Mendocino County Today: Sunday, May 14, 2017

• Head-on Collision
• Little Dog
• Sentencing Reynolds
• Sexual Offender
• Manning's Release
• State Regs
• Grunge RV
• Farmers Market
• Advisory Committee
• Memorial Day
• Repaving 101
• Yesterday's Catch
• Cannabis Enforcement
• Gallon Talks
• Transforming Malls
• Trump Deportations
• Dubious Don
• Truman Capote
• Monitoring Outlet Creek
• Busy Work
• Sunday Movies
• Life Expectancies
• Shady Lobbyist
• Marco Radio

HEAD-ON TRAFFIC COLLISION Reported On Highway 128 last night (Saturday).

The scanner & the CHP Traffic "incident" page reported (9:46 pm) a "head-on traffic collision, red Toyota Camry vs Grayish blue Ford pickup truck" near mile marker 19.2, 14976-15299 CA-128.

The Anderson Valley Fire Department, CalFire & and air ambulance CalStar 4 have been dispatched.

A first responder said (10pm), "All lanes blocked, traffic backed up, this accident is in front of the Greenwood Ridge Winery in Philo."

At 10:04 pm, a first responder said, we have two patients with moderate injuries. Continue the air ambulance and the ALS ground ambulance. The Landing Zone will be Shaffenberger Winery.

At 10:19 pm, Starr Automotive reported they were en route from Boonville for the vehicles. The vehicles were now being described as a Dodge Dakota and a Toyota sedan.

At 10:47 pm, CHP reported, "both lanes blocked, extensive backup."

CHP reported @ 12:14 am "Roadway open" @ 11:48 pm, then wrote in the log "Code 20 sent/roadway open update."

At 1:23 am the incident was changed from "Traffic collision - ambulance en route" to "Traffic collision - major injuries."

(Courtesy, MendocinoSportsPlus)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “To my mom, whoever she was, wherever she is now, happy Mother's Day!”

REYNOLDS SENTENCING HEATS UP

by Bruce McEwen

On Wednesday, May 10th, Judge John Behnke sentenced Charles Reynolds to six years in state prison for assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, resulting in the death of Kenneth Fisher of Laytonville. This was the culmination of a remarkably high-profile local case, in that the cause of death was something of a rare fluke — Mr. Fisher having died from a torn artery, the result of a single punch from Reynolds outside Boomer’s Bar in Laytonville last summer.

A jury had found Mr. Reynolds guilty of the charges last month, even though the jury foreman later called Reynolds’ defense attorney Justin Petersen and told him that they, the jury, found the State’s eyewitness’s testimony not to be credible. The foreman said they brought back the guilty verdict because the single punch, whether it was a sucker punch or not, had ultimately led to Fisher’s death.

Mr. Petersen also pointed out that this same witness, Chris Bradley, had called another witness, Jessica Hall, and asked her to lie on the stand. Petersen went on to criticize the probation report and sentencing recommendation for not taking these facts into consideration, and suggested the judge also consider his client’s blood alcohol level (0.14) at the time, and consider giving him a year in jail and a strict term of probation, instead of prison.

Judge Behnke said he did indeed consider the alcohol level and found it somewhat mitigating — knocking a year off the recommended seven year sentence — but Behnke also noted that he had taken Mr. Reynolds’ plea five years ago in a similar assault charge with force likely wherein Reynolds had beaten and repeatedly kicked a 63 year old homeless man in the face resulting in serious bodily injury, injuries that included a broken nose and brain hemorrhaging.

The courtroom was packed and a phalanx of sheriff’s deputies were stationed around the room, dividing a sizable crowd wearing “Justice For Kenny” t-shirts on one side, and a smaller group of supporters for Reynolds on the other side. A great many letters had been submitted to the court for both parties and the names of these were read, then Kenneth Fisher’s mother got up and gave a tearful account of her loss and asked the judge for the maximum sentence.

Judge Behnke said that while Mr. Bradley’s testimony was not credible, the jury didn’t rely on it, and that whatever Bradley in fact saw, it was clear that Mr. Reynolds’ punching Fisher led to the chain of events that caused his death, even though three doctors said the injury to Fisher’s head was a result of hitting the pavement.

“That said,” Behnke concluded, “I don’t think Mr. Reynolds intended to kill Mr. Fisher. The whole incident amounted to no more than a matter of seconds — maybe 23 seconds off-camera — so it’s not like I think he intended kill him. But he intended to settle some kind of a score — and as to this kicking a homeless person in the face five years ago, Mr. Petersen, the reason he was sentenced to only 40 days in jail and not sent to prison then, was because, this being a homeless person, the victim was not available to testify at the time and the prosecution made a deal with the defense, Mr. [Dan] Haehl — the court has weighed all the factors and concluded that Mr. Reynolds has proven himself to be a danger to the public, having several times assaulted somebody and the last two times have resulted in serious injury. So I decline to grant the defendant probation. … It’s hard to get around the fact that Mr. Fisher died. And the defendant’s criminal history shows a pattern of increasing seriousness, a pattern I can’t overcome, and so in picking the term, though I am loath to give him the aggravated term and then add the three year enhancement [for the Great Bodily Injury] I thought about this quite a lot and I’m going to give him the mid-term of three years and add the three years for the enhancement…”

At this, there was an outburst of applause — loud, hard claps from the Fisher camp.

“…I don’t think the jury found it was a ‘sucker punch’ as such, but it was a significant punch and resulted in the death of Mr. Fisher, a single punch and probably with unintended results, but Mr. Reynolds is a danger when he is intoxicated — although I don’t doubt that he’s really sorry now, but this was a totally senseless act and the fact he just walked away and went back in the bar and said something to the effect that Kenny was out there sleeping, is another reason for my decision. Did I consider that he was intoxicated? Yes, but that doesn’t diminish the seriousness of what he’s done, so the total of six years will be imposed.”

The courtroom — mostly on one side — again burst into loud, explosive applause, Reynolds was handcuffed and hustled out of the room. People rose and followed, but the judge wasn’t finished and he asked everyone to remain quiet while Reynolds was brought back in and advised of his right to appeal.

It appeared from the comments made about the trial by Petersen, that this would probably be the case. Restitution was ordered to cover Fisher’s funeral expenses, and further restitution reserved for medical and ambulance bills, which would likely be forthcoming.

SHERIFF'S PRESS RELEASE RE: SEX OFFENDER IN WILLITS

A “high risk” sexual offender has moved to Willits from Santa Rosa. 24-year-old Jonathan Michael Hoppner, formerly of Santa Rosa registered as a sex offender on May 5, as mandated by the California Sex Offender Act (Penal Code 290).

Hoppner is on parole through the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and advised them he was moving to a Willits address.The MCSO was not notified prior to Hoppner’s relocation to Mendocino County.

Law enforcement officials said over the days following his registration, they have gathered more information about Hoppner and his past convictions. He is determined to be a “high risk” sexual offender and the MCSO wishes to notify the public. Officials noted his physical address in the area is not releasable based on the crimes he is convicted of, but his city and zip code have been released.

* * *

THIS GUY is not a chomo. His prob seems to be what might be called "unwanted sexual advances pursued on into fondling." Acquaintances and strangers alike. He's been in prison for groping woman ages 16-50.

WOMEN he knows have also had to repel Hoppner. They include a pair of female social workers who visited the priapic parolee at his motel in Santa Rosa, post prison, to evaluate his "progress." I know it's inappropriate to laugh at social workers being groped, or whatever it was that Hoppner did to them, but I laughed. If he can't control himself in the presence of women, why wasn't a man dispatched to check him out?

OR WAS HE being tested by dangling female social workers as experimental sex bait before this sex starved lummox? Unless social service agencies have suddenly acquired a daring and a subtlety heretofore not known among them, it seems the ladies were on the job, and the lust-crazed Hoppner simply couldn't contain himself.

HOW DANGEROUS is the guy? Well, how dangerous are helping professionals? They've evaluated Hoppner and have determined he can live in a non-lock-up home, which I presume is a kind of halfway house located in Willits. But if he has such precarious impulse control that he sexually grabs his social workers, obviously he should be locked up until he can control himself.

ACTUAL CHILD MOLESTERS are a very small percentage of the perv community. Like most people, I think they should be permanently sequestered. As it presently stands, when convicted child molesters are paroled, they're tightly regulated. At least that's what we're told. And, fortunately, there aren't many of them.

CALIFORNIA has taken a sensible stance on sex offenders, mostly out of necessity when authorities realized that the laws regulating them post-release were so tight too many pervs, unable to find housing because prospective neighbors were alerted to their presence, became homeless, resulting in a large population of free range sex offenders wandering around without the fixed addresses where police could monitor them.

HOPPNER is a large, active young man. If he hasn't got a total grip on himself he should not be loose in the community. I doubt that he is loose in Willits. Not totally loose anyway. He's probably in a psych facility, but one that operates more like a non-lock-up adult group home.

THE NEXT STEP UP from groping strangers is raping them. I hope we don't find out how dangerous Hoppner is the hard way.

CHELSEA MANNING VIGIL IN UKIAH

Editor,

Chelsea Manning will be released from Federal Prison on Wednesday next and will be staying with her aunt in Baltimore.

Next Friday at our weekly peace vigil at the Ukiah Court House (5 to 6 pm) I will be holding a sign welcoming her back to our increasingly unreal real world. I am concerned that she could well be gunned down on the street if left without protection. Should you wish to mention the event or take a picture at our gathering, you are of course very welcome. Any ideas for how we might best celebrate her freedom would be useful.

Regards,

Jim Houle, Redwood Valley

HERE COME THE STATE POT REGS

State Ag Department to Hold Cannabis Hearing in Ukiah, reports Jennifer Poole in last week’s Willits Weekly.

Just when you thought the pot regulation picture was starting to settle down as Mendo wrapped up its bureaucratic cultivation regs that were months in the making and started the process for regulating the finished “product,” the pot brigades will now be deluged with a whole new set of state regs that will overlap and perhaps supercede the County regs.

The hearing is set for Thursday, May 25 from 1 to 3 PM in the Ukiah Conference Center at 200 South School Street. They expect to take public input on the state Ag departments draft regulations for cultivation and licensing of medical marijuana — which we thought were already covered by the County’s new cultivation ordinance. Up for discussion will be 56 pages of draft regulations with only a 45 day public comment period. (We assume the Board of Supervisors will have to review the new draft regs too to see if/how they conflict with the loca regs.)

The deadline for comments on the Ag Department’s draft regs is Wednesday, June 14, 2017 5 PM.

BUT.

"There is currently budget trailer bill language designed to align the Medical Cannabis Safety And Regulation Act with Proposition 64, The Adult Use Of Marijuana Act. If that bill passes these proposed regulations will be withdrawn and a new set of regulations will be proposed and is consistent with changes in the law. However, public comments on the regulations published today are still very important as many of the provisions in the licensing regulations published today will carry over to new regulations if the trailer bill passes."

And that’s not even close the the end of the new regs barrage.

The State Department of Public Health released an additional 95 page draft regulation document covering license types, manufacturing practices, operational and product standards, concentrations, packaging and labeling rules and fees…

The Department of Consumer Affairs issued 46 pages of proposed regulations on April for licensing medical cannabis dispensaries, distribution and transportation.

There are also new proposals for regulating cannabis testing laboratories.

More information on the entire mess along with the text of the proposed regs and a lengthy Q&A is available at the State’s new pot website: cannabis.ca.gov.

ON OUR WAY to the post office Saturday morning, we passed a grungy rental RV with a grunge of a young man to match standing beside it. He looked like he'd plunged head first into a roadside embankment. Completing his charming presentation were a pair of leashed pit bulls. Pot smoke poured from the stoners hidden in the vehicle. (My, my, aren't we judgmental today. Yes, yes we are, but the sight of these thanatoids, the walking dead, against the brilliant cool of a spring day…)

IT'S THAT TIME of year on the Northcoast. A small army of lifeless young people appear to work the annual dope crop. This guy and his crew were the harbingers of many more to come.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY Farmers Market was positively wholesome in the parking lot of the Boonville Hotel, the first of the year, featuring mostly the small farmers of our area and their hard-raised plants and produce.

IN THE WAKE of the recent state water board’s $1 million grant awarded to the local Community Services District for planning and development of a possible water and/or sewer system for downtown Boonville, the CSD is forming a formal oversight committee guide and advise on the engineering and planning work. The committee will be made up of "service area stakeholders" who will vote on recommendations about the water and sewer grants for the CSD board. So far, Community Services Board chair Valerie Hanelt has nominated 13 Boonville residents and business owners from downtown Boonville for the advisory committee (which has been meeting informally already for several months). For more information, the CSD’s website (avcsd.org) will be periodically updated as the project proceeds.

MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVANCE IN BOONVILLE

The Redwood Empire American Legion Post 385 wishes to announce our annual Memorial Day observance at the Evergreen Cemetery on Anderson Valley Way in Boonville. This event will offer remembrances for local veterans now deceased and their loved ones. The event will begin with the raising of the flag at 10:00 a.m. on Memorial Day, Monday, May 29th at 10:00 a.m. and will be led by our local Commander, Patrick Ford. The accompanying photo of Legionnaires was taken at last year's ceremony.

We also wish to invite all local veterans not yet affiliated with our post to become active members. We meet the first Wednesday of every month at 6:00p.m. at the Veteran's Hall next to the Fair Grounds. We begin with refreshments and a social hour followed by our monthly 7:00 p.m. meeting. Throughout the year we and our families also enjoy special events and participate in several community services activities. Those interested contact our membership chair at gregory@saber.net or 707-684-0043.

Gregory Sims, Membership Chair

'BIG PAVE' SPARKS BIG CONFUSION

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/6985417-181/highway-101s-big-pave-to

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 13, 2017

SEBASTIAN CEJA, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

JACK GOUBER, Redwood Valley. Assault, indecent exposure, throwing rock on highway, failure to appear, probation revocation.

ANGELA HOAGLEN, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

LEE JOAQUIN, Covelo. Domestic battery.

WILLIAM LONG, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

SERGIO LUNA, Ukiah. DUI-drugs&alcohol, misdemeanor hit&run.

JESSANN MCLEAN, Covelo. DUI.

DONOVAN PARTRIDGE, Ukiah. Drug possession for sale, probation revocation.

DOUGLAS POLEN JR., Willits.

SATASHA ROSADO, Willits. (Repost with updated booking photo). Criminal threats, drunk in public.

RANDY SHERWOOD, Grass Valley/Westport. Ex-felon with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, drug possession while armed, possession of assault weapon, two prison priors.

BRANDON SMITH, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

DREVEN VALENCIA, Ukiah. Concealed weapon, participation in criminal street gang, threatening police officer with firearm, resisting.

CODY WARD, Gualala. DUI.

HUMCO SETS STANDARDS FOR DEALING WITH MJ VIOLATORS

by Daniel Mintz

Humboldt County is grasping for ways to deal with marijuana permit seekers who have submitted incomplete applications but are proceeding with grows that violate commercial cultivation codes.

The dilemma of enforcing the county’s Medical Marijuana Commercial Land Use Ordinance was discussed at the May 9 Board of Supervisors meeting.

Supervisors ultimately directed planning staff to communicate with those in violation and attempt to negotiate solutions. Staff was also directed to identify the most extreme offenders and flag them for fines equating to double the taxation rates set forth in Measure S, the county’s marijuana taxation law.

That would amount to fines of $2 per square foot for outdoor grows, $4 per square foot for mixed light grows and $6 per square foot for indoor grows.

The discussion started with Planning Director John Ford telling supervisors that in reviewing permit applications and inspecting grow sites, the county is finding that they’re being developed, expanded and used for cultivation before permits are gained.

“The question is, what is the mechanism that would allow us to deem the site to be in compliance or to apply an appropriate penalty,” Ford continued.

The marijuana law enforcement workload is generally massive. The county is estimated to have over 8,000 grow sites and about 2,300 permit applications have been submitted. Only 125 applications have been deemed as complete.

During a public comment session, environmental law attorney Paul Hagen told supervisors that there will be a “big problem” if the county focuses enforcement on those who have submitted permit applications instead of the thousands of growers who’ve had no contact with the system.

Terra Carver of the Humboldt Growers Alliance recommended that the county be careful when carrying out enforcement.

“We request that the county be mindful that some of these applicants are trying to do the right thing by engaging in a very unknown and untested system and are now facing violations based on their effort to comply,” she said.

Carver said the county should distinguish “egregious violations” from minor ones and hold marijuana-related grading and building violations “to the same standard as any other grading and building violations that does not involve cannabis.”

Also during public comment, Blue Lake resident Kent Sawatsky said using Measure S tax revenue for anything other than enforcement is “a dream.”

Interim Sheriff Billy Honsal said he will indeed be asking for more Measure S money for enforcement. Saying that “the reward is greater than the risk and I want to turn those tables,” he said he wants to create a “multi-jurisdictional task force” to rein in growers who egregiously violate county code and environmental laws.

Supervisor Estelle Fennell, a member of the board’s ad hoc marijuana regulation committee, said the county needs to communicate with growers who want to comply and to use enforcement against those who snub the concept.

“I like the idea of a solution-oriented approach,” she said, with the first step being a notice of violation. “Have them come in, prove what’s right or wrong about their situation and then levy the fines accordingly for those who prove to be in violation – egregious violation, let’s say.”

Other supervisors agreed with that approach and with using the doubling of Measure S taxation rates as a yardstick for fines. The county is expecting that fines will be mostly applied to new grow sites, as that’s where the worst violations are being seen.

Ford said that some growers haven’t had any contact with his department after filing incomplete applications months ago. Those who haven’t initiated any activity on their applications for the last six months will be noticed that they have 30 days to complete them or they’ll be withdrawn.

Fennell said, “If you’re new and you haven’t submitted a complete application, I believe you need to have a talk with the director.”

Applause sounded when Fennell said that Ford is doing “a remarkable job.”

Supervisor Ryan Sundberg, the board’s other marijuana committee member, was absent due to being at his first meeting as a state coastal commissioner.

JENNER BEACH DOUBLE MURDER INVESTIGATION TURNS ON JAILHOUSE NOTE

by Randi Rossmann & Paul Payne

Soon after Shaun Gallon was jailed as a suspect in the March killing of his brother, detectives told him they wanted to talk about another crime — the killing 13 years earlier of a young Midwestern couple camping at a Jenner beach.

Gallon, 38, didn’t talk then. But weeks later, the Forestville man handed a Sonoma County jail guard a note, according to sources knowledgeable about the case.

The note set in motion a series of interviews between Gallon and detectives about the 2004 shooting deaths of Lindsay Cutshall, 22, and her fiancé, Jason Allen, 26, as they slept on the sand at Fish Head Beach.

What had been a stalled investigation shifted into high gear. On May 1, a team of search-and-rescue volunteers began searching a dense thicket off a west Sonoma County road, eventually finding evidence linked to the killings, just as Gallon said they would, sources said.

By May 5, Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas was behind a lectern announcing Gallon “had information about the killings that no other person could have known and we have located evidence that corroborated his statement."

“We feel confident we have Jason’s and Lindsay’s killer in custody,” Freitas said.

Gallon has yet to be charged with the killings, despite strong statements by Freitas and other sheriff’s officials pointing to him as the shooter. It likely will take months before detectives finish their investigation and seek formal charges, said Lt. Tim Duke, who oversees the sheriff’s violent crime investigations unit.

There is no legal pressure to move faster.

Gallon was already being held without bail. He’s charged in the shooting death of his younger brother, Shamus Gallon, 36, in March in a spate of gunfire at their mother’s Forestville home.

Public Defender Kathleen Pozzi said Gallon is being housed in a special jail unit for inmates with mental health issues. He may have been too distraught over his brother’s death to give accurate statements to detectives, she said.

“Perhaps he’s given them information that is simply untrue,” Pozzi said.

What is known is that Allen and Cutshall were camping on the Sonoma Coast beach during a break from their work as counselors at a Christian adventure camp in the Sierra Nevada.

They were found dead Aug. 18, 2004, in their separate sleeping bags from gunshot wounds to their heads. They had been shot at close range with a .45-caliber rifle.

Early on, Gallon was on a list of suspects in the double murder.

But as other suspects came and went over the next 13 years amid a changing cast of detectives, Gallon’s name remained a constant.

Gallon had grown up along the Russian River and quickly caught the attention of detectives in the Jenner case. He was arrested six days after the deaths on weapons and stolen property charges, which later were dropped. Over the years, he’d been arrested and crossed paths with deputies 13 times, been to jail and had a stint in prison for a 2010 conviction for firing an arrow into an occupied car. His continuing criminal exploits helped keep him on the suspect list.

More than 10 suspects were on that list, Duke said. Alibis and other information helped eliminate some. But not Gallon.

“As we narrowed the suspect pool, this individual remained in the pool all the way up to the end,” Duke said.

Throughout the years, the case has been worked by different detectives, with help from federal agents and local agencies. Now, work done in the first few years is providing a foundation for the case today, Duke said.

He was the lead investigator when the bodies were found on the isolated beach and now oversees the ongoing effort to build a case against Gallon. While the veteran detective said he wished they’d finished the investigation sooner, the regret is somewhat eased by knowing “we did everything possible we could,” he said. “I couldn’t be prouder.”

Sheriff’s officials have declined to discuss whether Gallon confessed or what specific evidence has come to light.

“Something clicked in his mind and he wanted to talk about it,” sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Spencer Crum said.

Once that happened, Gallon was brought across the street from the jail to the Sheriff’s Office to meet with detectives. He was read his rights, waived them and talked, Crum said.

The information Gallon provided kick-started the cold case, which remains active with interviews still to be conducted, and evidence documented, corroborated and packaged for prosecutors, Duke said.

“We’re going to take our time and give the District Attorney’s Office the best possible case,” Duke said.

The May 5 press conference naming Gallon was held sooner than planned, because word was leaking that Gallon was a suspect in the 2004 homicides.

Brian Staebell, a spokesman for District Attorney Jill Ravitch, said his office will decide on appropriate charges after it receives the investigative reports and thoroughly reviews them.

Also, prosecutors will announce whether they intend to seek the death penalty under a special circumstances allegation for a double murder.

“We are going to act as expeditiously as we can to make the right decision,” Staebell said.

In the meantime, Staebell said Gallon remains charged with the murder of his brother. A preliminary hearing in that case is set for July 23. He could not say if it would be postponed in light of pending charges.

Although Pozzi said it was “unjust” for detectives to question Gallon about the Jenner killings without his lawyer present, any information they received could still be used against him at trial, a legal expert said.

W. David Ball, associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said Gallon’s constitutional right to counsel in his brother’s slaying does not extend to a separate case. That’s especially true if Gallon knowingly and voluntarily waived his right against self-incrimination, Ball said.

“I mean, someone writing a note to police on his own initiative, someone who just thought it over and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll talk about it,’ I would think that would go in favor of admissibility,” Ball said.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

DEAD MALLS

As one of the first post-war suburban shopping centers in the US, the Northgate Mall in northern Seattle defines classic mall architecture.

Its architect, John Graham Jr., pioneered the dumbbell, big-box shape for malls, in which two rows of stores face each other and two department stores anchor each end. Graham also gave Northgate Mall a grocery store (which later became a food court) and a huge parking lot. In the decades that followed, malls around the country copied Northgate's layout, which became the model for most American malls throughout the late 20th century.

This design may not be working in the 21st century, however. Hundreds of malls and thousands of mall-based stores have shuttered in the past two decades, and many more may close within the next 10 years.

Traditional malls need to transform themselves to stay alive, and many are making changes to attract more business — including Northgate.

Developers are now turning many of the mall's parking spaces into a  light rail station, which will connect the neighborhood to downtown Seattle. Other parts of the lot have been turned into LEED-certified apartments, senior housing, a medical center, more retail space, and a bioswale that keeps runoff away from the nearby creek. Earlier in 2017, Northgate's Sears closed and turned into a public library.

Malls of the future have an opportunity to fulfill other community needs besides commerce, June Williamson, a City College of New York architecture professor and the author of "Retrofitting Suburbia," tells Business Insider.

"Northgate [Mall] evolved as the neighborhood around it — which was mostly built in the '50s, '60s, and '70s — did," she says. "People are tired of the traditional mall."

Here are what may become of the many failing malls of today:

Nearly every major department store (including Macy's, Kohl's, Walmart, and Sears) has shuttered stores in recent years to reduce losses from unprofitable locations and the rise of online shopping.

The US also just built too many malls, Williamson says. In the mid-'90s, the number of American malls peaked at around 1,500. Today, there are only about 1,000 left.

As more new malls get built, department stores (which often pay a large part of the lease) will move out, making it harder for the mall to survive.

"The development climate of malls were driven less by demand and more by opportunity," Williamson says. "As new centers get built, anchor stores are lured away, and a cannibalization process begins ... Only so many consumers are going to malls, and they will flock to newer ones. If developers build a new mall, they are inevitably undercutting another property. So older properties have to get re-positioned every decade, or they will die."

Closed department stores will likely become other businesses that can benefit from the large square-footage, like fitness centers, churches, offices, public libraries, and even medical clinics, Williamson says.

The number of walk-in clinics in malls rose 15% from 2011 to 2016, according to the Urgent Care Association of America. Last year, Bloomberg reported that a third of all urgent care is now located inside shopping centers.

In 2007, the 100 Oaks Mall redeveloped one of its department stores into the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which leases over half of 850,000-square-foot building. (The other half is still retail space today.)

In late 2016, the Milpitas Planning Commission in California also approved a plan to turn the abandoned department store in the Milpitas Town Center into a 24-hour gym.

(Leanna Garfield, businessinsider.com)

TRUMP IS DEPORTING REGULAR PEOPLE, NOT BAD PEOPLE

Consider the case of Catalino Guerrero. By the time he received a summons to appear on February 8 at the Newark offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he had been living in the United States for twenty-five years. Originally from the Mexican state of Puebla, Guerrero, now fifty-nine, has been continuously employed in this country since 1992, mainly as a dispatcher at warehouses near his home in Union City, New Jersey. Throughout that time, except for one brief suspension, he has held valid federal work permits. He has a legitimate Social Security number and has paid taxes by paycheck deductions.

Over time his wife and four children came from Mexico to join him, and he has five grandchildren, all American citizens. Guerrero is the mild-spoken patriarch of a clan that has gravitated around a modest duplex row house, which he purchased with a bank mortgage in 2004. A churchgoing Catholic, Guerrero fortified the spiritual protections around his family by keeping an altar in the corner of his cramped living room with the Virgin of Guadalupe, Our Lord of Chalma, and several more figures revered by Mexicans.

Guerrero has no police record. His problem is that his work permits were issued based on an application for political asylum that a notario, an accountant not qualified to practice law, had filed, he says, without telling him—a common immigration scam in the 1990s. It took until 2010 for the asylum claim, for which he was never eligible, to fail definitively in immigration court. One day not long thereafter he received a notice that a judge had ordered him to be deported. Stricken with worry, he had a stroke, its effects soon compounded by acute episodes of diabetes.

Three times during the Obama administration, agents from ICE came for Guerrero and told him to get ready to leave for Mexico. But local advocates rallied to defend him and found lawyers to petition to have his deportation stayed. As happened with increasing frequency during Obama’s last years, officials considered his clean record, his consistent employment, his tax payments, his community ties, and his medical condition, and they decided to suspend the deportation, placing him under an order of supervision that required him to stay out of trouble and check in with ICE once a year.

But after Trump made it a point in his campaign to vilify Mexicans as rapists and traffickers, Guerrero knew the February meeting with ICE would be different. Indeed, he was accused, erroneously, of failing to show up for his check-ins. He was ordered to report again on March 10, ready to be detained. Among several dozen people who stood in a downpour of sleet outside the ICE offices that day to protest Guerrero’s threatened deportation were Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. Guerrero, who had difficulty walking on his own but was steadied by his children, asked for another stay. He was granted no relief and told to report again in May. The debilitating uncertainty continues, not only for him but for two of his children, who have no legal status, and for their families.

Other cases also seemed at odds with Kelly’s claim that the administration is targeting “the worst of the worst.” Roberto Beristain, the forty-three-year-old Mexican owner of a busy steakhouse in Granger, Indiana, had no criminal history but had long been in the country illegally and in 2000 was ordered by an immigration court to leave. In February, with no warning, ICE canceled his long-standing order of supervision and he was rushed into deportation. His stunned wife, Helen, an American citizen, admitted that she had voted for Trump, based on his pledge to deport “bad hombres.” Instead, she protested to the South Bend Tribune, “it’s regular people” Trump is deporting.

(— Julia Preston, New York Review of Books)

DUBIOUS DON

Thanks to Alternet:

Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands

The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part 1: The Russians

Part 2:

TRUMAN CAPOTE: THE BUTTERFLY* AMONG THE FLOWERS

by Manuel Vicent.

(Translated by Louis S. Bedrock)

—I’m about the same size as a shotgun and just as loud.

This is how Truman Capote described himself and there’s no better definition. In any event, it was a shotgun which only fired salt pellets into the backsides of the celebrities at the mad tea parties of Manhattan, where frivolous, caustic wit was a gift that was highly appreciated.

—I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug-addict. I’m a homosexual. I’m a genius.

Socially, he had risen from the bottom rung of the ladder and perhaps he thought he had arrived at the summit by seducing the rich and famous with the vindictive wit that leapt from his venomous tongue with such spontaneity. However, there came a moment in which he discovered the true face of evil and this butterfly brought his dance among the flowers to an end.

He was born in New Orleans in 1924, and his mother, recently divorced and somewhat drunk, gave up the child to the care of her grandparents and later to the care of some cousins in Monroeville, Alabama; however, her second husband, a Cuban named Joe Capote, adopted the child, gave him his name, and took him to New York along with his mother.

The child quickly discovered that he was he was unusual, attractive, small, cheerful: he weaponized each of these qualities. The butterfly flew over several schools, some Episcopalian, some military, until he managed to graduate The Franklin School, a private institute on The West Side of Manhattan.

During his final school year, he was already a proofreader at The New Yorker. The fragile and adorable young man loaded the shotgun himself and began to send short stories to the women’s magazines Mademoiselle and Harper’s Bazaar, through which had passed others, who like him, were also great.

He had style. He loved words that were well placed. Confronted with the evidence of his talent, the publishing company Random House, offered him a cash advance in order to see how he measured up as a novelist. He was 22 years old.

He began to write it at the summer residence of Yaddo, a community of writers, artists, and musicians in New York State. All the muddy silt of his childhood, populated by characters who had been discarded by fortune, floated to the surface. In that summer residence, while he rummaged through the boggy memory of a child, he discovered that he was a homosexual, and fell in love with a professor of literature, Newton Arvin, with whom he lived for a long period. The book, Other Voices, Other Rooms, led him to sudden fame. It was his first form of self- flagellation, a rite he would never abandon.

The necessity of running away from himself impelled him to travel to Europe; the necessity of not renouncing his own brilliance always obliged him to return to the parties to burn his wings alongside his creatures.

In his carefree breaking-out during the fifties, despite many mishaps, an inner weight always kept him on his feet like a Weeble® tumbler doll and at that time there was no fashionable place where the name of Truman Capote had not been assimilated. With the man who would be his official boyfriend until the end of his life, Jack Dunphy, who was also a writer, he was enraptured among the geraniums in Taormina, in the parties of Rome and Paris, in the snow of Saint-Moritz or in the Costa Azul, in Ischia and Capri, in Positano, in the murky cushions of Tangiers; he was always surrounded by people who were carefree until they reached the other side of alcohol and barbiturates.

The butterfly was also attracted by film, for which he had a fascination. He wrote the screenplay for Stazione Termini (Indiscretion of an American Wife) which was directed by Vittorio De Sica. He wrote articles, chronicles of trips, and interviews from high society. He flew over all the flowers without ever disappointing those who expected wit and wickedness from him.

With a sparkling talent, as if he had never stopped having breakfast among the diamonds at Tiffany’s, his style flowed with the perfect euphony of the right words which undulated through every sentence. Truman Capote seemed unaware that beneath the surface of his own life could be found the putrid corridors of society.

One day, while holding a martini, he came face to face with absolute evil. In the New York Times, he read that a family of farmers in Kansas, The Cutters, had been murdered with a bizarre, methodical Satanism. Capote put his drink aside and cut out that news article. Something shook him up from within. The parties ended. The world stopped being fun. He proposed to The New Yorker magazine that he write a story about the particulars of that murder to be published in installments.

Like a correspondent in Hell, he traveled to Kansas with his friend Harper Lee and using the literary resources of fiction he described all the details of the crime: the atmosphere, the police, the neighbors, the witnesses. And when the murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested, his interest in rummaging around through the deepest parts of their souls became an obsession.

Those creatures were much more exciting than the celebrities of New York and were at the disposal of his talent. Truman Capote went into hiding along with his friend in the Costa Brava—first in Palamós, then in Platja d'Aro, and with intervals in Switzerland; there, the butterfly transformed into a caterpillar in order to weave this cocoon of blood.

At this time, he was already a hopeless drug addict. The parody of happiness that he had strove to depict, using his own whip, had ended. Now he was trying to save himself from the imminent abyss through that story. In Cold Blood began to appear in The New Yorker chapter by chapter and at a certain point in the plot his compassion for the murderers and his need for the book to be successful collided.

Such moral torture could not be resolved except through more alcohol and pills. If instead of being crucified, Christ had been sentenced to twelve years and a day, the affair would have lacked interest and the Church would never have existed. Capote needed the murderers to be taken to the scaffold in order for his novel to be saved. During his visits, he had fallen in love with one of the prisoners. I love you but you will have to die so that I triumph as a writer, Capote thought to himself as he gave him a farewell kiss on the mouth.

With so aesthetic a desire, he highlighted the evil that sometimes exists beneath the surface of beauty.

When the pair of killers fell into their graves with the ropes around their necks, Capote was there among the guests without realizing that he too was already on Death Row. The novel In Cold Blood was a worldwide success. To celebrate, the writer obliged all the celebrities in New York to dress up in black and white and attend the party he gave at the Plaza Hotel. That helpless little boy from New Orleans had reached the summit.

Afterwards, he attempted to take revenge against himself and his own creatures. He attempted to continue playing around in order to transform the jokes that amused them into high literature, but they turned their back on him and the butterfly began to immerse himself in alcohol and hover above all types of pills. In the end, in Los Angeles, in August of 1984, when he was 60 years old, his death was the last of his prayers to be answered.

(*The Spanish word, mariposa, means both “butterfly” and “fairy” (homosexual). Vicent exploits both meanings. I was tempted to use mariposa, but “butterfly” works.)

OUTLET CREEK MONITORING EVENT MAY 20 - COFFEE, BAGELS & HYPOTHESES - THEN PLAY IN CREEK

Eel River Recovery Project Kicks Off Outlet Creek Monitoring

The Eel River Recovery Project invites the interested public to the kick of 2017 Outlet Creek monitoring on the morning of May 20 at 10 AM at the Willits Hub at 630 S Main Street two blocks north of Highway 20. Managing Director and aquatic biologist Patrick Higgins will lead the session and explain how to assess the health of Outlet Creek. After designing the 2017 study plan, the group will begin monitoring in the creeks above Willits and visit other sites throughout the watershed over the next several weeks.

From its headwaters near Willits, Outlet Creek flows about 17 miles to the Eel River upstream of Dos Rios. Long Valley Creek is the largest tributary, but numerous others have been very important producers of salmon and steelhead historically, including Bloody Run, Cherry, Sherwood, Baechtel, and Willits creeks among others. Outlet Creek still has large numbers of Chinook salmon and steelhead trout that return to spawn, but coho salmon that were once dominant in the upper reaches are rare. While studies since 2012 by ERRP have found that lower Outlet Creek is often dewatered in late summer, whereas it was formerly perennial, tributaries may maintain cold flow and serve as refugia for salmon and steelhead.

ERRP will be assisting citizen monitors throughout the Outlet Creek basin to continuously monitor water temperature with automated water temperature sensors loaned to ERRP by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. Other stream health criteria that will be assessed include aquatic macroinvertebrates, riparian conditions, fish habitat quality, pool frequency and depth and particle size distribution.

Funding for this summer’s work is being provided by Friends of Outlet Creek, a sponsored group of the Trees Foundation. Data collected by ERRP are always confidential in terms of assignment to specific parcels, but summary data are made available to the public and interested parties so that long term trends of stream health can be gauged.

Coffee, bagels and fresh fruit will be served at the Willits Hub where doors will open at 9:30 AM. No charge for participation. See www.EelRiverRecovery.org to learn more or follow us on Facebook to know when you can join us in the field. Anyone wishing to participate in monitoring, or will allow access, should contact Pat Higgins at 707 223-7200. Those interested field trips may also call Willits ERRP volunteer coordinator Robin Leler at 459-0155.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

What does this say about the level of intelligence and wisdom in our society? The lack of reason, logic and decent character in the body politic means that there is no hope for reform and renewal. We are being entertained to death while the “media” feed on our corpse.

Story – Taiwanese went to Nicaragua to teach farmers to grow their new papaya plant. The Taiwanese instructor told a young man to cut each leaf of the plant in half with scissors. At the next stop, he didn’t so instruct the students. When asked why he asked one to cut the leaves and not the second, he answered that the first group was lazy and needed something to do. Now we have a clue as to why the Chinese are taking over.

EXCITING NEW SCREENINGS From PBS, Lincoln Center & Independent Filmmakers Coming To Ukiah Library On Sunday Afternoons

Ukiah Library is introducing a new series of film screenings beginning on May 7th at 2 pm. The series, Sunday Movies at Your Library will include a weekly rotation of PBS documentaries, Indie films, Lincoln Center performances, and, beginning in June, kids’ movies newly released on DVD.

The films for May:

May 7^th – Seven Songs for a Long Life. At Scotland’s Strathcarron Hospice, patients face pain, uncertainty and the possibility of life's end with song and humor. This event is a collaboration with the award-winning documentary series POV (www.pbs.org/pov).

May 14^th – The Fits,--“While training at the gym 11-year-old tomboy Toni becomes entranced with a dance troupe. As she struggles to fit in she finds herself caught up in…”(Indie)

May 21^st – The New York Philharmonic Opening Gala With Lang Lang-- Grieg’s Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. (Lincoln Center).

Major Support for Lincoln Center Local: Free Screenings is provided by the Oak Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Booth Ferris Foundation and the Altman Foundation.

For more information, call 463-4490.

US LIFE EXPECTANCY BETWEEN RICH AND POOR IS MORE THAN 20 YEARS

Dear Editor:

An in-depth study by the University of Washington published by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine and reported by the Guardian newspaper found that while residents of certain affluent counties in central Colorado have the highest life expectancy at 87 years, while people in several counties of North and South Dakota, typically those with Native American reservations, could expect to die far younger, at only 66. Overall the study puts life expectancy in the U.S. at 79.1 years, an increase of 5.3 years from 1980.

The study over the 35 years utilized data and figures from the National Center for Health Statistics on a county-by-county basis. It concluded that the 5.3 year increase "masks massive variation at the county level". "Counties in central Colorado, and Alaska and along both coasts experienced much larger increases, while some counties in states stretching from Oklahoma to West Virginia saw little, if any improvement over this period". The authors pointed to socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, the availability of - and access to - quality health care and insurance, and "preventable risk factors" such as smoking, drinking and physical inactivity. Coupled with these comments there are places where there's an obesity epidemic and we still have an epidemic of smoking that is coming down but still high in some rural areas. The article used a color-code map of the U.S. to identify the areas of counties with low or higher life expectations. As would be expected lower life expectations are centered in areas considered to be generally economically challenged.

As a sidebar, I would offer some comments. The U.S. spends about 15% of its GDP on medical expenses while those countries with universal health care plans spend about 8% and what we get for our money is a disfunctional system. If congress goes forward with their cuts in Medicaid and allocation of funds for other medical programs we will see millions of people who will not be getting the health care they deserve and need. The obvious solution would be to join the rest of the industrialized countries with a single payment universal health system.

In peace and love,

Jim Updegraff

Sacramento

GROUP TIES INTERIOR NOMINEE/WESTLANDS LOBBYIST TO ARCTIC REFUGE SCIENTIFIC FRAUD

by Dan Bacher

It looks like Westlands Water District lobbyist David Bernhardt, Trump’s nominee for the Deputy Secretary of Interior, has not only promoted the evisceration of environmental laws and policies protecting Sacramento River and Klamath-Trinity River salmon, but has been involved in “scientific fraud” on the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, according to a prominent whistleblower group.

Bernardt will serve under Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in the Department of Interior’s number two spot if his nomination is confirmed by Congress.

“Bernhardt’s extensive experience serving under Secretary Norton and his legal career is exactly what is needed to help streamline government and make the Interior and our public lands work for the American economy,” said Secretary Zinke in a statement.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) disagrees with Zinke’s rosy assessment of Bernhardt’s “extensive experience” serving as a key aide to Secretary Gale Norton under the G.W. Bush administration. In fact, documents released by PEER On May 11 reveal that Bernhardt “abetted the doctoring of scientific findings about the impacts of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).”

The group said Norton’s Office “substantially rewrote” official biological assessments to “falsely downplay” impacts of drilling before she transmitted them to Congress.

“Back in May 2001, Senator Frank Murkowski, then Chair of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, asked Norton for Interior’s official evaluation of the impacts of oil drilling on the Porcupine caribou herd in ANWR,” PEER stated. “Norton tasked the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) with developing answers. The resulting FWS findings were then rewritten in Norton’s office when Bernhardt, one of the few political staff in her office, served as Counselor to the Secretary and Director of Congressional Affairs.”

PEER said the changes made by Norton’s staff were extensive and “all skewed one way” — in the favor of the oil industry — by changing numbers, ignoring key data and spinning the absence of data. Examples of these rewritten FWS findings include the following:

Changing Numbers: While FWS noted “there have been PCH [Porcupine caribou herd] calving concentrations within the 1002 Area in 27 of 30 years,” Interior changed that to say “Concentrated calving occurred primarily outside of the 1002 Area in 11 of the last 18 years.” [emphases added]

Ignoring Key Data: FWS reported that calving reproductive “pauses” (years that females do not produce a calf) is higher in developed areas in Prudhoe Bay than in undisturbed areas. Interior left these data out and instead stated that “Parturition and recruitment data do not support the hypothesis that oil fields adversely affect caribou productivity.”

Spinning Absence of Data. Norton stated that “There is no evidence that the seismic exploration activities or the drilling of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation exploratory well...have had any significant negative impact on the Porcupine caribou herd,” but she omitted the FWS disclaimer that “no studies were conducted to determine the effects of the above activities on the PCH.”

“It appears Mr. Bernhardt shares an unfortunate affinity for alternative facts,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Bernhardt was a point person on both Arctic and petroleum issues when he was at Interior. “The Senate needs to thoroughly investigate his role in this blatant political manipulation of science before considering his nomination.”

In letters Bernhardt sent to Senators to contain fallout from PEER’s revelation of these falsifications, he sought to minimize the discrepancies. He wrote, “we made a mistake in the letter” as if there was only one alteration, according to PEER. He later wrote that the FWS assessment had been “edited for responsiveness,”

“Interior is largely a science-based agency, necessitating a Deputy Secretary dedicated to scientific integrity over political spin,” said Ruch. “It is beyond ironic that Mr. Bernhardt resurfaces at Interior just as the status of safeguards for the Arctic Refuge is revisited.”

Ruch is asking the Senate to hold up confirmation proceedings until Bernhardt’s exact role in Norton’s manipulation of science on behalf of the petroleum industry can be determined.

Fishing and environmental groups have strongly opposed Bernhardt’s appointment. For example, John McManus, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA), an organization representing sport and commercial salmon fishermen and women and related businesses along California’s coast and rivers, issued a statement strongly opposing Bernhardt’s nomination before Trump nominated the Westlands lobbyist on April 28.

Bernhardt has for many years served as a lobbyist and lawyer for the Westlands Water District, the largest federal water contractor in the nation and a strong advocate of the construction of the Delta Tunnels and the weakening of environmental laws protecting Sacramento River salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other imperiled fish populations.

“Mr. Bernhardt and Westlands have spent the past decade attacking salmon protections and, by extension, the tens of thousands of California fishing jobs tied to salmon,” said McManus. “It strains credibility to suggest that Mr. Bernhardt, were he to be appointed, would refrain from occupying himself with key departmental decisions that he has spent the last decade working to influence. In fact, those seeking his appointment are almost certainly counting on him to weigh in on their behalf.”

McManus emphasized, “Fishermen saw a pattern during the George W. Bush Administration, including suppressing science and damaging salmon runs. We should learn from that history, not repeat it.” (www.dailykos.com/...)

Financial disclosure forms filed with the Independent Office of Government Ethics on March 6, over a month before President Trump nominated him for the Interior post, reveal that Bernhardt received at least $80,000 last year working for energy and agribusiness corporations, reported E&E news: www.eenews.net/...

According to the disclosure report, clients who paid Bernhardt at least $5,000 for his legal services in 2016 include: Targa Resources Co. LLC, Noble Energy Co. LLC, NRG Energy Inc., Sempra Energy, Lafarge North America - Western Region, Safari Club International Foundation, Active Network LLC, Statoil Gulf Services LLC, Cobalt International Energy, Rosemont Copper Co., Independent Petroleum Association of America, Taylor Energy Co. LLC, Garrison Diversion Irrigation District, the Forest County Potawatomi Community and Westlands Water District.

Bernhardt briefly led Trump’s Department of Interior transition team after the November election until he was replaced by Doug Domenech, a Big Oil think tank director, on November 26, 2016. For more information, go to www.dailykos.com/…

* * *

Read PEER’s letter to the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee

View the changes Interior made to Arctic assessment

Look at Bernhardt’s damage control letters to Senators

See the letter FWS transmitted to Norton

Compare how it emerged from Norton

DUCK!

The recording of last night's (2017-05-12) KNYO and KMEC Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show is available to download and enjoy via http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

Kate Erickson of the local interview website http://ItHappenedAtPurity.com came in early in the show to interview me, so there’s the first hour or so, and then Stuart Cohen came in without his guitar because the progression of his illness has finally taken that from him and us. There a poem from my mother about her sister's impending death. And then the usual etcetera, including a Scott Peterson historical rundown and name-naming on the Guild/Grange war, Rich Alcott's Attention Deficit News, Ezekiel Krahlin's rather spy-versus-spy story about the result of an exchange of dirty tricks with his inamorato Larkin. And there's Flynne Washburne's million-dollar idea: Deadbook. (Ah, dammit, I forgot to read this week's installment of Jay Frankston's novel El Serèno.) Music from Selfish Murphy and from Ghost In The Shell anime and a couple of adorable little goth Swedish girls who play cello and hurdy-gurdy while they wail through black-lipsticked lips, and more. And finally Firesign Theater's 1975 tour de force In the Next World You're On Your Own, which includes Police Street and We've Lost Our Big Kabloona. (Kabloona is about a baseball game where one team is human-shaped puppet-bags filled with, and operated by, alien insects whose trick is exposed when the pitcher, Mickey Mantis, is struck by a line drive, tearing his bag.) Have fun.

Also at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find directions to many non-radio-useful though worthwhile goods that I found while putting radio shows together. Items such as:Are we all related? Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnYSMhR3jCI

Or no.http://tinyurl.com/l7mexgf

Ten best GMO memes.https://medium.com/the-method/10-best-gmo-memes-537f23346f4b

And the Reader's Digest version of the Alien franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG8afS-TNLQ

–Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org