Mendocino County Today: Monday, July 31, 2017

• Hot Weather
• Vineyard Labor
• Psychic Catastrophes
• Alder Creek
• Drinking Days
• The Atlantic
• PG&E Profits
• Ukiah Costco
• Fire Lookouts
• Little Dog
• Homeless Capital
• Support Dorotheya
• Concurrent Sentences
• Free Paper
• Watershed Fundraiser
• Enchanted Meadow
• Yesterday's Catch
• Not Hillary
• Parole Concerns
• Adult Education
• Forty Noners
• Fear
• Homeless Baby
• Unabomber Series
• Japanese Music

EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING

Valley locations will see temperatures reaching 100 to 110 degrees with the highest temperatures expected Tuesday.

–National Weather Service

A SHORTAGE OF VINEYARD LABOR has vexed grape growers for at least a decade, and vexes them even more now. First generation workers are gone, their sons and daughters aren't replacing them. There is a shortage of people who will do the work and do it well. Anderson Valley vineyards depend heavily on labor contractors to round up crews, who often bring in workers from communities as far away as I-5.

LARGER local vineyards like the French-owned Roederer maintain a year-round work force, paying comparatively well and even providing single workers with a commodious and well-maintained dormitory so long as they don't talk union. (The one time Roederer's field workers went briefly with the UFW, those who signed up were expelled from worker housing and organizers found themselves on a county-wide blacklist.)

COUNTY GRAPE GROWERS quickly organized against grape unionization, bringing in Littler-Mendelson, the San Francisco union busters, to advise growers on how to beat back restive labor. Industry images of handsome couples with big white teeth holding golden goblets of gewurtstraminer to the sun notwithstanding, the Mendo industry drinks deeply of the blood of Michoacan. And will drink yours too if you get in their way. (At court hearings to muzzle vineyard frost fans in the Anderson Valley, the hallway was crowded with industry owners, their political reps, a supervisor, and several attorneys. Nothing to fear, cork tops, from these courts, or any part of local officialdom.)

CONTRASTING the dope and wine industries here in Intoxicants County, the dope industry is positively wholesome, and receives none of the handsome public subsidies the wine industry enjoys — free medical, housing arranged and subsidized by local charities, scholarships and so on. Why the Mendo wine industry doesn't at least adopt the Roederer labor housing model is for it to answer, but apart from double-wides for their managers they provide nothing.

MEANWHILE, the smaller wine ops hustle their friends and neighbors, even trimigrants, to bring in the harvest and prune the vines. The big boys, as they always do, find a way.

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VINEYARD MANAGERS ARE OPTING TO USE MORE MACHINES AND FOREIGN LABOR to make up for a tight labor market. At least 2,000 more workers could be needed in Sonoma County alone.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7231949-181/north-coast-growers-head-into

THE TRUMP GANG'S recent personnel antics, and Trump himself, have managed to inspire even more of the prevalent scumbaggery. The libs, with their Colberts and Simons, are just as bad. Worse, because they claim the high road. Trump's new spokesman, another obvious lunatic, talks like a movie gangster, while out in the world in, say, Ukiah, in every public place except maybe churches, excepting probably the Methodists, the air is blue, and lumbering, tattooed beasts range the market aisles. Outside, the walking wounded shuffle up and down State Street. If you'd just dropped in from 1955 you'd think there'd been some kind of psychic catastrophe, and you'd think right.

THE OTHER NIGHT I tried watching a Netflix epic called "Ozark," which turned out to be another in a long line of tributes to white, rural Southerners as omni-menacing mental defectives. Throw in some white collar crooks and homicidal Mexican drug smugglers and, whoopee, pass the popcorn.

IN THIS PATHO-SAGA, everything that happens is totally implausible and gratuitously violent, probably because the people who make these films have never experienced the real thing. So, the other day, as an antidote, the little lady and I paid $15 to see a movie called "Landline," which I thought she might enjoy and which featured the wonderful actress, Edie Falco (of Sopranos fame). The little woman said to me years ago, "I won't go to of any of your depressing political movies, I won't go to any documentaries, I won't go to any war movies or violent movies." Which pretty much leaves me watching movies by myself. What's left is her preferred entertainment, generically called these days, "chick flicks." (We have often watched BBC dramas together, many of them generic "chick flicks" but so well done they're male-watchable.) Anyway, I'd spotted a new movie with Ms. Falco in it and, on the assumption that even a bad movie with Edie Falco in it couldn't be all bad, and with the little lady skeptical about any entertainment I might choose, we paid our money and in we went.

THIS ONE was all bad, beyond awful, even with Edie, and soooooo thoroughly offensive we both agreed to flee about twenty minutes in. I restrained an impulse to shout out as I left, "Anybody who sits through this is a bleeping moron and ought to be stripped of citizenship." It still annoys me even to write about it; it's going to be impossible for some time to lure the wifey to any entertainment I recommend.

RETROACTIVELY, I looked up some Landline reviews. There is not a single reviewer left in the language whose judgement I trust, and I stopped reading reviews when Pauline Kael and Dwight Macdonald retired. Macdonald, by the way, put away his reviewer pen in what? The late sixties? He said movies were so goddam dumb he couldn't sit through them anymore. And that was when they were still pretty good.

HERE'S THE CRETIN at the NYT: "Nostalgia is not what it used to be. “Landline,” a fairly genial, diffident comedy about diffident, fairly generic people, plants its flag in 1995 and surveys a landscape of indie rock, “Must See TV” and the high-waisted bluejeans that have recently started coming back into fashion. Hillary Clinton is on television, sporting a hairband and a pink suit…"

TOTALLY WRONG. Genial? The persons depicted are not genial or diffident. They're foul-mouthed and foul-behaving, all the while mugging and trying way too hard to come off as funny and cute. (The script is, natch, moronic, but the morons speaking the words seemed to be enjoying themselves.) If they'd hauled out a big fluffy dog to go with their not funny and not cute antics, I'd have wound up in the ER. I haven't spent twenty minutes this repulsive since..... since I watched the Democratic and Republican conventions.

A READER WRITES:

Alder creek meets the ocean. Iphone panorama. Pretty nifty gadget.

A COUPLA WEEKS AGO, I neglected to either put quotations around or identify a piece by Harvey Reading about his drinking days. Several people have asked me about it. "That didn't sound like you," they said. It wasn't me, but I liked it so much — the candor of it — here it is again with full attribution:

Re: “The first step to overcoming addiction is to recognize it. Then, get into a support group.”

In my experience, this is true for some, not for others.

I drank quite heavily for 20 years, beginning at age 19 (well, I got good and drunk once in high school). If it contained alcohol, I drank it, the cheaper the better (the Safeway house brand of rum was great when mixed with Hawaiian Punch…). Also smoked grass (though avoided driving after smoking it because it made me drive too slowly yet think I was speeding) when it was available, and tried cocaine a couple of times in the early 80s, before crack cocaine, (did nothing more for me than allow me to drink all night and awaken with twice the hangover). I started smoking tobacco at age 13 and smoked 2+ packs of cigarettes per day after graduating from high school until the last 3 or so years (bless Allah for American Indian smoke shops). Since then I’ve reduced my smoking to about half a pack a day. I doubt that I go lower than that, but there are plenty of other poisons in the environment out to get me despite all the focus on tobacco. Plus, I have no desire to live forever. Maybe if I could do it without ageing, but hanging around as ones body deteriorates ever more quickly has no appeal to me at all. To me, that’s not living; it’s merely existing.

By the mid 80s, I started seriously considering quitting drinking, so I went to a few AA meetings. They completely disappointed me because of the religious tone (which they claim isn’t what they do, but they do), and, more importantly, the requirement that one accept the notion of being unable to whip the problem on ones own without help from some “higher being”, and that one should expect to be dependent on a sort of “buddy system” in order to stay off booze. The dependency-on-others and the 12-Step program lines thoroughly galled me. I accept that such systems work for many, but they don’t work for all, and I have my own pet ideas on the reason why.

I also considered rehab, which was covered by my health policy. After researching what was involved, I decided “no thanks” to that as well. Confinement for a month had no appeal for me.

One evening, in early 1989, I made a very stupid choice (one of many). During the early evening I, as usual, had been drinking quite heavily at my favorite bar. I managed to get home, but then decided to go back and drink some more. On the way back I got busted.

About a month later, I was once more driving home from the bar, plastered, and it hit me that I was acting very stupidly, that I was apt, like so many others, to get a second DUI before my first one was resolved in court. Luckily, I made it home. That was the last time I drank until 2003.

I experienced no withdrawal symptoms and found that it was easy not to drink. Hell, I didn’t throw out my booze until I retired and moved east. I had friends who drank after all, but I wasn’t tempted to do so myself. My sister and her husband got my unopened 1.5-liter bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold, that I had owned for over a decade..

In 2003, I decided to see if it was possible for me to drink “moderately”. I did so at night, at home, no driving. I learned in a few months that I in fact could not drink moderately, and that I was drinking as heavily as before, so I quit. Again, for me it was easy.

My conclusion is that when one is ready to quit drinking, one does, and one can. It worked for me.

–Harvey Reading

LAURENE POWELL JOBS, wife of the late Steve Jobs, has bought a majority stake in The Atlantic magazine. David Bradley, the magazine’s current owner, will still control a minority stake and retain control of the publication’s operations for the next three to five years. “While I will stay at the helm some years, the most consequential decision of my career now is behind me: Who next will take stewardship of this 160-year-old national treasure?” Bradley, who is nearing 70, wrote to employees. “To me, the answer, in the form of Laurene, feels incomparably right.” Her mounds of cash don't hurt either, one supposes.

THE ATLANTIC is one of many mags dependent on the very rich to continue publication as the general dumbing down continues.

PG&E, we're all delighted to learn, reported last week that it nearly doubled its profit in the second quarter, the result of rate hikes approved by the "public utility's" California regulators. PG&E’s profit for the three months ending June 30 jumped to $406 million (79 cents per share), up from $206 million (41 cents per share) in the same quarter last year. Revenue rose from $4.17 billion in the second quarter of 2016 to $4.25 billion in the most recent quarter, driven by higher revenues from PG&E’s natural gas operations.

COSTCO has finally gotten the green light from the stumbling City of Ukiah to erect one of its pop-up warehouses on big box row just off Highway 101 west of downtown. A large majority of Mendo people want the cheap, bulk food prices Costco will bring, although cheap will come at the expense of local markets. Moreover, with traffic already a mess and often backed up on to 101, getting in and out of the most popular big box of all isn't going to be easy.

THE MAJOR ADDS: Ukiah Costco Coming Soon: There’s a good chance that it will be open sometime in the Spring of next year. Costco expects to begin construction in September, now that the long-delayed Environmental Impact Report is no longer in court and has been recertified by the Ukiah City Planning Commission and Council. In our review of the environmental and traffic documents we couldn’t find any significant changes being planned for the controversial Highway 101 southbound off-ramp that is still expected to back up during peak traffic hours with the additional Costco traffic. The “mitigation measures” being proposed include making the left turn lane onto Airport Boulevard into two lanes (long overdue, Costco or not), and changing some signal positions and timing. There’s no mention of widening the off-ramp itself. According to the Ukiah city website the Ukiah Costco would be their standard warehouse design which would include a bakery, pharmacy, optical center, hearing aid testing center, food court, photo center, tire center (sales and installation), and 16-pump gas station.

THE FIRE LOOKOUT in Lake County at Konocti is manned this summer by a dedicated cadre of volunteers. If it had been manned the summer of 2015, the three wildfires that caused so much damage to Lake County might have been spotted early enough to squelch them before they became the Biblical conflagrations they became.

HERE IN THE BUCOLIC Anderson Valley, we have the old Cold Springs fire lookout tower on Signal Ridge. Its spectacular views used to be accessible to anyone who climbed up for a look, which I used to do on a fairly regular basis. I understand these days the tower is secured from visitors, but readers more familiar with the neighborhood these days will certainly update us as to the tower's current accessibility, if any. Given the fire hazard presented this year in the Anderson Valley I have to wonder if a lookout at Signal Ridge would be helpful in spotting fires before they can launch into rage-mode? I'll bet lots of us would volunteer for a shift gazing out over the miles all the way east to Yolly Bollys, west to the blue Pacific. On clear winter days I once saw Mt. Shasta from up there and what looked like Sacramento.

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LAKE COUNTY’S MOUNT KONOCTI FIRE LOOKOUT PART OF TOWER REVIVAL TREND

by Glenda Anderson

On a clear day from atop this ancient volcanic peak, you can see far across Lake County, beyond shimmering Clear Lake in the foreground to summits rising hundreds of miles away on opposite ends of the eastern horizon — 10,463-foot Mount Lassen in the north and 3,848-foot Mount Diablo in the south.

The 45-foot fire lookout perched on 4,299-foot Mount Konocti has been a community cause and labor of love for a small cadre of smoke-spotting volunteers who take their public safety role seriously.

They are responsible for reviving the lookout tower last year, a dozen years after it was shuttered and amid one of the most disastrous fire seasons Lake County has seen in generations. In 2015, the county saw more than 275 square miles scorched in three large wildfires, including the deadly Valley fire, which claimed at least four lives and nearly 1,300 homes.

This time of year the danger persists in Lake County, as evidenced Thursday by a small wildfire that destroyed three Lucerne homes and forced dozens of neighbors to flee before firefighters got the flames under control.

“I feel it’s really important to have someone up there every day,” volunteer Mark Meredith, a former deputy sheriff, said about the Konocti lookout.

The volunteers, with the Forest Fire Lookout Association, are part of a growing, nationwide effort to reopen shuttered fire towers in order to help catch and quell wildfires before they wreak havoc. Most of the structures date from the earliest decades of the Forest Service, which adopted an aggressive approach to putting out all wildfires. That policy has evolved to let some blazes burn, and towers gradually fell into decline with the rise of spotting from planes and satellites or called in by individuals from cellphones.

About 8,000 lookout towers once existed across the country and about 2,000 still stand, many of them out of service. About 500 currently are staffed nationwide by volunteer fire lookouts, including at least 16 in California. Five are operated by either volunteers or forestry staff in Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma counties.

A movement to refurbish and revive the structures — either for their original use or as lofty overnight accommodations for wilderness visitors — “has spread across the United States,” said Bill Ulmer, director of the association’s California Pacific Division, which stretches from the Los Padres National Forest on the Central Coast through Mendocino County.

Ulmer, along with Greg Bertelli, Cal Fire’s Lake County division chief of operations, were key figures in launching the Konocti lookout reopening. It was scheduled to open in 2015, but then the Valley fire broke out, putting a halt to volunteer staff training and access to the tower. At least one of the trainers lost his home in the fire.

Training resumed in 2016, and the first of the volunteers began scanning the horizon for smoke in June of that year. Towers typically are staffed from June through the first downpour of the rainy season.

About 45 volunteers take turns working the Konocti tower. Of those, about a dozen do so at least weekly.

Their day begins by picking up an equipment-filled backpack and keys at the fire house in Kelseyville, followed by a 45-minute drive up a dusty, potholed switchback road that winds past walnut orchards, an early 1900s homestead and the mangled remnants of a small plane that crashed in the 1970s. A 72-step climb gets them to the tower’s catwalk and a small enclosure with downward slanted windows.On a clear day from atop this ancient volcanic peak, you can see far across Lake County, beyond shimmering Clear Lake in the foreground to summits rising hundreds of miles away on opposite ends of the eastern horizon — 10,463-foot Mount Lassen in the north and 3,848-foot Mount Diablo in the south.

The 45-foot fire lookout perched on 4,299-foot Mount Konocti has been a community cause and labor of love for a small cadre of smoke-spotting volunteers who take their public safety role seriously.

They are responsible for reviving the lookout tower last year, a dozen years after it was shuttered and amid one of the most disastrous fire seasons Lake County has seen in generations. In 2015, the county saw more than 275 square miles scorched in three large wildfires, including the deadly Valley fire, which claimed at least four lives and nearly 1,300 homes.

This time of year the danger persists in Lake County, as evidenced Thursday by a small wildfire that destroyed three Lucerne homes and forced dozens of neighbors to flee before firefighters got the flames under control.

“I feel it’s really important to have someone up there every day,” volunteer Mark Meredith, a former deputy sheriff, said about the Konocti lookout.

The volunteers, with the Forest Fire Lookout Association, are part of a growing, nationwide effort to reopen shuttered fire towers in order to help catch and quell wildfires before they wreak havoc. Most of the structures date from the earliest decades of the Forest Service, which adopted an aggressive approach to putting out all wildfires. That policy has evolved to let some blazes burn, and towers gradually fell into decline with the rise of spotting from planes and satellites or called in by individuals from cellphones.

About 8,000 lookout towers once existed across the country and about 2,000 still stand, many of them out of service. About 500 currently are staffed nationwide by volunteer fire lookouts, including at least 16 in California. Five are operated by either volunteers or forestry staff in Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma counties.

A movement to refurbish and revive the structures — either for their original use or as lofty overnight accommodations for wilderness visitors — “has spread across the United States,” said Bill Ulmer, director of the association’s California Pacific Division, which stretches from the Los Padres National Forest on the Central Coast through Mendocino County.

Ulmer, along with Greg Bertelli, Cal Fire’s Lake County division chief of operations, were key figures in launching the Konocti lookout reopening. It was scheduled to open in 2015, but then the Valley fire broke out, putting a halt to volunteer staff training and access to the tower. At least one of the trainers lost his home in the fire.

Training resumed in 2016, and the first of the volunteers began scanning the horizon for smoke in June of that year. Towers typically are staffed from June through the first downpour of the rainy season.

About 45 volunteers take turns working the Konocti tower. Of those, about a dozen do so at least weekly.

Their day begins by picking up an equipment-filled backpack and keys at the fire house in Kelseyville, followed by a 45-minute drive up a dusty, potholed switchback road that winds past walnut orchards, an early 1900s homestead and the mangled remnants of a small plane that crashed in the 1970s. A 72-step climb gets them to the tower’s catwalk and a small enclosure with downward slanted windows.

(The Press Democrat)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “It's gonna be hot this week. So what? It's that time of year. Coupla hot days, coupla cool days. Hell, the pink ladies are up already, which means hot days, 55 nights. These people walk around here talking like Al Gore. Al's right of course, but the weather in Boonville hasn't changed yet. Been the same for a thousand years, all the way back to when the Griz ate my Spaniard grandpap who came through here chasing down Indians for Mission San Rafael.”

TOURISTS OR TRANSIENTS?

Dear Ukiah - please pick one.

Letter to the Editor

The national homeless per capita rate is 20/10,000, large metropolitan areas average 45/10,000, San Francisco has 80/10,000, and, according to Ukiah Valley’s own “Homeless Services Action Group”, Mendocino’s homeless per capita rate is 140/10,000. This is seven times the national average; “The highest in the nation by far” per Kael Loftus of Street Medicine at Adventist Health Ukiah. This dubious accomplishment is a fire alarm wakeup for all Ukiah citizens.

Remember “Far Out, Nearby,” Ukiah’s stab at attracting Bay Area tourists via ads in Sunset magazine? The south end of town “gateways” are the first impression a weary wallet-heavy tourist has when arriving from the Bay Area. Yet, the viewscapes on South State and Talmage during certain times of day will deter all but the most jaded or inattentive non-transient from staying and dining in town. Is this the new goal of Ukiah’s “General Plan”? Are bona fide tourists also visiting (and staying) in Ukiah at 7X the national rate?

Now, our local “homeless experts” (who are responsible for the policies leading to this crisis) plan to further blight the area with a permanent homeless shelter at 1045 South State Street. This is not just a flashing neon vacancy sign, but a red carpet for more transients. Not only does this project violate the City’s own zoning code, it is being stealthily rushed through the “process”. The first public notice for South Ukiah residents was the UDJ headline on July 25. The Planning Commission approved the plans the next night on July 26. Clearly, there exists a not-unsubtle bias from the elites and homeless advocates when dealing with the mainly Hispanic working class in the surrounding neighborhood. Those who will most suffer the consequences (decreasing property values and deteriorating quality of life) of this poorly reasoned decision were not given time to organize a protest.

Why the rush? It took the “experts” decades to bring us to this point. There should be a moratorium on all transient-related decisions until realistic plans to mitigate (and reverse) the current crisis are in place. Change the current enabling “hand-out” system into a tough love “hand-up” system. Limit the time and resources trying to “help” someone who may be incapable or unwilling to better their current existence so that other unfortunates may have their chance. Ukiah should revive work-for-food programs; trash removal (homeless camp cleanup), fire-fighting, farm work, etc.

The plan must include measureable performance metrics to lessen the number of homeless. If such planning cannot be implemented to mitigate the crisis, then it is time to roll up the welcome mat and shut down all but the legal bare minimum homeless services.

In the interim, homeless camping in Ukiah should be limited to the vacant lawn southeast of City Hall. This free Westside-located public campsite would ensure that city officials get immediate feedback on their homeless policies. The fiscally prudent plan (it won’t cost a penny) would stop the environmental carnage to our neighborhood parks, provide rapid emergency response, respect the current zoning, and clear the approach for tourists on South State and Talmage streets. We must also encourage large-hearted public servants, homeless advocates, and social justice warriors proudly displaying tolerance signs to share their private homes with transients who now occupy the commons.

I support Sherriff Allman’s plan to resuscitate local mental health services. Individuals afflicted by poverty, mental illness, and addiction warrant some but not unlimited help and sympathy. My compassion evaporates when such problems are used to justify criminal behavior.

Do transients, now called “guests” by the experts, feel gratitude for our town’s ongoing extraordinary tolerance and generosity? The 2016 UPD annual report demographics show 40% of those arrested were transients versus 32% being Ukiah residents. Given a recent homeless count of 1,238 in the county and UPD arresting 693 transients last year; in the county on average, more than one of two “guests” were arrested last year by UPD. Jetsam intentionally discarded by our “guests” is an ongoing environmental problem. When I politely ask transients to cease loitering on my private business property, their rough words, trash, and waste linger. Repeated such episodes will eventually endow an unhealthy enmity toward all homeless. UPD facts and my personal experience demonstrate many of our town’s entitled “guests” do not have gratitude for Ukiah’s hospitality or respect for our environment.

For decades, I’ve waited quietly, patiently, with growing alarm for the well intentioned “homeless experts” to get it right...and today, Ukiah has the highest homeless per capita in the nation. Good intentions obviously do not ensure good results. The truth is painful. It is clear to me, that this Ukiah taxpayer funded enterprise to “help the homeless” is an expensive, longstanding, and ongoing fraud.

It is time to change course, not double down on decades of failure.

The next Ukiah City Council meeting is this Wednesday August 2 beginning at 6pm.

Edward Haynes

Ukiah Citizen for 23 years

LET DOROTHEYA RETURN

Letter to the Editor,

Now is the time for all good members to come to the aid of their "fellow" co-op member!

Recently "fellow" member Dorotheya M. Dorman of the Ukiah Natural Foods store and Co-op was videotaped by surveillance cameras. (?) Tasting for cranberries at the soup and deli bar to determine their suitability to add to her bean soup.

In shades of the flying monkeys, she was "swooped down upon," in her words, by the manager and a tall assistant (management is upstairs or upper tiers.)

For this "serious" threat to the store, Dorotheya's Co-op membership was revoked by the board, her membership fee of $200 returned to her, but not cashed by her. Worse, when she attempted to shop as a regular customer, management threatened to call the police if she didn't leave.

Is this the way to treat an elder member of the co-op? Is this good policy? Maybe good for for-profit corporate policy, but not for the image and atmosphere of the friendly small town Co-op! It doesn't feel good. It could happen to anyone.

It could create a real hardship in terms of travel, time, cost, loss of senior discount and other sale items and a 10% quarterly discount, and availability of needed products found only at the Ukiah Co-op. For example, I'm 75 years old and Dorotheya is a couple of years or so older. (Forgive me, Dorotheya.) For the past six months I've been recovering from shingles and the shingles salve, found only at the Ukiah Co-op, was extremely soothing and beneficial. I feel very uncomfortable now at the Co-op knowing I'm under surveillance.

So let's support a rethinking of this action and call or write letters to management and the Co-op board of directors and also to our newspapers.

Let's support Dorotheya clicking her sparkling red shoes to get back home.

Susan Wertheimer

Ukiah

LEMME OUT!

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Joseph Mork and I am currently doing two 16 month local prison sentences at Mendocino County Jail. The two sentences are to run concurrently so from what I understand when one is complete then they both should be complete even if I had different amounts of tax credits on each sentence. I got a memo from Probation while in court saying exactly that and when I brought it to Probation's attention I was told it was up to the jail how they interpreted my court order and how they applied my credits and ran my sentences. When I asked the jail they said I only get the 194 credits on one sentence and the 79 credits on the other because that is what the paperwork stated. I was told I needed to go back to court if I thought it should be different. So I tried to have the public defender's office who represented me on the matter put me on calendar with the court but was told once the case was closed they do not represent me anymore. I then filed my own request for calendar from jail as best I know how and was denied with no explanation. So I tried again two months ago and still have not heard anything back.

Just after I filed the second request I filed a writ of habeas corpus just in case I was denied my request again. I don't have help from anyone outside the jail so I have to use the U.S. Postal Service and mail coming and going from the jail is probably the slowest I've ever seen.

I received the "writ" back around July 7. I had filed it about June 5. It said my credits were correct and there is no need for a hearing.

I don't know what to do to get back into the courtroom so the judge can clarify for me and the jail that when doing two concurrent sentences either I’m finished when one is done or if I have to do more time on the other because it started with less credits. One of my sentences ended in June. So you see why I would like the courts of Mendocino County to clarify this for me and the Mendocino County Jail.

If you can help me in any way I would be most gratified. You can write me at Joseph Mork, A#14497, Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Corrections Division, 951 Low Road, Ukiah, CA 95482.

Thank you for reading and any help or input on the matter would be appreciated.

Joseph Mork

Ukiah

BLANKET, T-SHIRT, PEPPER SPRAY — Q

Hello AVA,

My name is Jason Gilstrap. I am doing four months in San Quentin for taking a blanket and a T-shirt out of the garbage that be will at Goodwill store was throwing away -- "the stuff they couldn't sell." I was homeless at the time and living in a tent envelopes reservation.

I ended up in prison because I also had a small can of pepper spray on me because a mountain lion and her babies were living very close to where I was staying. I only got the blanket and shirt because for the third time I can't cite an and rated and I was desperate and cold. I will be out at the end of November of 2017. I was wondering if you could send me copies of your paper until then. I can't pay you until I get out. I miss home and reading your paper in the Mendocino County Jail. If you can't, that's okay. I understand. But I had to give it a shot.

Thank you and keep up the good work,

Jason Gilstrap

Ukiah

STORMIN' NORMAN STILL PITCHING… The former 5th District supervisor's yard sale over the past few days raised almost $600 for Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance.

CALL FOR INFO

Dear AVA Readers,

I’m doing some research on a news article about Friends of Enchanted Meadow — FOEM — plus founders Claudia ‘Zia’ Cattalini and Nita Tallequah Ishcomer. Information for this article would be really helpful. This is what I’ve found so far:

• One source who identifies FOEM as ‘a bunch of crooks.’
• Another source who insists that FOEM is pure as the driven snow, and that anybody who says it ever had any assets to lose is ‘full of crap’.
• Sworn statements from Cattalini and Ishcomer stating that FOEM had $396,828 in assets until 2016.
• A July 29, 2017 report from the California Registry of Charitable Trusts showing that FOEM lost assets valued at $146,319 in 2016.
• A Mendocino County Superior Court docket showing that Civil Suit CV64726 against FOEM was closed on February 20, 1997.
• A notarized statement showing that Civil Suit CV64726 against FOEM was dismissed on May 28, 2014.
• A website stating that FOEM lawsuits against Louisiana Pacific always succeeded.

All on-the-record contributions are greatly appreciated. Please send info to scottmartinpeterson@hotmail.com.

Sincerely,

Scott M. Peterson

Mendocino

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 30, 2017

LARRY BARKER, Gualala. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.

KENNETH BUTTREY, Willits. DUI, suspended license.

MARC CANTU-MARSTON, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, public urination, probation revocation.

BILLY EATON, Ukiah. Failure to register, more than an ounce of pot, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

YONAS GEBREEG-ZIABHER, Ukiah. Controlled substance, concentrated pot, probation revocation.

ANTHONY GONZALES, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LACY GRISHAM, Willits. DUI, hit&run with property damage.

ROGELIO LOPEZ, Ukiah. Trespassing, paraphernalia.

AUGUSTIN MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Failure to obey an order from law enforement, resisting.

STACY MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Redwood Valley. DUI.

PHILLIP MCELMURRY, San Ysidro/Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ERIC QUADRIO, Ukiah. Failure to appear. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

RONALD VALENTINE JR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JEREMIAH WOODARD, Redwood Valley. DUI.

WILLIAM ZUBIA, Leggett. Controlled substance, under influence and in possession of weapon.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE DAY

(1) Everyone at my workplace in San Antonio Texas (12 by my count out of 92) who were forthright Trump supporters have now re-canted. I know because I have personally asked each one, “So, do you still think Trump will make America great again?” Every single person answered with negativity such as “Hell, no.” or “Don’t think so, he just doesn’t really have what it takes.” or “No. I just don’t know how I didn’t notice before what an idiot he is.”

(2) The first two responses from your co-workers probably haven’t changed from before they voted. Many Trump votes were actually “not Hillary” votes. People knew what he was like but the thought of her having “her turn” was too much for most. They knew what she was like, too.

CONCERNS ABOUT PAROLE MEASURE ARE COMING TRUE, SAYS SACRAMENTO DA

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article164063172.html

COASTAL ADULT SCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA PROGRAM BEGINS AUGUST 22, 2017

Tuesday and Thursday nights 5 to 8pm at Noyo High School Campus

The Adult Alternative Education Program is pleased to announce the beginning of its HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA PROGRAM open to all 18 years and up. The three hour class will begin Tuesday, August 22nd from 5 to 8pm and continue until the first week of June 2018 on Tuesday and Thursday nights 5 to 8pm at the Noyo High School Campus. All students are expected to stay the full time. Diplomas will be given during graduation ceremonies at Cotton Auditorium to those students who earn 200 high school credits. Please register at the Noyo High School office between 9am and 4pm or call the secretary at 707 961 3617 or the Principal, Coni Belli at 961-3610. The campus is located at 210 South Sanderson Way and the Adult School is in room F at the end of the cement pathway on the Noyo High School Campus. Please bring with you your school transcripts or get a status sheet from the Noyo High School secretary. There is no registration fee; however, if textbooks are taken home there is a deposit of $50 in cash or by check due on the day the student wishes to check out the book. The students must bring their own paper, binders, pens and pencils. Please arrive on time at 5pm and make room in you schedule for homework. For more information contact the instructor, Rhoda Teplow, at 707 964 2787. A high school diploma continues to be an important document in the pursuit of acquiring a good employment position.

Rhoda Teplow, rteplow@mcn.org

HOW BAD ARE THE NINERS?

From Scott Ostler in Saturday's SF Chronicle:

How bad are the 49ers? A sampling of power rankings on seven different national media outlets shows the 49ers rated anywhere from the worst team in the 32-team league, to the fifth worst.

From a Chronicle story earlier this month:

They have three consecutive nonplayoff seasons, have won a combined 15 games in those years, and will begin play this year with their fourth head coach in four seasons.

So it stands to reason that the 49ers are considered by Forbes to be one of the 10 most valuable sports franchise on the planet, right? According to the magazine’s annual rankings, the 49ers and the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers tied for ninth on the list — each worth an estimated $3 billion. Forbes ranked only the top 50 franchises (which wound up being 51 because of ties), and the cutoff to make the list was $1.75 billion. Sorry, A’s fans, Oakland didn’t make the cut...

The 49ers’ value is emblematic of the economic wave NFL teams are riding: With record-setting television revenue pouring in — and half of the teams playing in stadiums built since 2000 — 29 of the league’s 32 franchises made the list...Forbes said the most valuable team in the world — for the second consecutive year — is Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys, worth an estimated $4.2 billion...

Despite enduring one of their worst seasons in decades, the San Francisco Giants’ value jumped 18 percent to $2.65 billion — good for 19th place...

FEAR

by Juan José Millás (translated by Louis S. Bedrock)

The escalator of the subway was not working. Looking at the granite stairs, uncertain about the depths toward which she had to descend, was a woman with a baby carriage. A young man and I decided to help her.

He grabbed the carriage by the axle of the front wheels and I by the axle of the rear wheels and we began to descend, monitored by the alert and concerned eyes of the mother. The only visible part of the child was the tip of a green cap. The rest of the child was completely covered with a sheet and a blanket. The kid must have been asleep because he didn’t make a single movement or emit a single sound when we lifted the vehicle.

The station was far below the ground and we had to stop from time to time to change position and catch our breaths. I recalled that scene from the movie, The Untouchables, in which that movie pays homage to Potemkin and I felt like I was made of celluloid.

Halfway down the steps, I imagined that the woman, instead of a baby, was carrying a machine gun. Later, that it was a mannequin; and then, a dead child.

—Is it a boy or a girl? —I asked just to say something.

The woman hesitated—or it appeared so to me, which nourished my suspicions, whatever they might be: they lacked a clear direction.

—A boy —she said finally. And she added —Be careful. —As though she had observed me behaving indecently.

After an eternity, we arrived below. The man at the front of the carriage, after placing the wheels on the ground, ran off to catch a train that was arriving at that instant. I asked the woman if she would let me see the child.

—Are you a pervert or what? —she said with a look of hatred that took my breath away.

She disappeared down a tunnel and I turned around to go back to where I had been.

Does this or does this not make one want to stay at home?

HOMELESS MOM PANHANDLES ON MARKET STREET WITH NEWBORN BABY

by Heather Knight

San Franciscans know they’ll see all walks of life along Market Street, but a new fixture on the colorful thoroughfare has shocked even the most hardened city dwellers: a 6-week-old, homeless baby girl.

All day long, Megan Doudney, 34, sits on the sidewalk near the Four Seasons Hotel between Third and Fourth streets with little Nedahlia in her arms and a sign reading, “Anything helps.” The sight is alarming, even in this city where just about anything goes.

Pedestrians walking past do double takes, exclaiming, “Oh my God!” or “She has a baby!” But they’re not on some hidden-camera show. This is very much real life.

Several people have called 911, including when another homeless person’s menacing dog got in the baby’s face. Police have responded numerous times, and child welfare workers from the Human Services Agency have investigated whether the baby should be removed from Doudney. At first blush, it seems obvious that’s the right answer, but so far, the city is throwing up its hands. Apparently, the newborn is healthy and developing well, and isn’t going anywhere.

“I’m not harming her in any way,” Doudney told me as we chatted on the sidewalk the other day.

She held the sleeping baby, who was wrapped in a fluffy blue blanket. She noted a medical checkup required by the child welfare workers a couple of weeks ago found the baby had low blood sugar but was otherwise fine. And what if the city did try to remove the baby?

“They’d have a fight on their hands — a serious, serious fight,” said Doudney, who sports short blue dreadlocks. “I love her. I wanted my entire life to be a mommy. Even when I was a little kid in school, they’d say, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I always said, ‘A mommy’.”

Now she is one. But should she be? At least while she’s on the streets? Like everything about the city’s homeless problem, there is no easy answer.

Doudney and her baby have a private room at Hamilton Family Shelter, where they sleep every night and have access to three meals a day and parenting classes. The room is hers for three to six months, and she’s working with a case manager to figure out what comes next. Doudney receives $900 a month in Social Security benefits, and Hamilton sets aside 75 percent of that to save for her future.

Doudney said she needs more than the remaining $225 a month to afford diapers, formula, clothes and other necessities — and that she must panhandle every day to get it.

Rachel Kenemore, development and communications manager at Hamilton, said Doudney is keeping all her appointments with her case manager and that “she seems to be really caring and capable.”

She said staff has no concerns about the baby’s health.

“We have just felt a lot of empathy for Megan,” Kenemore said. “It’s hard to see folks throwing blame instead of looking at this from a compassionate viewpoint of ‘What can we do to ensure this isn’t happening?’”

Chandra Johnson, spokeswoman for the Human Services Agency, wouldn’t discuss Doudney’s specific case, for confidentiality reasons. But she said that, in general, a baby remains with his or her parent unless there is abuse, neglect or failure to develop.

“It’s really important to remember that being homeless alone is not a reason that our agency would remove a child from a family,” she said.

Logically, that seems right. In the heart and in the gut, though, there’s still something wrong about seeing a newborn baby on Market Street all day as her mother panhandles. Doudney has clearly made a string of bad decisions. And if the city can’t compel her to make different choices, its outreach workers should at least attempt to coax her into placing her baby in day care on the city’s dime. The city offers subsidies for homeless families to find free day care for their children so they can work or otherwise get their lives in order.

That kind of help would be more effective than the shaming some passersby on Market Street have tried. Doudney’s image has been splashed all over social media and Next Door email lists, the jaw-dropping pictures of a homeless baby shared like selfies.

The story got even more stomach-churning earlier last week when a North Beach artist spent hours standing over Doudney holding a big pink sign reading, “Women Against Child Abuse!” and followed her for blocks after the homeless mother moved on. Doudney is adamant that she’s not exploiting her child and that she shouldn’t be treated like a freak show just because she’s destitute.

“I am human,” she said. “You can stop and talk to me. You don’t have to shake your head and give me dirty looks.”

When asked about herself, Doudney was candid, coherent and friendly. She said she grew up in a poor family in Fremont, Neb., graduated from high school and attended cosmetology school. Scoliosis and chronic back pain led her to become hooked on opioids.

She said she came to San Francisco on a Greyhound bus five years ago seeking medical marijuana for her pain and that she now uses no hard-core drugs. She does smoke cigarettes heavily, though. She said she has been diagnosed with depression and has had suicidal tendencies in the past, but is doing better. She still talks to family in Nebraska sometimes, but doesn’t want to go back there.

She said she dated a guy for a couple of months — “long enough to get pregnant” — before he became abusive. He’s not in her life and not paying child support. Doudney was sleeping on the streets while pregnant, but received help from the Homeless Prenatal Program and got into a shelter just before giving birth at St. Luke’s Hospital. City officials would not verify Doudney’s story.

Martha Ryan, executive director of Homeless Prenatal, said it’s very rare to see a homeless mother be so public with her baby. But she said there are many more like Doudney. She said in the last month alone, her nonprofit helped 32 women who are homeless and pregnant in San Francisco. The group recently encountered a mother living in her car with a 2-week-old.

“I don’t like to see them on the streets panhandling, but what are you going to do?” Ryan said. “You can’t penalize a mother because she is homeless and living in a shelter and have her baby taken away.”

Doudney’s only friend in San Francisco is Efrem Bryan, a 54-year-old homeless man who is almost always sitting next to her in his wheelchair. They met within hours of her arrival at the Transbay Terminal five years ago and have been inseparable since.

“She’s taking beautiful, great care of the child,” he said, adding he doesn’t understand why the mom and baby have sparked such a fuss. “I thought this was America. I thought this was the land of the free.”

Doudney is vague about her future plans, but said she wants to be off the streets by the time her baby can remember things. And as for her dreams for her girl?

“I just want her to be happy,” she said. “That’s it.”

(San Francisco Chronicle)

ANONYMOUS MCN COMMENT ON UNABOMBER SERIES

“Knotsure” writes:

Unabomber series + author's email

This article failed to mention anything about the F.B.I.'s attempt to frame a bunch of locals for this. Granted, one has to leave out a lot when writing a short review on 8 hours of TV, but this does suggest that the show ignores a major aspect of the "investigation". The article also fails to mention the brother. The F.B.I. had no clues and none of the investigative efforts were relevent to finding Mr. Kazinsky [sic] and if the brother hadn't figured it out the unabomber would likely still be sending bombs. Even the corporate mainstream media got that part. Roll your eyes, 1, 2, 3,...now!

http://radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com/2017/07/29/discovery-digs-deep-into-the-unabomber-in-manhunt-debuting-august-2/

After watching the series people who have personal knowledge and experience from this case might wish to contact him and grade the series for accuracy. His email at work is rho@ajc.com. He is a reviewer, not an investigator. If you take it personally, as many around here well might, call the newspaper and try to interest somebody in either doing an expose or interviewing someone from the FBI after getting properly educated on the subject. Atlanta is the global headquarters of Georgia Pacific, if that means anything to you.

A COOL BREATH

Japanese music featured at Grace Hudson's First Friday

On Friday, August 4, the Grace Hudson Museum will be open from 5 to 8 p.m. as part of Ukiah's First Friday Art Walk. Musician Ron Nadeau will provide Japanese music using instruments such as the shakuhachi bamboo flute, which is used as an aid to meditation, and the stringed zither-like koto, Japan's national instrument. As always on First Fridays, admission is free.  The cooling effect will continue with the Museum's current exhibit, "California's Wild Edge: The Coast in Poetry, Prints and History." This traveling exhibition captures the beauty of the California coast from Mendocino through Santa Monica in woodcut prints and poetry, based on the book of the same name by Point Reyes artist Tom Killion and poet Gary Snyder.  The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah and is open Wed. through Sat. from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. For more information please go to http://www.gracehudsonmuseum.org/or call 467-2836.