Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017

• Fire Watch
• Yorkville Social
• Cannabis Fees
• Staff Training
• SF Provocations
• Marijuana Money
• County Differences
• Little Dog
• Petrolia Busts
• Pot Futures
• Bluebird
• Succeeding Linda
• Panther Yell
• Rail Memories
• Farm Party
• Yesterday's Catch
• Hate King
• RMS Climate
• Controlled Demolition
• Tony de Brum
• Bitcoin
• Owl
• County Vacancies
• Hymn

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE has issued a Fire Weather Watch for the majority of Mendocino County from late Friday night through Sunday afternoon due to critically low humidity and gusty winds in areas above 2,000 ft. Caution in all outdoor activites is recommended. East and Northeast winds from 5 to 10 mph with gusts of 10 to 20 mph during the late night and early morning periods. New or current ongoing wild fires will likely see large and rapid growth. A Fire Weather Watch means that critical fire weather conditions are forecast to occur. Listen for later forecasts and possible Red Flag Warnings.

OES staff will continue to monitor the conditions throughout the weekend and will issue updates as needed. Please let OES know if you have any questions or concerns.

Rick Ehlert, Emergency Services Coordinator, Desk: 707-467-6497, Cell: 707-489-2749

FEE REDUCTIONS FOR SMALL POT GROWERS: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

(Board of Supervisors Meeting Agenda, Tuesday, August 29, 2017, Item 5-a)

“Discussion and Possible Action to Consider Options Regarding Conducting a Public Hearing on September 12, 18, or 19, 2017, to Review Proposed Amendments to the Master Fee Schedule, Including a Tiered Application/Permit Fee for Cottage Industry Cultivation of Cannabis and to Consider Other Amendments to Cannabis Program Related Fees as Necessary.

Recommended Action/Motion: Authorize a Public Hearing on September 12, 2017, to consider amendments to the Master Fee Schedule, including a tiered application/permit fee for cottage industry cultivation of cannabis at less than full cost of services, as previously directed by the Board of Supervisors, and to consider other amendments to cannabis program related fees as necessary.

Summary of Request: The Board of Supervisors directed staff to present options for discussion on the Board’s September 12, 2017, agenda to consider a new or revised (reduced/less than full cost recovery) fees for cottage cultivators of cannabis. The Board had previously directed that the item be presented for discussion on September 12, 2017, with a subsequent public hearing to be held on September 18 or 19, 2017, to consider said fee amendments.

After reviewing public noticing options, the Executive Office is presenting the following for Board consideration:

Direct staff to publicly notice a fee hearing on September 12, 2017, allowing the Board to consider the proposed fees related to cottage industry cultivation of cannabis and adopt a revised Master Fee Schedule (this options would allow for the public hearing to occur and the fees to be amended during one meeting);

Or…

Direct staff to present the Board with revised fee options regarding cottage industry cultivation of cannabis on September 12, 2017, for discussion purposes only, followed by a publicly noticed fee hearing on September 18 or 19, 2017, to consider the amendments to the Master Fee Schedule.

Following the Board’s direction on either option, staff will coordinate the public noticing of the fee hearing pursuant to the 10 day advance noticing requirements.

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES WANTS TO SPEND $161K ON STAFF TRAINING on things their senior staff are already paid to know.

Summary Of Request:

Trainings under the Agreement with UC Davis are to provide professional, mandated, and continuing education in areas not covered by Core Competency trainings. The subject of the trainings will be journey level direct service support primarily for social workers, eligibility workers, and support staff working within the community. Some of the trainings will provide education to staff in service areas that cross multiple programs, e.g., the Affordable Care Act, which crosses both EFAS (Employment Family and Assistance Services) and AS (Adult and Aging Services), and eligibility factors for Approved Relative Caregivers, which cross EFAS and FCS (Family and Children's Services).

MARK SCARAMELLA NOTES: When my brother was a senior analyst in Mendocino HHSA specializing in the subjects mentioned above (until he died of cancer in 2013 a few months after retiring), he made a point of keeping up to date on these things because it was part of his job. He monitored the usual relevant state departmental websites, went to regional conferences on related topics (paying for his own travel, but on county time) and then came back and conducted office trainings and seminars as needed and as an in-house consultant to whoever needed info or a policy memo. Apparently, those days are gone and nobody in HHSA bothers to keep abreast of developments and policy updates any more. Hell, why should they? If the County’s willing to spend $161K a year for training on subjects that senior staff should already know, why learn anything?

FROM THE SF CHRON: "Saturday will be a good day to walk to Union Square, do some tourist mocking, eat lunch, and walk back. Anyone thinking of going anywhere near Crissy Field is either, 1) a Nazi who just wants to get into a fight, 2) a Nazi sympathizer who just wants to get into a fight, 3) a leftist wacko who just wants to get into a fight, 4) an idiot "journalist" who's hoping to see a fight, or 5) a plain old idiot."

I QUALIFY as an idiot journalist and a plain old idiot, and I'm going, truth to tell, for two reasons: (1) The theater of it, and (2) I think a fascist rally less than a mile from the San Francisco National Cemetery and its thousands of graves of young men who died fighting fascism is a double provocation. I also think the fascisti should be confronted wherever they appear and, in the more restrained venues, argued with, not banned. I really don't want the Democratic National Committee and, closer to home, Mendolib, telling me who can talk and who can't, what I can read and what I can't. Closer to home, a friend told me that when a nazi called in one of KZYX's rare open lines shows the other night the host simply hung up on him. The guy should have been engaged, argued with, shown up, not hung up on.

AND NOTHING much will happen in Frisco tomorrow. There might be some heavy huffing and puffing but the nazis will be heavily out-numbered, and we're not at the gun stage yet. If the fascisti held their rally in, say, Redding, where there's only six liberals, three of them confined to a rest home, no attention would be paid to them. But the mere possibility of an errant political opinion mobilizes the entire Bay Area. Which is why the fascists choose the Bay Area and communities like it in other parts of the US for provocations. They know they'll either be banned or attacked. Or both. Either way they think they win because, as they inevitably claim, "See, the great defenders of free speech won't let us talk," as if they let our side talk at their many more prevalent sites.

UPDATE: THE FASCISTS cancelled their appearance, sooooo I guess I'll put away my helmet and mace and go to a movie.

* * *

Right-Wing Cancels Crissy Field, Berkeley

by Lizzie Johnson

The leader of a right-wing group that had planned a Saturday rally at Crissy Field in San Francisco said Friday he had decided to call off the event, just as local and federal officials put the finishing touches on a slate of security measures designed to head off the kind of violence seen earlier this month in Charlottesville, Va.

But it wasn’t immediately clear whether the rally, which had been granted a permit by the National Park Service, was effectively being canceled or simply moved.

On Facebook Live, Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer said the group would instead hold a “press conference” at 2 p.m. Saturday at Alamo Square Park in the Western Addition. He said the same speakers and bands who were going to appear at Crissy Field would be there, forcing city leaders to scramble to respond. They fear clashes between the rally group and counterprotesters.

Gibson and other supporters appearing with him on the Facebook feed said they’d changed their plans because of fears that violent protesters using “black bloc” tactics would attend their Crissy Field rally. They also said the speakers and bands scheduled to perform at the rally had been “harassed.”

“I am calling on (city officials) to denounce antifa publicly,” said Will Johnson, an event organizer, referring to antifascist protesters who have clashed with right-wing activists in recent months at events in Berkeley and around the country. “We could have had this rally (Saturday), and it would have been peaceful. Not a single person wants to fight. They are bringing the violence.”

The organizers also blamed statements by Mayor Ed Lee and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, for creating a hostile climate against them. Both politicians had called on the National Park Service to deny the group a permit for what Pelosi called a “white supremacist rally.”

Gibson has said his group does not espouse racist views, but its events have drawn white nationalists, and it has sought to stir unfounded fears about Muslim Americans. Violent clashes with counterprotesters have broken out at past rallies.

San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell, whose district borders Crissy Field, said the “press conference” was a blatant attempt to provoke more trouble. The new gathering is not permitted, he said.

“Whether they hold the rally at Crissy Field or make plans elsewhere to disrupt our city, it is our responsibility to make sure every contingency is planned for,” Farrell said. “I was hoping they would cancel and pack up their tents and go home. This is just meant to cause further disruption to the residents of San Francisco. That is their” mode of operation.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said Patriot Prayer had “showed its true colors by canceling, at the last minute. ... Patriot Prayer is not interested in simply exercising free speech. Rather, Patriot Prayer wants to create a volatile, chaotic, violent tinderbox.”

He said he was “deeply concerned” the Alamo Square Park gathering will lead to violence.

According to the city Recreation and Park Department website, any gathering is considered a “special event” if it involves amplified sound, advertises that it is open to the public, or requires special barricades and fences, among other things. Police can disband an unpermitted event and arrest organizers.

The city requires special-event applications to be submitted at least 60 days in advance. The fee is $62.

Friday’s announcement by Patriot Prayer came as authorities put up temporary chain-link fences around Crissy Field, allowing them to create a single entrance and screen rally participants for weapons, bicycles, helmets, pepper spray and other items. Much of the Presidio was to be closed Saturday, with businesses shuttered, while nearby Muni bus lines were being temporarily rerouted.

It wasn’t immediately clear if those precautions would be lifted due to the rally cancellation.

It was also unclear whether a separate, unpermitted rally would be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley — one that Gibson said he would attend. Police were planning to respond to the “No Marxism in Berkeley” event with a force of hundreds of officers from the city and surrounding agencies.

However, an organizer of the Berkeley rally, Amber Cummings, said in a rambling email Friday that she was urging people not to show up, because she feared violence by counterprotesters.

“It will be me alone attending, no one else please,” Cummings said.

Prior to the cancellation of the Crissy Field rally, San Francisco and Berkeley officials urged residents opposed to the right-wing events to send a message by joining together for peaceful gatherings in locations far from the rallies. Many such demonstrations are planned this weekend.

“Ya’ll know that some people are coming tomorrow to our city,” Lee said outside City Hall on Friday, as hundreds of people gathered, stopping traffic on the street. It was a preview of a much larger counter-rally scheduled for the space Saturday.

Lee was joined by other top city and state Democratic leaders, including Wiener and Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough. Nearly two dozen men and women from the Glide Ensemble, wearing rainbow shirts and holding “Unite Against Hate” signs, sang gospel music.

“We are at the forefront of every new social movement,” Speier said of San Francisco. “Hate will not infect us and become a cancer in this city. Love will win.”

Across the bay, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said he planned to attend a counterprotest Sunday organized by nearly 60 community groups. He said he was inspired by peaceful protests last weekend in Boston, which overshadowed a right-wing rally.

“What happened in Boston has changed the situation, where we have seen that a large counterprotest can have the effect of discouraging hate groups from coming into a city,” Arreguin said. “It sends a powerful message that communities can rise against hate.”

(SF Chronicle)

LT. GOV. NEWSOM GETTING PLENTY OF GREEN FROM POT INDUSTRY

As a leading candidate for the 2018 gubernatorial race and cannabis policy supporter Newsom has received more than $300,000 in donations from the cannabis industry.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE DAY RE DOPE POLICY

[1] Mendocino does a decent job. People will always complain. But what Mendo does is stick around and knock down an area of large grows — over 25 plants — and chip them up. They count and leave alone the spots with 25 plants, sometimes huge 8-10 pounders. The effect is that everybody gets to pull off 150-250 pounds if they do their work right. This makes it possible for the smaller mom n pops to survive. Humboldt has done the opposite by allowing huge mega-grows to run wide and clear. Of course the Humboldt production has swamped the mom n pops of Mendo, Trinity, southern Oregon and everywhere. Humboldt has done exactly what would kill the small families and reward the largest and greediest criminal operations. I’ve observed closely since ’83 and I put blame squarely on the shoulders of the Supervisors and the HCSD (Humboldt County School District). Followed closely by naive enablers who do not understand market forces or human psychology or social trends in result to media hypes… Stay tuned.

[2] Exactly. Why did law enforcement allow 12,000 illegal grows to proliferate in the first place? They say there were no funds. Funny, Mendo didn’t have the funds either and have managed to keep things under better control. I say it was pure laziness. And yes, With people sitting on hundreds of pounds from last year and the huge harvest from this year, the glut (gluttony) is going to be unbelievable. Humboldt, it’s over. You shot yourselves in the foot. Thanks green rushers, local and new. You fucked it up good. The Board of Stupidvisors put the icing on the cake. Maybe in a few years things in Humboldt can get back to normal and this cannabis madness will have died down. I’m praying for that day.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “As a guy committed to intra-species harmony, I especially admire my new friend, Goph. Hard working sucker, ol' Goph, tunneling all day. When he pops up on his break, I ask him, "Got time for a chat?" And he says, "Nope. Gotta get back at it. See ya." And there he goes!”

THREE-DAY POT “OPERATION” NEAR PETROLIA

On Tuesday 08/22/2017, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office’s Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) began a three day operation investigating non-permitted large scale marijuana cultivation sites in the Conklin Creek area of Petrolia. A total of three search warrants were served on five parcels. Three parcels were under the same LLC. The following agencies assisted DEU with these investigations: Wardens from California Fish and Wildlife, Environmental Scientists from California Fish and Wildlife, Agents with Bureau of Land Management, State Water board, CAL Fire, specialist from the Humboldt County Environmental Health and HAZMAT Unit, Humboldt County Code Enforcement officers, and personnel from the California Army National Guard Counter Drug Unit.

The first parcel investigated consisted of three greenhouses and several outdoor marijuana gardens. A total of 2,081 plants were located on this parcel. Also located was 461 pounds of processed marijuana. Suspect Isidro Alexandro Sandoval (age 22) was located on the property in possession of a 9mm pistol. Sandoval was arrested and charged with felony cultivation/possession of marijuana for sales and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Several environmental, county code, HAZMAT, and water right violations were found on this parcel that was directly related to the marijuana cultivation site.

State Water board located the following: 4 separate violations of Fill in Water Course of the State, and 3 violations of Failure to File Initial Statement of Water Diversions and Use.

Fish and Wildlife located the following: 3 Water Diversion violations, 4 Streambed Alteration violations, 3 Sediment Discharge violations, and 4 Trash in Stream Violations.

County Code Enforcement located the following Violations: Construction without a permit, Grating without a permit, Streamside Management violation, Unlawful Sewage discharge, and violation of the Commercial Medical Marijuana ordinance.

HAZMAT located the following violations: Failure to Submit Hazardous Material Business Plan, Unauthorized Hazardous Waste Storage, and Mismanagement of Waste Oil Filters. Four 55 gallon drums containing fuel and 1 55 gallon drum containing motor oil were located on the property.

Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

MORE POT, YET AGAIN

by Jeff Costello

Pretty sure the AVA is correct is saying the small-time grower is screwed. It will be like growing tomatoes in the back yard, eat them yourself and give some away to friends. The corporate world is on to marijuana in a big way. And just like home grown tomatoes compared to the ones in the supermarket, people will buy the crappy ones and not know the difference. Bob Marley came to Maui to do a show when I lived there. Worshipful local growers lined up to give him samples of their stuff. Marley, a rastafarian who regarded ganja as a sacrament, smoked some of one guy's weed and told him, "Too bad you used chemicals." He could tell. This got around quickly on the island.

Supermarket tomatoes, here we come. They won't know the difference. The best tomato I ever ate came from a friend's small garden in Sebastopol. Imagine Monsanto Marijuana. Comparable to grainy, tasteless Safeway tomatoes. Like most everything else I remember from the 60s, the mystique of pot is gone. Maybe it always was just another drug and we were kidding ourselves. We were against war and were rewarded with Kent State. My war protest was strictly personal. I was drafted in 1964 and secured a 4-F rating, only dimly aware of Viet Nam. We thought pot would advance the human condition and were rewarded with methamphetamine. I should have realized this in the 80s when my roommate habitually drank beer, swallowed a handful of Vicodin and/or Valium, and smoked a joint. Just one ingredient in the process of getting loaded. I remember when pot heads regarded beer drinkers as slobs. Snobs and slobs. Now they're making pot-infused beer. Snobbery and Slobbery together in a drink.

Is it true that Mendo growers can barely get $500 a pound? During my brief career growing pakalolo on the Big Island, the going rate was $1600. That was the 80s and the gun people were moving in. I was done with it when a friend and I were greeted by a guy with a shotgun as we walked up his driveway. In those days most Hawaiian pot was shipped off to the mainland, and the risks, aside from the gun wielders and helicopters (Operation Green Harvest), were in the shipping process. When the pot sniffing dogs were deployed in Big Island post offices, growers began sending people - mostly women dressed as tourists - to Honolulu to send it from there. FedEx and UPS were also used. One guy used big musical instrument cases for shipping. Despite the anxiety, evading capture or ripoffs was part of the fun. Breaking the law, flouting the rules. But with the new corporate growers it's all business, no fun other than stepping on the little guys.

Sometime in the 90s, Starbucks coffee started selling stock at $14 a share. Once again I'll miss an opportunity to invest in big things to come.

RUFFING SUMS UP

It Is Time To Move On

by Linda Ruffing, City Manager, Fort Bragg, CA

The job of a City Manager is never easy and the past few years have been made even more challenging by an unrelenting tirade of mean-spirited, personal attacks on a couple local social media sites and from certain critics in the community. This is not the place for me to defend myself or to talk about how destructive such bullying is. But I will say this — it is time to move on folks. Stop the blame game. Become engaged in civil dialogue about the future of our community. Come to City Council meetings, share your ideas, run for public office, vote.

A City Manager needs a supportive City Council to be successful and to move big initiatives forward. I am fortunate that for most of my long career here in Fort Bragg I worked with City Councils who were able to articulate their visions, keep their eyes on the big picture and offer me strong support and encouragement. That enabled me to stay focused on helping the Council, City staff and the community address immediate challenges and prepare for the future. Together, we accomplished a great deal. Our current City Council is divided in its support for me and that makes it difficult for us to move this City forward.

Last week, the City Council and I agreed to a mutual parting of the ways once they complete the recruitment process for Fort Bragg’s next City Manager. I am committed to making this as smooth a transition as possible for our staff, the Council and the incoming City Manager. This is especially important in order to attract a qualified field of City Manager candidates. I sincerely hope that the community, the Council, and City staff will all coalesce in support of a new and highly-skilled City Manager who brings fresh energy and enthusiasm to the job. I also hope that the City Council will be unanimous in its selection of Fort Bragg’s next City Manager.

Hiring a new City Manager is one of the most consequential decisions a City Council will ever make. If a good hiring decision is made, the new City Manager can help the City achieve its full potential. If the wrong decision is made, it can be costly on many fronts — financial, employee morale, organizational stability, community relations, failure to make progress. There will be opportunities in the coming weeks and months for the Council and the community to consider what the City wants from its next City Manager. What does the organization need? What expertise, skills, and temperamental qualities are most important? What are the key priorities for the new City Manager to address?

This is also an opportunity for the Council and the community to develop an understanding of how the Council-Manager form of government works in cities such as Fort Bragg. The City Council is elected to represent the community and to develop a long-range vision for the City’s future. Political power is shared by the entire Council and policy direction is provided to the City Manager by the Council as a whole rather than individually. The City Manager is given the authority and responsibility to run the City organization. She or he is responsible for oversight of day-to-day operations and for making sure that the policies and the vision of the Council are implemented. Again, choosing a new City Manager is an incredibly important decision for the Council.

By next January, I will have served as Fort Bragg’s City Manager for 13 years and prior to that as its Community Development Director for six years. I am immensely grateful to have had this opportunity to direct my passion and skills to helping Fort Bragg meet the challenges of a changing world. It has been a great privilege to live, work and raise my family in this community. I love Fort Bragg. I plan to stay here and will remain committed to the betterment of this town. I believe that my departure from City government will have positive outcomes for me, both personally and professionally. And I am hopeful that the City Council, working with a new City Manager, will be successful in addressing the challenges that lie ahead for Fort Bragg.

I would like to thank the many people in this community who have expressed their support and appreciation for the work that I have done on behalf of the City of Fort Bragg and for all that we have accomplished over the past 18 years. Those kind words have helped me keep a positive perspective about who Fort Bragg is and where this community is headed.

(City Manager Linda Ruffing can be reached at LRuffing@fortbragg.com or (707) 961-2829.)

SMART EXTENDS THE LONG LINE OF NORTH BAY RAIL SERVICE FROM OUR PAST

by Gaye Lebaron

In a dedication ceremony that featured a dozen speakers and a blessing in less than one hour, possibly setting a new world record, SMART launched on Friday. The crowd at the old stone station at the foot of Santa Rosa’s Fourth Street was in a celebratory mood. After the long delays and snarky comments about scheduling, fares and whistles, the send-off for the first leg of a Sonoma-Marin transit system proved itself a historic event.

Think about it. The last scheduled stop at the Santa Rosa depot was Northwestern Pacific’s passenger train known as The Redwood, making its final run from Eureka south. That was November 1958, very close to 60 years ago.

You don’t need me to tell you how trains have come and gone in and around Sonoma County. You can, I’m fairly certain, Google it for every detail including what locomotive was built where.

While the word won’t be found in the old conductor’s handbooks, there is definitely a mystique to railroads. Stacks of books have been written, organizations formed at every whistle-stop. At last count the Northwestern Pacific Historical Society had more than 700 members.

…

Well into the 20th century everyone went everywhere by train.

Sonoma County’s trains ran pretty much on time, even after the automobile took hold — about 10 per day passing through the Northwestern Pacific, or NWP, depot, including uptrains from the ferry in Sausalito and downtrains from Eureka. Long-distance travelers headed for all points east from the North Street’s Southern Pacific (SP) station. The crossing whistles were just part of the atmosphere.

Passengers came in all sizes, shapes and purposes — salesmen hawking dry goods and hardware; young men who were couriers carrying cash and bonds and stock certificates to and from banks; escorts accompanying valuable cargo, baseball teams from the Bay Area, honeymooners and families with children.

…

Train riders from those glory years have great tales to tell.

One of my favorites came from the late Rita Carniglia Hall, who liked to tell about her father, Charles Carniglia Sr., the superintendent of the California Packing Corporation’s (Del Monte) cannery west of the tracks.

He courted her mother, Rose, as she made the daily train trip from her family’s home in Fulton to work in the cannery.

At the end of the workday, she would often be accompanied by the young Carniglia, who would then hang out at the Fulton station to wait for the next downtrain.

It was a 1920s courting ritual, equivalent to the drive-in movies of the ’50s or the Friday night cruise down Fourth Street.

…

Another picture of the railroad glory days here was painted vividly by the late Press Democrat editor Art Volkerts, born and raised on a ranch in Hessel. In a video interview in the ’90s, Volkerts said: “I would like to say something about transportation. I was thinking today, remembering when I was a boy, about 8 years old (circa 1928) and my mother wanted to visit her mother, who lived in San Jose.

“She took me and my younger sister to the Hessel Station where the P&SR (Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad) was running an electric car and we got on and I remember it had these old wicker seats and one man ran the whole thing and we trundled off to the railroad station at Petaluma.

We got off and took our bags and got on to the NWP with the big steam engine and it took us right down to the ferry slip at Sausalito. We walked over to the ferry, went across the bay to the Ferry Building, walked over to an SP railroad car that took us to San Jose. Then we got another little trolley that took us within a block of my grandmother’s house.

“We talk now about the need for rapid transit. Well, there we had rapid transit all the way. ... We let it get away. I don’t think it will come back until things get so bad because of gas, or whatever, that people will have to go again to rail transportation. It’s very hard to get people out of their automobiles.”

This was obviously a very pleasant memory for Volkerts, although he acknowledged “It took the better part of a day,” but added that, with traffic jams, it can still take the better part of the day to get to San Jose.

…

Another all-time favorite is the oft-told story of Oliver Clay Hopkins, whose 44-year commute is a classic train tale. “Ollie” began his round trips in 1893 as a courier from his Petaluma home to San Francisco. It quickly became a way of life as he graduated to his own insurance business on San Francisco’s Montgomery Street.

He rode the NWP to the SP ferry in Sausalito every workday until he retired in 1937. He became a commuting legend. If he was a few minutes late, the train waited for him in Petaluma. His significant commute anniversaries were subjects for the city newspapers. He met literally thousands of people on his travels.

His granddaughter, Virginia Strom-Martin, could and did cite the family story when she strived to keep trains moving through Sonoma County in her three terms in the state Assembly.

Not all the stories come from the ancient history file.

Allan Hemphill’s video story is set in the earliest years of the vintage renaissance that turned the area into “Wine Country.”

In a 2002 history video, Hemphill, first president of Kenwood’s Chateau St. Jean winery, recalled how his interest in railroads took Sonoma County’s new agribusiness enterprise “on the road.” Railroad, that is.

Eager to acquaint the nation’s wine buyers with the Sonoma County brand, Chateau St. Jean hired a dining car, took its chef and, Allan recalled, “We went to New Orleans on a test run.”

Amtrak parked them on a siding and, he remembered, “it was remarkable.” Brennen’s, the famous New Orleans restaurant, had not been seen at a promotional wine tasting. “We had both branches of the family come aboard.”

So Hemphill’s family bought their own railcars, refurbished them as a sleeper, a lounge and dining car, and took Sonoma County wines cross-country.

This railroad outreach went well beyond Chateau St. Jean, as the Wineries Association came aboard for trips across the nation in the past two decades of the 20th century.

…

To get to SMART’s debut on Friday, we must fast-track past a collection of false starts, good ideas gone wrong, weather-related calamities, rising costs of equipment and expensive changes in technology.

The slow but beautiful trip up the Eel River Canyon to Eureka may never come back. Too expensive to restore damaged tunnels and tracks.

But, remembering the gleeful welcome Americans gave to the automobile while idling on a six-lane freeway that was crowded before it was finished, we must never say never. It wouldn’t be SMART, would it?

A Northwestern Pacific passenger train, southbound to Santa Rosa, cuts between orchard and vineyards near Geyserville in 1955. (John LeBaron, "Santa Rosa: A Twentieth Century Town")

The Southern Pacific depot on North Street in Santa Rosa. (LeBaron Collection/"Santa Rosa: A Nineteenth Century Town")

FLOODGATE FARM WORK PARTY SAT AUG. 26TH

This is just a reminder that if you want to help with Floodgate Farm's recovery from the Grade Fire, we are mulching, earth moving, seed harvesting etc. this Saturday August 26th. You may come for some or all of the day, between 8 AM and 6 PM. There are physically vigorous as well as easy tasks that would help us greatly! Thanks! RSVP if coming to 707-272-1688.

Bill and Jaye, www.floodgatefarm.com

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 25, 2017

TODD CORBIN, Covelo. DUI.

TANYA DEMARIA, Campbell/Ukiah. Taking a vehicle without owner’s consent, obtaining someone else’s credit, two prior strikes.

LINDSEY DUNHAM, Ukiah. Petty theft, under influence, domestic battery, failure to pay restitution, failure to appear.

BRANDON HAMILTON, Willits. Receiving stolen property, falsely impersonating someone else, forging vehicle registration, false ID to police officer, probation revocation.

KEVIN HARRIS, Ukiah. Camping in Ukiah, probation revocation.

ALBERTO LOPEZ, Talmage. Forgery, disobeying a court order, failure to appear, illegal entry.

ADRIAN MARTINEZ-RODRIGUEZ, Santa Rosa/Covelo. Illegal possession of assault weapon, concealed dirk-dagger, felon/adict in possession of firearm or weapon.

JERRY MEAGHER, San Mateo/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DERRICK SCHLUETER, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

HOLLAND VANHORN, Willits. Receiving stolen property, failure to appear, probation revocation.

KING OF THE HATE BUSINESS:

Inside the Southern Povery Law Center

by Jeffrey St. Clair & Alexander Cockburn

(Note: In the wake of Charlottesville, liberals have been pouring money into the Southern Poverty Law Center in the misguided belief that the Center is a fearsome defender of civil rights. The latest to fire off a check was George and Amal Clooney, who sent Dees’ outfit $1.1 million. Most of this money will be used to raise more money (when they’re not smearing animal rights and pro-Palestinian groups as threats to the nation.) As a corrective, we are reprinting a piece on SPLC that Cockburn and St. Clair wrote in 2009 in the first few (disappointing) months of Barack Obama’s presidency. — CounterPunch editors)

* * *

What is the arch-salesman of hate-mongering, Mr. Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center doing now? He’s saying that the election of a black president proves his point. Hate is on the rise! Send money!

Without skipping a beat, the mailshot moguls, who year after year make money selling the notion there’s been a right resurgence out there in the hinterland with massed legions of haters, have used the election of a black president to say that, yes, hate is on the rise and America ready to burst apart at the seams, with millions of extremists primed to march down Main Street draped in Klan robes, a copy of Mein Kampf tucked under one arm and a Bible under the other, available for sneak photographs from minions of Chip Berlet, another salesman of the Christian menace, ripely endowed with millions to battle the legions of the cross.

Ever since 1971 US Postal Service mailbags have bulged with Dees’ fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC. In 2000, Ken Silverstein wrote a devastating commentary on Dees and the SPLC in Harpers,dissecting a typical swatch of Dees’ solicitations. At that time, as Silverstein pointed out, the SPLC was “the wealthiest civil rights group in America,” with $120 million in assets.

As of October 2008 the net assets of the SPLC were $170,240,129, The merchant of hate himself, Mr. Dees, was paid an annual $273,132 as chief trial counsel, and the SPLC’s president and CEO, Richard Cohen, $290,193. Total revenue in 2007 was $44,727,257 and program expenses $20,804,536. In other words, the Southern Poverty Law Center was raising twice as much as it was spending on its proclaimed mission. Fund-raising and administrative expenses accounted for $9 million, leaving $14 million to be put in the center’s vast asset portfolio.

The 990 non profit tax record for the SPLC indicates that the assets fell by about $50 million last year, meaning that like almost all non profits the SPLC took a bath in the stock crash. So what was thr end result of all that relentless hoarding down the year, as people of modest means, scared by Dees, sent him their contributions. Were they put to good use? It doesn’t seem so. They vanished in an electronic blip.

But where are the haters? That hardy old stand-by, the KKK, despite the SPLC’s predictable howls about an uptick in its chapters, is a moth-eaten and depleted troupe, at least 10 per cent of them on the government payroll as informants for the FBI. As Noel Ignatiev once remarked in his book Race Traitor, there isn’t a public school in any county in the USA that doesn’t represent a menace to blacks a thousand times more potent than that offered by the KKK, just as there aren’t many such schools that probably haven’t been propositioned by Dees to buy one of the SPLC’s “tolerance” programs. What school is going to go on record rejecting Dees-sponsored tolerance?

Dees and his hate-seekers scour the landscape for hate like the arms manufacturers inventing new threats and for the same reason: it’s their staple.

The SPLC’s latest “Year in Hate” report claims that “in 2008 the number of hate groups rose to 926, up 4 per cent from 2007, and 54 per cent since 2000.” The SPLC doesn’t measure the number of members in the groups, meaning they probably missed us. Change that total to 928. We’re a hate group, meaning in Dees-speak, “one with beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people,” starting with Dick Cheney. We love to dream of him being water-boarded, subjected to loops of Schonberg played at top volume, locked up naked in a meat locker. But the nation’s haters are mostly like us, enjoying their (increasingly circumscribed) constitutionally guaranteed right to hate, solitary, disorganized, prone to sickening relapses into love, or at least the sort of amiable tolerance for All Mankind experienced when looking at photos of Carla Bruni and Princess Letizia of Spain kissing.

The effective haters are big, powerful easily identifiable entities. Why is Dees fingering militia men in a potato field in Idaho when we have identifiable, well-organized groups which the SPLC could take on. To cite reports from the Urban League, and United for a Fair Economy, minorities are more than three times as likely to hold high-cost subprime loans, foisted on them by predatory lenders, meaning the big banks; “all black and latino subprime borrowers could stand to lose between $164 billion and $213 billion for loans taken during the past eight years.”

Get those bankers and big mortgage touts into court, chief counsel Dees! How about helping workers fired by people who hate anyone trying to organize a union? What about defending immigrants rounded up in ICE raids? How about attacking the roots of southern poverty, and the system that sustains that poverty as expressed in the endless prisons and Death Rows across the south, disproportionately crammed with blacks and Hispanics?

You fight theatrically, the Dees way, or you fight substantively, like Stephen Bright, who makes only $11,000 as president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights. The center’s director makes less than $50,000. It has net assets of a bit over $4.5 million and allocates about $1.6 million a year for expenses, 77 percent of its annual revenue. Bright’s outfit is basically dedicated to two things: prison litigation and the death penalty. He fights the system, case by case. Not the phony targets mostly tilted at by Dees but the effective, bipartisan, functional system of oppression, far more deadly and determined than the SPLC’s tin-pot hate groups.

Tear up your check to Dees and send it to Bright,( http://www.schr.org/) or to the Institute for Southern Studies (http://www.southernstudies.org.html) run by Chris Kromm, which has been doing brilliant spadework on the economy, on poverty and on exploitation in the south for four decades.

(Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net. Alexander Cockburn’s Guillotined! and A Colossal Wreck are available from CounterPunch.)

CONTROLLED DEMOLITION

by James Kunstler

This is the week-of-weeks when the official grand viziers of finance gather at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to confab and interpret the lay of animal neck-bones and other auguries scattered in the sand, with the hope of steering the awesome powers of the universe this was or that as they affect the operations of money. The exercise is hardly different in function from the sort of rude ceremonials that took place on top of Sumerian ziggurats and Aztec temples — to reassure the masses that effective spells for favor of the Gods have been cast — except that in our civilization money is God.

Or “money,” we should say, because the old definitions don’t fit so well anymore. It used to have a straightforward relationship with the work required to produce actual things of value, but those days are gone. “Money” nowadays is a byproduct of wishful analytics and computer legerdemain seasoned with generous measures of fraud and larceny. This is a big problem when everything is measured in money and it becomes quite impossible to state with assurance what the value of money actually is. Obviously, you end up not knowing the value of anything.

That’s the perilous situation the world faces. And since the USA is the straw the stirs the world’s drink — at least for now — the utterances emanating from Jackson Hole may determine which way that situation turns. We should suppose that the officers of the Federal Reserve are upright, well-intentioned, patriotic people. No doubt they think they are. But the perilous situation is largely one of their own making, and seems to be veering out of their control, and reputations are at stake. Their task at this year’s Jackson Hole confab is to maintain the appearance of confidence in their own rituals. But with a kicker.

That kicker is named T-r-u-m-p. This modern Balaam, riding the ass of the Deep State into wickedness, must be stopped, perhaps at all costs. On his way to the oval office last fall, Trump prophesied that the stock markets represented “one big, fat, ugly bubble.” That was an offense to the grand viziers, for whom the elevated stock market valuations stood as the main testament to their power and wisdom. In fact, it was the only testament, and a rather flimsy one. More recently, though, the wicked Trump changed his tune and declared that the tower of stock market exaltation was his own doing, setting himself up for the revenge of the grand viziers.

Since nothing else has worked so far to dislodge Trump from the White House, a tumbling tower of stocks might seal his fate. The tower has to fall anyway, lest the moiling masses of flyover America think about besetting Wall Street with pitchforks and torches. A controlled demolition might be just the thing to appease these suffering holders of three part-time jobs (if they are so lucky) who have stood by in wonder and nausea while a tiny fraction of the elite gather unto themselves all the dwindling riches of the realm — at least in paper securities denominated in US dollars — while the wicked Trump will be left to the jackals of the Deep State, to be torn apart with the 25^th Amenedment.

Trouble is, the “controlled” part of the demolition. Janet Yellen and the rest of the crew in their conical hats might want the markets to fall by a manageable ten or maybe even twenty percent. After all, they probably believe they can tweak them back up in another six months, like the last couple of times. But they can only pretend to calibrate that tumble, just as they pretend to regulate the employment numbers that supposedly represent the real economy of thing, activities, and people. What if the demolition gets out of hand? What if the markets sink fifty percent, seventy? What if the bond market, which is way bigger than the stock markets, catches the infection and goes kerblooey? What if congress, in its raging idiocy, shoots the credibility of the nation in the head by failing to raise the debt ceiling?

Things could get mighty complicated. The viziers know that the powers of the universe have a mysterious will of their own. Mostly, they have a will to re-balance the things of this world that have strayed from the accounting sheets of reality, namely the true prices of everything. And from that point the value of things may become visible again. Won’t that be a mighty moment?

So mind what these characters say in the hours ahead at Jackson Hole, and mind what they set into motion as they do.

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

HONORING TONY DE BRUM, ENVIRONMENTAL AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT ACTIVIST

Dear friends,

We grieve the passing of Tony de Brum, the great Marshall Islands leader, who has died at the age of 72. Tony de Brum clearly saw that avoiding nuclear war is a fundamental environmental issue, as vital to global survival as controlling climate change. Mr. de Brum organized 100 nations into the "High Ambition Coalition" at the 2015 Paris climate accord talks, and is credited with being a key negotiator leading to setting the clear goal of less than 1.5 degrees temperature change by 2100. In 2014 Mr. de Brum led a lawsuit against the nine nuclear nations, demanding that they meet their Non-Proliferation Treaty obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament.

Tony de Brum lived to see 122 United Nations representatives sign the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty on July 7, 2017, a widely-ignored event that brands nuclear weapons and nuclear attack threats outlaw activities. In September the process of ratifying the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty begins, and after 50 nations ratify it, it will go into effect, prohibiting development,testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.

We can honor Tony de Brum by supporting the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and making nuclear disarmament a vital and fundamental environmental issue. For information on the September 22-24 conference of peace groups on "War and the Environment," visit: http://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2017

Tony de Brum, Presente!

John Lewallen, Philo

BITCOIN

Money represents the virtualization of value. Therefore all money is fiat money, including gold. Period. Gold is a token that represents a consensus measure of actual value, where value is something that satisfies a human need or desire. There’s nothing magical about gold that lends it “money-ness” other than convention. What makes gold useful as a conventional token of value is that it has specific physical properties that can’t be faked, i.e. density, mass, doesn’t tarnish, etc. It’s always possible to verify that a quantity of gold actually is gold through and through and not alloyed with something else, and therefore represents the consensus value that it’s purported to represent.

Bitcoin and other virtual currencies attempt to provide similar guarantees by mathematical means instead of physical properties. They use what’s called a blockchain, which has to be constantly calculated and re-calculated using what’s called a proof-of-work algorithm. The algorithm is supposed to provide a mathematically strong guarantee of validity without requiring a central authority to mint the coins. Instead, bitcoin is ‘mined’ by computers that run billions of hashes per second and, if they get lucky, produce tokens that will be recognized by the wider Bitcoin network as representing a proven amount of work done. This is the mathematical equivalent of a given amount of gold, which may represent greater or lesser value depending on the market in Bitcoins that day.

Here’s the catch: computers use energy. Computers that mine Bitcoins use LOTS of energy. And the blockchain algorithm, by design, requires mounting quantities of computations to be performed for every new Bitcoin it emits. Check out this website: digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

The site estimates that every Bitcoin transaction that takes place currently represents 166 kWh of electricity, which is enough to run 5.62 U.S. households for one day. That’s only going to increase, because the algorithm works that way. A month ago, on July 26, Bitcoin miners expended about 14.63 terawatt-hours of energy. Yesterday they expended 16.15 TWh. That’s a 10% increase in one month and an amount equal to the total energy expenditure in the country of Tunisia.

Leaving aside the fact that governments are unlikely to accept a challenge to their monetary sovereignty, the growth rate of Bitcoin’s energy expenditure gives new meaning to ‘unsustainable’.

HOME ALONE

Boards & Commissions Vacancies

The list of vacancies, due to term expirations and/or resignations, for County boards and commissions has been updated with new vacancies. A list of all new and existing vacancies is available on the County website: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/board-of-supervisors/boards-and-commissions.

Please contact the Executive Office at (707) 463-4441 if you have any questions regarding this message.

Thank you.

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and Executive Office

HYMN

by Sherman Alexi

 

Why do we measure people's capacity

To love by how well they love their progeny?

 

That kind of love is easy. Encoded.

Any lion can be devoted

 

To its cubs. Any insect, be it prey

Or predator, worships its own DNA.

 

Like the wolf, elephant, bear, and bees,

We humans are programmed to love what we conceive.

 

That's why it's so shocking when a neighbor

Drives his car into a pond and slaughter–

 

Drowns his children. And that's why we curse

The mother who leaves her kids—her hearth—

 

And never returns. That kind of betrayal

Rattles our souls. That shit is biblical.

 

So, yes, we should grieve an ocean

When we encounter a caretaker so broken.

 

But I'm not going to send you a card

For being a decent parent. It ain't that hard

 

To love somebody who resembles you.

If you want an ode then join the endless queue

 

Of people who are good to their next of kin—

Who somehow love people with the same chin

 

And skin and religion and accent and eyes.

So you love your sibling? Big fucking surprise.

 

But how much do you love the strange and stranger?

Hey, Caveman, do you see only danger

 

When you peer into the night? Are you afraid

Of the country that exists outside of your cave?

 

Hey, Caveman, when are you going to evolve?

Are you still baffled by the way the earth revolves

 

Around the sun and not the other way around?

Are you terrified by the ever-shifting ground?

 

Hey, Trump, I know you weren't loved enough

By your sandpaper father, who roughed and roughed

 

And roughed the world. I have some empathy

For the boy you were. But, damn, your incivility,

 

Your volcanic hostility, your lists

Of enemies, your moral apocalypse—

 

All of it makes you dumb and dangerous.

You are the Antichrist we need to antitrust.

 

Or maybe you're only a minor league

Dictator—temporary, small, and weak.

 

You've wounded our country. It might heal.

And yet, I think of what you've revealed

 

About the millions and millions of people

Who worship beneath your tarnished steeple.

 

Those folks admire your lack of compassion.

They think it's honest and wonderfully old-fashioned.

 

They call you traditional and Christian.

LOL! You've given them permission

 

To be callous. They have been rewarded

For being heavily armed and heavily guarded.

 

You've convinced them that their deadly sins

(Envy, wrath, greed) have transformed into wins.

 

Of course, I'm also fragile and finite and flawed.

I have yet to fully atone for the pain I've caused.

 

I'm an atheist who believes in grace if not in God.

I'm a humanist who thinks that we’re all not

 

Humane enough. I think of someone who loves me—

A friend I love back—and how he didn't believe

 

How much I grieved the death of Prince and his paisley.

My friend doubted that anyone could grieve so deeply

 

The death of any stranger, especially a star.

"It doesn't feel real," he said. If I could play guitar

 

And sing, I would have turned purple and roared

One hundred Prince songs—every lick and chord—

 

But I think my friend would have still doubted me.

And now, in the context of this poem, I can see

 

That my friend’s love was the kind that only burns

In expectation of a fire in return.

 

He’s no longer my friend. I mourn that loss.

But, in the Trump aftermath, I've measured the costs

 

And benefits of loving those who don't love

Strangers. After all, I'm often the odd one—

 

The strangest stranger—in any field or room.

"He was weird" will be carved into my tomb.

 

But it’s wrong to measure my family and friends

By where their love for me begins or ends.

 

It’s too easy to keep a domestic score.

This world demands more love than that. More.

 

So let me ask demanding questions: Will you be

Eyes for the blind? Will you become the feet

 

For the wounded? Will you protect the poor?

Will you welcome the lost to your shore?

 

Will you battle the blood-thieves

And rescue the powerless from their teeth?

 

Who will you be? Who will I become

As we gather in this terrible kingdom?

 

My friends, I'm not quite sure what I should do.

I'm as angry and afraid and disillusioned as you.

 

But I do know this: I will resist hate. I will resist.

I will stand and sing my love. I will use my fist

 

To drum and drum my love. I will write and read poems

That offer the warmth and shelter of any good home.

 

I will sing for people who might not sing for me.

I will sing for people who are not my family.

 

I will sing honor songs for the unfamilar and new.

I will visit a different church and pray in a different pew.

 

I will silently sit and carefully listen to new stories

About other people’s tragedies and glories.

 

I will not assume my pain and joy are better.

I will not claim my people invented gravity or weather.

 

And, oh, I know I will still feel my rage and rage and rage

But I won’t act like I’m the only person onstage.

 

I am one more citizen marching against hatred.

Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.

 

We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.

We will praise and weep and laugh. We will believe.

 

We will be courageous with our love. We will risk danger

As we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers.

 

— Sherman Alexie