things turns eerily placid as the sweets of May sweep away the toils of an elongated mud season. Somebody stuffed Kim Jong Un back in his bunker with a carton of Kools and the Vin Diesel video library. France appears resigned to Hollandaise Lite in the refreshing form of boy wonder Macron. It’s been weeks since The New York Times complained about the Russians stealing Hillary’s turn as leader of the free world. We’re given to understand that Congress managed overnight to cook up a spending bill that will avert a Government shut-down until September. Rest easy America… oh, and buy every dip.

A calm surface is exactly what Black Swans like to land on, though by definition we will not know they’re out there until our reveries are broken by the sound of wings flapping. Some kind of dirty bird showed up on Canada’s thawing pond last week when that country’s biggest home loan lender suffered a 60 percent pukage of shareholder equity and had to be bailed out — not by the Canadian government directly, but by the Ontario Province’s Health Care Workers Pension Fund, a neat bit of hocus pocus that amounts to a one-year emergency loan at ten percent interest.

If that’s a way for insolvent public employee pension plans to find enough “yield” to meet their obligations, then maybe that could be the magic bullet for the USA’s foundering pension funds. The next time Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and friends get a case of the Vapors, let them be bailed out by the Detroit School Bus Drivers’ Pension Fund at ten percent interest. That ought to work. And let Calpers take care of Wells Fargo.

The situation across Western Civilization is as follows: virtually every major financial institution has become a check-kiting operation or a Ponzi scheme, and we’ve reached the point where they can only pretend to be rescued. Bailout or not, the Toronto-based Home Capital Group is still stuck with shit-loads of non-performing sub-prime mortgage loans — its specialty — and Canada’s spectacular real estate bubble has hardly begun to pop. The collateral is starting to turn, like dead meat in the May sunshine, and the odium will waft across the border.

It doesn’t take much to blow things up, as the world discovered in several other historically recent episodes. The 1998 banking contagion started with the collapse of Thailand’s currency, called the baht. I doubt you could count on one hand the number of people in Wall Street or the Federal Reserve (with its 300-plus PhD economists) who gave a flying fuck about the Thai baht. Before you knew it, South Korea and Indonesia started whirling around the drain. And then Russia felt the suck. And then the Nobel Prize winning economists at a Connecticut hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management found out the hard way that their “secret sauce” investment formula which “could not fail in the life of this universe or several like it,” fatally poisoned its balance sheet on a repast of Russian sovereign bonds after only about eighteen months. And it took all the poobahs of American banking to paper over the firm’s death about five minutes before the global banking system would shut down via the greatest daisy chain of cross-collateralized financial booby-traps ever assembled.

And ten years later, there was the fiasco of 2008, starring Lehman Brothers and a demonic host of grifters trafficking in worthless bonded debt around the sub-prime mortgage racket tied into a toxic web of “derivative financial products” — i.e. bad bets between insolvent counter-parties masquerading as “insurance” against unsound investment. Trillions of bailout monies conjured out of thin air fixed that, oh yes it did!

So enjoy the festivities around the Maypole today, and the suddenly calm waters of global affairs, and keep your ears pricked for the sound of wings flapping.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler)

SINGLE-DAY TICKETS TO SNWMF 2017 NOW AVAILABLE!
Single-Day Music Tickets to our 24th annual summer solstice and world peace celebration are now available online and at select Independent Ticket Outlets. 1-Day tickets are $70 for Friday, $85 for Saturday and $70 for Sunday. Remember: camping is only for 3-day ticket holders.

Presenting The Snwmf 2017 Dances And Workshops
SNWMF 2017 will feature several dance performances and workshops that will be fun and entertaining for everyone! All of the performers listed will be showcased on the "Solstice Stage" except where noted. Performances will take place during the day, both Saturday and Sunday. You can find the Solstice Stage on the vendor lawn next to the Dance Hall. This is in addition to tons of fun stuff in the Kids Zone.

www.snwmf.com

A LOCAL DOG DIED in a hot car yesterday here on the Mendocino Coast

Laurie York wrote:

Dear Coastal Residents,

A local friend reported that a family left their dog in the car yesterday and it died a horrible death from extreme heat inside the car. The family was devastated. They didn’t realize that 70 degrees outside could be a serious problem inside the car. I’m wanting to help remind folks to keep car windows rolled down so your pets are safe when left in a vehicle or better yet, leave them at home.

Marco McClean:

Also, don't just crack the window an inch-and-a-half, nor open just one window. Unless it's two or three windows, and they're down far enough so the dog can jump out and run into the street, or at least far enough so it can bite your arm when you go to get into your car parked next to that car, and not just give you a heart attack by exploding into frenzied barking and banging its nose and teeth against the window, it will get dangerously hot in there.

As for leaving it at home, the poor pupperino tied up in the yard next door to Juanita's apartment block, that barked like a broken record all day and sometimes all night, has finally died of loneliness, or they let it in the house or something; either way, thank Christ.

I know I said long ago that most people who are considering producing a baby would be happier getting a puppy — and it's so much less wasteful of the planet's resources and the commitment is much more plausible, besides that you can sell it or give it away on a whim, or even kill it (humanely) if it displeaseth Your Majesty. Just don't get a dog if you're only going to torture it all its life by stupid neglect.

Speaking of which, they're having another MCPB [KZYX] corp. board meeting tonight [Monday] at 6, this time in an expensive intoxicant establishment, and that's tonight, four hours away, and their website's link to a meeting agenda goes nowhere, as usual. Also nothing has changed regarding paying the airpeople before paying the so-called manager? Do you think it's fair that one guy in the office is paid $60,000 more than all the airpeople for all their work on all their shows all year put together? Because it's not. At little commercial stations it's against the law to not pay airpeople, and commercial stations don't get any six-figure tax-derived grants to make up for managerial shortcomings. At KMFB, Bob Woelfel always made sure to pay everyone before he paid himself. At KNYO Bob Young does all the work the three or four muppets in the office at KZYX need to do — for which they're paid $250,000 (!) — and he does it in a lazy afternoon per month, and it's fine with us not being paid because he does it for nothing but the love of radio. There are plenty of radio stations that are not ridden by parasites. In what other business than so-called public radio is it okay with the world that a handful of poobahs take all the money for themselves and the ones who do the real work of that business get little or nothing but the privilege to work? When it's found out that a charity or church or sweatshop or trafficked-immigrant whorehouse is run that way, justifiable outrage ensues. Why does Mendocino County Public Broadcasting Corp. keep getting a pass on this?

Yesterday I saw this interesting video and immediately thought, This is something like what would happen if you put KZYX in water. Except that it wouldn't die like the grasshopper — if you call that living — rather it would blossom and flower. http://boingboing.net/2017/04/30/baptizing-praying-mantises-for.html

PEOPLES TEMPLE LIVES

Dearest Editoria,

Peoples Temple’s Impact on Lake County, Circa 2017? The on-line responses to “The Day I Met the People's Temple” posted yesterday, April 30, covered a gamut of sentiments and heartfelt opinions I am so moved by that I want to acknowledge them for their forthrightness and erudition.

With your forebearance, I am prompted once again expose my ignorance in appealing for help to understand what the [expletive] is actually happening in Lake County’s mental/social services realm.  Some of your correspondents have in the past provided threads of connection to the county (Mendo’s) administration, district attorney’s office, sheriff’s department, social services and so forth on numerous occasions — chiefly when focused on the endless discussions of homelessness, substance abuse, law enforcement, and economic despair related to “mental illness.”

So I’m hoping that your readers/correspondents might be able to illuminate me about a cultishly tinged organization known as Redwood Community Services, since I see signs of that organization moving in to Lake County, and have no way of knowing whether their operations are as twisted and sick as they are portrayed to be by Mr. Marmon.

From this side of Cow Mountain, it looks to me like the representatives (Camille’s daughter, Victoria, if I am not mistaken) and other well-spoken individuals from Redwood Community Services are delivering local programs (at places like “The Hub” in Upper Lake, and the “Harbor on Main” in Lower Lake) and doing a decent job of it, considering.

Lake County has devoted many decades of effort to remediating the problem set presented by a certain group of “parents,” it seems.  The number of families that consume public benefit programs — like food banks and other “nutrition” outreach services, “Head Start” and “Healthy Start” and “Lake Family Resource Center” services — also fall into the category of Lanterman-Petris-Short “protected class," vulnerable to a form of management under school discretion, which has been reputed to serve the “foster care” management industry that is also perpetually in motion here.  (Please, anybody who knows this school run operation for “special needs” children, speak up.)

Lake County’s “pro-active” mission (see their website, they actually say that) seems to perpetuate the mid-1950s marketing model (“accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t mess with mister in between”) wrought fine in every politician's dismissive response to accountability questions, that the inquirer is just being “negative.”  This trope (along with ad hominem responses) has so completely stifled public participation that the majority of the residents here just shrug.

Proposition 63 (circa 2004) — the so-called “Millionaires Tax” for anything other than dealing with “5150” and “Severely Mentally Ill” people (otherwise known as “traditional services”) — over here is implemented by our as yet semi-independent Lake County Behavioral Health Department.  Having seen what Mendocino County’s administration and departments did during the Ortner years, and the subsequent upheaval into which Ms. Shraeder so nimbly stepped, I am unnerved to say the least to see Mr. Marmon’s comments that — while strongly dramatizing his perceptions — call attention to some possible incompetence or even abusive intent behind the operation known as Redwood Community Services.

Taking away all the allusions to specific programs and service providers in both our locations, it does appear that some sort of system is needed to process people at various levels who have succumbed to wet-brained and/or meth-headed incompetency, and I can see that no one has an easy answer for that problem.  Meanwhile, “mental health” services delivered by glossy post cards and little green ribbons, “apps,” and the endless stream of “therapists,” “counselors,” “peers,” and “support groups,” have created a whole industry not unlike the “alternative” food and medicine regimes — but using public funding that should be accountable to the real families relying on that assistance, and clearly is not.

But the reasons for current service gaps seem to also go back to a series of former department heads, some of whom evidently have strong professional and personal ties in Mendocino County, and we know we have shared service capacities for Public Health (laboratory), Juvenile Justice (our children are now housed in Mendo’s juvie hall), district attorneys (public defenders and an assistant DA from this side of the hill), shared UC Davis Ag Extension Service “advisor,” and so on.  It’s not difficult to imagine the benevolent brain trusts in Mendocino County seeing this downtrodden colony as easy pickin’s, but I really hope it’s not as nefarious as Mr. Marmon claims.

Aside from horror stories and ghosts (the People’s Temple in our lives today, still influencing the mental state of some people who may or may not be actively involved in Mendocino and possibly Lake County public services?), can any of your savvy correspondents further illuminate the subterranean empire that substitutes this psychodrama for public services accountable to the paying public?

Betsy Cawn, Upper Lake

P.S. Mr. Marmon called in to our Sunday afternoon radio program (KPFZ, 88.1 FM) one time and chastized me for my own mental/emotional mediocrity; apologies if my ponderings exceed the patience of wiser heads than mine.]

FROM POLITICO:

“....in early March, Trump wrote on Twitter that Obama had illegally ordered surveillance of Trump Tower in the days and weeks leading up to last year’s election, an allegation for which neither the president nor any White House staff member has been able to offer definitive proof. Trump raised the allegation in his interview without prompting, but then appeared unwilling to discuss it further when CBS anchor John Dickerson asked him whether he stood by the accusation. “I DON'T STAND BY ANYTHING. I just — you can take it the way you want. I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it. And frankly, it should be discussed,” Trump said. “That is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think it's a very big topic. And it's a topic that should be No. 1. And we should find out what the hell is going on.” When Dickerson pressed Trump for further details, the president replied that “you don’t have to ask me” because “I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions.” Dickerson followed up that he wanted Trump’s opinion as president, prompting Trump to say “OK, it's enough. Thank you,” and abruptly ended the interview.

ONLY IF

Editor,

Regarding “Shocker: Californians back tax-funded school vouchers” (SF Chron, April 23): I will support vouchers on two conditions.

Frist, the school taking the voucher whether it’s religious or not is legally required to accept the voucher as 100% of tuition. If a parent uses a voucher, the school is legally blocked from accepting any other money from the parent. I will not have my tax dollars paying 25% of the tuition at a private school while wealthy parents pay the other 75%. If a parent does not use a voucher, the school can charge whatever it wants. If a voucher is used, the school’s max compensation is the voucher amount.

Second, any school taking tax dollars in a voucher must be subject to the same regulations and requirements as public schools.

On this basis, I think the voucher system can work fine and prove that lazy union teachers or lack of funding coupled with the requirement to take all kinds is the reason public education lags.

Greg McVerry, Albany

FREE DIABETES CLASS This Wednesday

The free Prevent and Reverse Diabetes class, taught by nutrition educator Petra Schulte, starts this Wednesday, May 3rd 5-7:30 PM at Safe Passage Family Resource Center at 208 Dana Street. To register for this free class call Safe Passage at 707-964-3077. For questions about the class call Petra at 937-4704 or email her at petra@wholeplantfoods.info

PERSONHOOD TIMELINE

Move to Amend Mendocino is presenting a half day workshop on the *Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers* *on* *Saturday, May 20, 9 am to1 pm at Willits Center for the Arts, 71 East Commercial St., Willits.  *Our speaker will be David Cobb, who helped develop the Timeline along with Jan Edwards of Pt. Arena.  This presentation will explain the history of corporate personhood “rights,” its consequences for democracy and what we can do about it.  The timeline is a graphic presentation of the history of Supreme Court rulings  (not legislation) which have granted corporations increasing "rights" over time, enabling a growth in power and influence to the point where the voice of We the People is overwhelmed by the voice of giant multinational corporations. Citizens United and more recent cases are the culmination of this continuing history, not the beginning of it!  This presentation is a unique opportunity, as this in-depth discussion of the timeline is rarely available.  Although it is intuitively obvious to most that the outsize power of giant corporations is a huge problem for democracy, seeing the step by step development of corporate political power gives a solid historical and factual grounding to that understanding. Corporate power is not just a legal problem, it is an issue fundamental to our basic political structure and the United States Constitution.  We hope you can join us for this important presentation!

Free, with suggested donation of $20.  Co-sponsored by WELL.

For questions contact Margaret Koster, mkoster@pacific.net or 459-5970

OM BOPPA LEW BOP

Chanting of Green Tara Mantram Begun on May Day

In observance of May Day, for the well being of the Earth First! radical environmental roadshow now headed toward California, and for the success of the upcoming Earth First! Round River Rendezvous scheduled in late June (somewhere in northern Cali), with the Sagebrush Patriot's Rally to be held on the fourth of July, the chanting of the Green Tara mantram is being performed.  Her mantram is: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Swaha

Craig Louis Stehr, San Francisco

Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com