Mendocino County Today: Monday, Nov. 13, 2017

• Lee Memorial
• Mental Money
• MCDoT Report
• Ed Notes
• County Investments
• Debris Removal
• Fire Survivor
• Carveacre Jitters
• Little Dog
• Dem Unrig
• Laroque Farm
• Missing Teens
• Card Thieves
• Marijuana Shake-out
• Newspaper Vulture
• SoCo Warning
• Down Brown
• Tax Fraud
• Comptche Benefit
• Yesterday's Catch
• Vertical Descent
• Shed Portents
• Grub First
• Uncomfortable Flux
• Private Ingrate
• How Low
• Brown Dissent
• Christ Blessed

A LARGE GATHERING of friends and family of the late George Lee turned out in Yorkville over the weekend to honor the man who did much to establish the Yorkville Highlands as its own wine appellation.

Lee died suddenly last month. He and his wife, Kit, revived the old Chatham Ranch on Haehl Grade, Yorkville, where they grew wine grapes and olives.

ANOTHER $4.8 MILLION FOR MENTAL HEALTH FACILITIES?

Board Of Supervisors Agenda Item 5c: Noticed Public Hearing- Discussion and Possible Action to Adopt a Resolution Authorizing the Department of Planning and Building Services (PBS) to Submit an Application to the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for the 2017 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), in the amount of $4,837,500, to Request Funding of a Mental Health Crisis Facility. Sponsor: Planning and Building Services

(Proposed conversion and expansion of Mendocino Works Employment Center on Orchard Avenue to a Mental Health Crisis Facility, across the street and about a block south of the Ukiah DMV, nearly doubling total square footage.)

Summary of Request: The State Department of Housing and Community Development has posted the 2017 Notice of Funding Availability for a “Shovel Ready” project. In order to qualify for the application process, Mendocino County must submit an application prior to December 1^st and meet all necessary guidelines. As such, the Department of Planning and Building Services held a public meeting on October 17, 2017 to solicit input on possible projects to bring forward to the Board of Supervisors for approval. Redwood Community Services (RCS) was the main participant of the public meeting and offered two projects. From that meeting, staff selected the Mental Health Crisis Facility to bring forward for the public hearing. The Crisis Services Center has been a vision and a commitment since 2008 when the SB 82 Crisis Residential funding came available. It has taken this long to have a property, a plan and the full funding. SB82 gave $500,000 towards the project. The funding will support the development of a 72-hour crisis stabilization unit so that some clients can be diverted from the hospital, and it will provide the ability to have a ten-bed crisis residential home for adults needing mental health intervention and support. This will complement the Measure B funding as it allows immediate forward progress and Mendocino County will be able to commit the Measure B funding to a Psychiatric Health Facility, (Puff), a longer term Mental Health Rehabilitation Center, our much needed Addiction treatment Center, as well as a state of the art First Responders Training Center. This funding allows progress in developing the first of many pieces of mental health facilities and program support.

The Mental Health Crisis Facility would have three components consisting of an Emergency Crisis Response unit, a Crisis Stabilization unit, and a Crisis Residential Facility with up to 30 days of occupancy allowed for intensive trauma services. Attached to this summary is a more detailed narrative, prepared by RCS, that discusses the need of the facility. Also attached is an aerial view of the property, the estimated time line from the architect and the site plan. This project is shovel ready and has great potential to be approved by HCD for funding.

Attached Redwood Community Services Project Description:

RCSapplication3

COUNTY TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS UPDATE

(by County Transportation Director Howard Deshield)

“MCDoT (Mendocino County Department of Transportation) expects no more than $180,000 in fire damage to the County maintained road system; but, it is still early in the process and more damage may be discovered. CalEMA/FEMA (State/Fed Emergency Management Agencies) advise that final road surface damage be evaluated and estimates for repair made after debris clean up equipment is finished in the area. It could be a year or more before that repair work is done. MCDoT has been tracking debris clean up and protective measures taken by crews in our system and expect to request some $30,000 in reimbursement which is about 93.75% of costs.”

* * *

“Now for some good news: MCDoT received advance construction authorization for construction of pile wall(s) at Orr Springs Road, MP 39.20, and Branscomb Road, MP 21.50 the first week of November. MCDoT is proceeding with bidding this fall; however, it is too late in the construction season to complete work this year. Work will begin as soon as weather permits in the spring of 2018.

“The Branscomb Road, MP 21.50, project can be constructed leaving as least one lane open with normal 20 minute delays during daytime activities of the contractor.

“The Orr Springs Road project is a more difficult challenge, as there will need to be at least a five day complete road closure. MCDoT is striving for a Monday to Friday closure in order to be open by the weekend. In addition, there will be up to a ten day partial closure while the temporary Bailey Bridge is dissembled. It is anticipated that half of the tieback pile wall can be constructed next to the bridge and backfilled to form a single lane. Then the process of deconstruction of the temporary Bailey Bridge can be accomplished to the side so that a portion of the ten day partial closure can be kept to only midday with one lane open overnight and on weekends to allow for normal morning and evening commute during the day.

“Mendocino County’s top FEMA site is Peachland Road, where we still await NEPA [Environmental] clearance but we are poised to advance as soon as we can.”

ED NOTES

JEFF BLANKFORT said the best book on the Kennedy Assassination was JFK and the Unspeakable — Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglas. It's the first book on the subject I've read in a long time and, to this reader anyway, contains great swathes of new information, especially on Oswald, obtained from previously sequestered files on the murder. It's now beyond all doubt that Oswald was recruited by the CIA as a double agent, funded by them in fact, that he would pose as a convert to Soviet communism by trading radar secrets to the Russians he'd gotten as a Marine in Japan. Oswald's ease of return when he'd had enough of Russia only makes sense if he was working for American intelligence all along. I'm only on page 163 of a long book by the Catholic Worker who wrote it, a big plus to me because I have yet to meet a Catholic Worker who was not a trustworthy person. In fact, you can read JFK and the Unspeakable as a Catholic guide to the event, complete with long riffs by and about Thomas Merton. The theme throughout is that JFK wanted to get out of Vietnam, which he rightly saw as an endless quagmire. And he wanted to work with the Russians to end the Cold War, and he also wanted to dismantle, or at least get control over a rogue CIA. Kennedy's secret war with the malign forces in American government got him killed. These forces, led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and murks high up in the "intelligence community," tried to suck Kennedy into an all-out invasion of Cuba even if it meant taking on the Russians which, of course, to all rational people everywhere, would mean millions of people dead in likely nuclear exchanges. It's a fascinating account of the Kennedy Assassination based on the latest revelations of material that had been stuck away as too dangerous for everyday Americans to read. I can see why it was put away for sixty years as top secret because what it all means is that our own government killed a president they feared would turn the great ship of state in the direction of peaceful co-existence.

* * *

MANY OF US have at least suspected that our government is dominated by criminals and psychopaths, and along come two more books leading to that inevitable conclusion: One Man Against the World — the Tragedy of Richard Nixon by Tim Weiner and Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses… by Gary J. Byrne. The Nixon book confirms what most of us know — Nixon was 5150 during his last couple of years in office, heavily medicated and drinking on top of his meds. Imagine Trump drunk and basically you have Nixon who, of course, was a lot smarter than Trump, but with the same bad instincts as Trump. And drunk. The Secret Service guy's book merely confirms that the Clintons are the all-round worst people ever to inhabit the White House. Trump's policies and aspects of his behavior are frightening, but he's a model of personal decorum put alongside the Clintons.

* * *

A NOTE on why Mendocino County's roads are so bad, especially the Comptche-Ukiah Road and the Greenwood Road. In short, it's because County government is too big and pays its managers too much, and because more and more money has to be diverted from the County's general fund to keep the County's retirement fund solvent. Most county governments up and down the state are in the same situation — less money for services rendered, more money for government itself.

* * *

ON THE RECOMMENDATION of a friend I took in the Joan Didion documentary available on NetFlicks. Like everyone else I admire her work, and nobody caught the fleeting hippie zietgiest better than she did in Slouching Toward Bethlehem. But for a biographical film I thought it brought up more issues than it answered — her emaciation, for one thing — and, if you didn't know she was a writer, the film could have been about any wealthy, sophisticated eccentric. Nobody's written more poignantly on loss, in Didion's case her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and her daughter Quintana Roo who died in the same month.

* * *

THE LATEST WRINKLE in cynicism from our elected class is the town hall meeting — the appearance of concern and action without doing anything about whatever the crisis is. Mike McGuire is the fresh-faced Healdsburg guy foisted off on us by the Northcoast's Democrat machine as State Senator: The following is perfect McGuire-Wood-Huffman-Mike Thompson:

Eureka, CA – The opioid crisis has hit California hard, and in Humboldt County the impact is even more devastating — the county has the second highest rate of opioid overdoses in the state per capita. That’s why Senator McGuire and Humboldt County Supervisor Virginia Bass, are bringing the community together for a collaborative conversation about this statewide crisis and how we can work to advance solutions here on the North Coast. “The opioid crisis has impacted communities big and small all across our country, and the North Coast has been hit especially hard. We have to take a comprehensive look at effective strategies to tackle this crisis and implement a variety of options since there is no silver bullet,” Senator Mike McGuire said. “That’s why Supervisor Bass and I are bringing leaders at both the state and local level together next week to focus on solutions to one of our community’s biggest challenges.”

AND BRINGING the community together to advance solutions etc. What's the solution to the despair that propels people to drug and alcohol addiction? Got some advance solutions to that one, little guy?

* * *

MULL THIS OVER, McGUIRE, from James Kunstler as Kunstler identifies the root of the problem:

"Our practices and habits in place-making the past half century have resulted in human habitat that is ecologically catastrophic, economically insane, socially toxic, spiritually degrading, and fundamentally unsustainable…"

MENDO’S CORPORATE INVESTMENT HOLDINGS

Microsoft: $2,000,000

Apple Inc: $1,850,000

American Honda Finance: $1,800,000

Cisco Systems: $1,800,000

Intel Corp: $1,750,000

Paccar Financial Corp*: $1,725,000

Costco Wholesale Corp: $1,700,000

John Deere Capital Corp: $1,700,000

Qualcomm Inc: $1,700,000

Bank of NY Mellon Corp: $1,700,000

Wells Fargo Corp: $1,600,000

Berkshire Hathaway: $1,500,000

IBM Corp: $1,480,000

Oracle Corp: $1,400,000

Charles Schwab Corp: $1,250,000

US Bancorp: $890,000

Home Depot: $200,000

Praxair*: $150,000

*Paccar Financial is a credit bureau that specializes in big-rig purchases

*Praxair sells industrial gasses

GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT DEBRIS REMOVAL

Board Of Supervisors Agenda Item 5c: Possible Adoption Of Urgency Ordinance Establishing Requirements and Procedures for the Removal of Fire Debris from Private Property and Nuisance Abatement Following the Redwood Complex Fire

Debris Removal Program

RICHARD BEDNAR, 87, OF REDWOOD VALLEY, DUG A HOLE TO SURVIVE

The following is Richard Bednar’s fire story, as told by his daughter Linda Miltimore.

When getting ready for bed around 11:30pm Sunday night, October 8, 2017, my 87-year-old dad heard loud noises from outside, 60-65 mph winds. He looked out his bedroom window. He saw dots on the hill behind his house and thought there was a fire.

His glaucoma has left him with pin hole vision. He got dressed, put his favorite pictures in a bag, including a picture of my mom (she died in 1985.) He placed the bag on the dining room table as he headed to the back deck, where he hosed down the house in the backyard.

He then went back into the house thinking the fire department would come to evacuate him. He thought he could escape out the front of the house since he saw the fire on the hill behind his home of 41 years. His right hand was burned as he grabbed the door knob.

Suddenly the fire was already burning the house. He ran toward the back sliding door, feeling the red hot floor through his shoes, breathing intense hot air and smoke as he hurried through the house. He said he was overcome by the smoke and fell down near the family room.

He said to himself, “I’m not going to die here.” He got up and escaped out the back of the house, went down the embankment 50 feet and kept sliding until he reached the creek bed. He knew he had to protect himself from the heat of the burning house, so he dug through the embers of the already burned bank burning his hands more until he reached cool ground and kept digging until he made a hole big enough to curl up in.

He spent the rest of the night in that hole, listening to not only his house burn to the ground but also nonstop explosions of propane tanks, cars and homes blowing up on his street on Tomki Road and the nearby neighborhood Fisher Lake Drive. He thought he was in a war zone. He is a Korean War veteran. He thought “Oh Mom, there goes your house!”

When it was daylight he thought the fire had passed and began to climb back up the bank toward the house. The ground was still hot but he kept climbing up, sliding back down, climbing up then sliding down until after a long time, he finally reached the top.

He was disoriented and exhausted and didn’t know which way to go. He found a fence line that hadn’t burned and followed it back and forth until he got his bearings. He found a loose fence board and used it as a guide and swept away hot embers from his path so as not to catch his pants on fire.

He finally reached the driveway and began walking up toward the road when he saw a car and started yelling and waving his stick. It was the sheriff. The sheriff stopped, helped Dad into his car and said “Let’s get the Hell out of here!”

When he reached School Road and Highway 101, there was a line of ambulances waiting to take survivors to Ukiah Valley Medical Center ER. He was loaded into an ambulance and arrived at the emergency room at about 10:30am.

He was able to identify himself and give a few details of his harrowing experience, including his daughter Linda’s name and phone number, who lives in Cloverdale and was trying to call hospitals evacuation centers frantically trying to find him.

He went into respiratory distress and had to be sedated and had a breathing tube inserted into a singed airway; because his airways, face and hands were burned he was flown by helicopter to a burn unit at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Miraculously, he only had first- and second-degree burns, and the breathing tube was removed in five days.

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

EL DIABLO IN WINE COUNTRY

by Mike Davis

Jerry Brown’s California enters this new age with a halo over its head. We “get” climate change and thumb our noses at the mad denialist in the White House. Our governor advocates the Paris standards with rare passion and sends our anti-carbon missionaries to the far corners of the earth. We await impatiently that great day when the entire Mojave Desert will be covered with Chinese-made solar panels, and silent Teslas rule the freeways. And we continue to send urban sprawl into our fire-dependent ecosystems with the expectation that firefighters will risk their lives to defend each new McMansion, and an insurance system that spreads costs across all homeowners will promptly replace whatever is lost.

This is the deadly conceit behind mainstream environmental politics in California: you say fire, I say climate change, and we both ignore the financial and real-estate juggernaut that drives the suburbanization of our increasingly inflammable wildlands. Land use patterns in California have long been insane but, with negligible opposition, they reproduce themselves like a flesh-eating virus. After the Tunnel Fire in Oakland and the 2003 and 2007 firestorms in San Diego County, paradise was quickly restored; in fact, the replacement homes were larger and grander than the originals. The East Bay implemented some sensible reforms but in rural San Diego County, the Republican majority voted down a modest tax increase to hire more firefighters. The learning curve has a negative slope.

I’ve found that the easiest way to explain California fire politics to students or visitors from the other blue coast is to take them to see the small community of Carveacre in the rugged mountains east of San Diego. After less than a mile, a narrow paved road splays into rutted dirt tracks leading to thirty or forty impressive homes. The attractions are obvious: families with broods can afford large homes as well as dirt bikes, horses, dogs, and the occasional emu or llama. At night, stars twinkle that haven’t been visible in San Diego, 35 miles away, for almost a century. The vistas are magnificent and the mild winters usually mantle the mountain chaparral with a magical coating of light snow.

But Carveacre on a hot, high fire-danger day scares the shit out of me. A mountainside cul-de-sac at the end of a one-lane road with scattered houses surrounded by ripe-to-burn vegetation – the “fuel load” of chaparral in California is calculated in equivalent barrels of crude oil — the place confounds human intelligence. It’s a rustic version of death row. Much as I would like for once to be a bearer of good news rather than an elderly prophet of doom, Carveacre demonstrates the hopelessness of rational planning in a society based on real-estate capitalism. Unnecessarily, our children, and theirs, will continue to face the flames.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “All this talk about men behaving badly, Skrag is wayyyyyy overdue for a reality check. He's out there every night doing totally inappropriate stuff with the ladies. I told him I thought he was disgusting. He comes back with, ‘Don't go all righteous on me, Short Round. They don't call you things 'dawgs' for nothin'!’.”

ON KMEC RADIO, Monday, November 13, at 1 pm: "How to Unrig the Democratic Party" with Karen Bernal.

REAL FRENCH FARM PRODUCTS in Lake County? Master beekeeper Patrick Kalfsbeek says there is — and it’s first-rate. If you’re in the Clearlake Oaks or Upper Lake areas, he recommends the Hue De Laroque Family Farm which not only offers a number other local farm-grown products like balsamic vinegar, herb-infused olive oils, private label mustard, barbecue sauce, jams & jellies, etc. And French bread. Most products available by mail order at 844/921-5483 or hdlfarm.com. (Apparently the bread is only available in the stores at 13300 E. Highway 20, Clearlake Oaks and 9495 Main St., Upper Lake.)

LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF: ANYONE SEEN JACOB & OLIVIA?

Jacob Young (age 18) and Olivia Baker (age 15) were last seen by their families on Tuesday, October 31st. Young and Baker have been reported as missing persons.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office is requesting the assistance of the community in locating Young and Baker. It is believed Young and Baker are together. Both were last known to be in the Middletown area.

If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Olivia Baker or Jacob Young please contact the Lake County Sheriff's Office at 707-263-2690.

(Lake County Sheriff’s press release)

FORT BRAGG CREDIT CARD FRAUD

On Friday, November 10, at approximately 1:39 pm, Officers of the Fort Bragg Police Department were dispatched to 660 South Main Street (Safeway) for the report of a stolen wallet.

Upon initial investigation, Officers received the report that the victim discovered her wallet missing from her purse while shopping at Safeway. When the victim attempted to pay for her merchandise, she discovered her wallet was no longer inside her purse where she last observed it.

When the victim contacted her financial institution in order to cancel her credit cards and freeze her accounts, she was advised that fraudulent activity had already posted against her account.

Further investigation revealed that the victim’s debit card and two credit cards were used to purchase Visa gift cards valued at over $2,000.00. The gift cards were purchased at Rite Aid in Fort Bragg, and more attempted purchases were conducted at CVS Pharmacy in Fort Bragg, but were declined.

Investigating Officers were able to acquire surveillance video of the suspect(s) while purchasing the gift cards inside the Rite Aid store. Officers are continuing to follow up on leads and attempting to identify the suspect(s).

The two suspects depicted in the surveillance video are described as a black female adult approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall with a thin build and long braids in her hair, and one or more of the braids being dyed purple or blue. The second suspect is a black male adult with an athletic build approximately 6 feet tall, with a military-fade style haircut.

The Fort Bragg Police Department is requesting that anyone who may have been in the area at the time of the incident, or interacted with persons matching the descriptions provided, please contact Officer Thomas O’Neal at 707-961-2800 ext.167.

(Fort Bragg PD press release)

MARIJUANA LANDSCAPE’S NEW CHALLENGE

This week’s withdrawal of a medical marijuana company from the dispensary permit process in Ukiah is an interesting signal that legalizing and regulating marijuana will not be an easy process. It shouldn’t be. We disagreed with the city’s choice to allow any number of dispensaries that met the city’s demands, but the city said at the time that its demands were so stringent, not many dispensaries would choose to meet them. Perhaps they were right.

Rather than ban dispensaries outright, the city chose to allow them in order to be eligible for state funding related to marijuana operations. They drew up some very specific regulations for dispensaries and as we saw in recent weeks when Dogwood Dispensary asked to open in the old Savings Bank building at State and Low Gap, this community is not going to simply welcome marijuana stores with open arms.

At least not on a major thoroughfare that serves as the main artery to Ukiah High School and Frank Zeek Elementary School.

We think it’s a good thing that local communities are allowed to make the rules around how the marijuana industry will operate in their towns. What has become clear, however, is that marijuana producers are facing a myriad of regulations and tax structures that vary from county to county and town to town. And the state’s rules and taxes haven’t even kicked in yet.

There will undoubtedly be shake-out as the marijuana industry finds its feet as a legal enterprise, and we suspect that many local governments may not see the budget booms they were counting on.

But citizens have the right to decide what’s good or bad for their community and we all need to continue to protect our natural resources, keep our neighborhoods safe, and ensure that this formerly underground industry is held to our standards as it emerges above ground.

K.C. Meadows. Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal

RANDY SMITH & THE DESTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER

A report on Digital First Media (the company that owns the Ukiah Daily Journal, Willits News, and Fort Bragg Advocate/Beacon).

Part 1: dfmworkers.org/2017/11/01/the-man-behind-the-curtain/

Part 2: dfmworkers.org/2017/11/08/the-man-behind-the-curtain-part-2/

FEDS ORDER OVERHAUL FOR EMERGENCY WARNING SYSTEM

Emergency warning system that Sonoma County didn’t use in fires set for overhaul

by Julie Johnson

Federal authorities knew technology used to broadcast official emergency warnings from cell towers was outdated years before deadly fires ignited last month in Sonoma County and throughout Northern California, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee for their lives, many with no warning.

Messages were too short, didn’t support web links and had the potential to be broadcast too widely, according to Federal Communication Commission members charged with regulating how cellphone companies issue government warnings. The commission in 2015 began a formal process to update the requirements and bring warning capabilities into step with technological advancements, but implementation was delayed by industry objections.

Sonoma County officials have cited those issues as factors in their controversial decision not to use the Amber Alert-type broadcasts to warn people about approaching fires that erupted Oct. 8 and ultimately burned across 174 square miles in the county, killing 23 people and destroying more than 5,100 homes.

Even with the program’s limitations, some residents have expressed outrage that county emergency services staff didn’t send Wireless Emergency Alerts, sidestepping a tool used by Lake County last month to warn Clearlake area residents threatened by flames.

“If we had not been awakened by the phone call of a concerned friend who lived nearby, I would not be writing this note to you,” Bernie Krause, a famed soundscape ecologist who lost his Glen Ellen home in the fire, wrote in an email. “We’d be dead. We received no alert either by email, or smartphone, or loudspeaker notices to evacuate. And we lost everything.”

The Wireless Emergency Alert messages go to most cellphones within a certain broadcast area, reaching even out-of-towners and overriding do-not-disturb settings with a distinct alert tone. The alerts look like text messages but they don’t use data and can be more efficient than automated phone calls or text messages, which go out in batches.

Now, the system is finally getting a long-awaited overhaul to catch up with advances in cellphone technology.

On Nov. 1, the FCC ordered cellphone companies to enable embedded links and allow government emergency messages to be longer, an increase from 90 to 360 characters.

The updates are significant improvements, said Neil Bregman, Santa Rosa’s emergency preparedness coordinator.

“To the extent it gives us more words — and a link could lead to a map so the public understands — that becomes a significantly more useful tool than we’ve had in the past,” said Bregman, adding that Sonoma County emergency staff have access to the program and can send a message on behalf of a city.

Federal Communications Commission members praised the new rules. Had they been implemented before the Northern California wildfires or hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, the system “could have saved life and property,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said.

“We shouldn’t be caught short like this again. ... We should address every one of these outstanding issues now — before the next disaster compels us to do so,” Rosenworcel said in a statement released when the new rules were published Nov. 1.

The changes also create a new test feature available to local governments and add a public safety category to the type of messages that can be sent. Previously, the categories were limited to presidential alerts, imminent threats and Amber Alert messages for suspected child abduction cases.

Wireless Emergency Alerts were the only method available to Sonoma County officials that would have pushed notifications onto cellphones, regardless of whether the individual was local or had signed up for voluntary notification systems.

The night of Oct. 8, emergency officials sent evacuation and warning messages throughout the night, but they relied on landline telephones and programs like web-based Nixle and SoCo Alerts that required people to sign up in advance to get messages by email or cellphone.

For a county of a half-million people, few had.

Days after the fires started, Zachary Hamill, Sonoma County’s emergency services coordinator defended the decision to not use the Wireless Emergency Alert system because he said it would have been broadcast to the entire county, potentially clogging the roads with more people evacuating than necessary, according to an interview with The Press Democrat for an Oct. 13 story.

Hamill and other county emergency services officials have been tight-lipped since. Hamill and Emergency Services Manager Chris Helgren have not responded to repeated interview and information requests over the past two weeks.

Despite the acknowledged shortfalls with wireless alerts, officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and California’s Office of Emergency Services said most counties can send the messages to geographic areas smaller than a county, depending on the private software used.

Since 2013, the largest cellphone companies enabled what’s called geo-targeting to a specific area, and many of the private software programs that send out the messages allow users to draw a polygon on a map to show where messages should go.

“The wireless carriers have been targeting to small areas for years,” said a senior FEMA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he hadn’t received authorization by press time to speak with the media. Companies including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile and Metro PCS all allow geographically focused messages, although smaller companies may still be working on that functionality, he said.

That capability was used in Lake County the night of Oct. 8 as a wildfire bore down on the city of Clearlake and Clearlake Oaks. Lake County sheriff’s officials broadcast a warning about a wildfire near the Lakeshore Drive area to about 840 cellphones, Lt. Corey Paulich said.

No one was reported hurt or killed in that fire, which eventually burned 2,207 acres and destroyed nearly 140 homes.

Both Lake and Sonoma counties use CodeRED software, made by a Florida company called OnSolve, to send official warnings and other types of messages including Wireless Emergency Alert messages.

FEMA oversees the system’s use but relies on private developers to provide the software.

The Wireless Emergency Alert system “is an agreement between (cellphone) carriers and the federal government to carve out specific bandwidth to allow for those federally approved messages to be sent on behalf of a local jurisdiction to a detailed area, whether that’s a county, a city or an area drawn on a map,” said Troy Harper, general manager for the public sector for OnSolve.

Most systems offer two geographic fields for messages: one for an entire county and the other allowing an administrator to draw a polygon shape on a map, the FEMA official said.

That’s how CodeRED works, said Harper. Local emergency staff can save these smaller geographic selections, such as a neighborhood prone to flooding or a government building with the potential to be targeted in an attack, for future use.

It’s up to the cellphone companies to send the geo-targeted messages, and local officials won’t necessarily know how precisely the messages will follow the map.

“It’s not pinpoint accuracy,” Harper said.

That is why so many governments have turned to opt-in programs asking residents to sign up, indicating where they live and how they wish to receive messages, either by email, phone call or text.

Private message-sending services like Nixle and SoCo Alerts can offer more robust geographic targeting through landlines and to cellphones and emails of people who have signed up for the service and provide information like address and ZIP code.

But unlike Wireless Emergency Alert messages, which are transmitted immediately, these other systems dial numbers to send text messages and automated phone calls in batches — about 1,000 numbers at a time, according to Sonoma County’s staff report on its contract with OnSolve.

Those calls can bog down the system, slowing transmission, according to the FEMA official.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

DOWN WITH BROWN

Editor:

My heart goes out to all the people affected by the terrible fires in this country. I wish there was a way to repair it and make it like it was, but all we can do now is root for them and help them in every way we can.

Jerry Kim Jong Un Brown is at it again. Now he’s encourgaging the NAACP to protest against the National Anthem because in some ways it affects the character of the American Way and it supports racism. I can’t believe it, man. This guy is a madman. Why hasn’t he been replaced? What is going on with this place? Can we let a dictator like that run this place? I doubt it. Also, that gas tax Jerry Brown just passed that’s supposed to go to fixing up our roads, highways, bridges and dams? 30% of that tax money is going to build a $25 million dollar complex for criminals that get out of jail after serving their time to come and hang out and get rehabilitated. That would be a good place for one of them to kill another person, wouldn’t it? Thanks again to Kim Jung Un Brown. And Brown just jumped the gas prices up to almost $4 a gallon for diesel, $3.90 and something. I was up in Washington State recently to watch my grandson play football and the gas up there is $2.50 and diesel is $3.15. I can’t say enough about the way this state’s administration is run. It just makes me want to puke.

Tom Allman is one of the best Sheriffs we’ve ever had. Good deputies too. He and his department took good care of all these areas during the fire. I hope all these deputies just say, Mr. Brown, you’re down.

Good bless Donald Trump.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

PS. I’m not paying my state tax bill until they fix the Ukiah-Comptche Road.

TAX FRAUD

Editor,

It is outrageous that the current tax reform before Congress is being characterized as designed primarily to benefit the middle class with a tax cut. What this does not mention are the many millions that would be saved by the wealthy in this country with the elimination of the estate tax. So much for integrity in government!

Paul Hough

San Rafael

COMPTCHE COMES THROUGH

The Comptche Community will present a Silent Auction to Benefit Mendocino Fire Victims, on Saturday, Dec 2, from 11 - 4, at the Comptche Community Hall, 30672 Comptche/Ukiah Road. Quilts, Art, Paintings, Woodworks, Ceramics, Photos, & Crafts will be Auctioned, along with Refreshments by Donation, at this event from which all proceeds go to benefit Mendocino fire victims by The Community Foundation of Mendocino County http://www.communityfound.org/

Welcome to all helping those who've lost everything & are recovering in our county. Questions, call Odis, event Coordinator; 937-2445,<odis7@hotmail.com>

CATCH OF THE DAY, November 12, 2017

HEATHER BAIRD, Little River. DUI.

GEORGE DALSON, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, evasion, contempt of court.

COREY DAVEY, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

JOY DAVIDSON, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, under influence. (Frequent flyer.)

JAMES DIMAYA, Hayward/Ukiah. Dumping in commercial quantities.

TAMMY HENDERSON, Boonville. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

DEBORAH LAWRENCE, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

CLEMENTE MAGALLON, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ELEVTERIO MONTALVO-PEREZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

RYAN ORTIZ, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, paraphernalia.

JUSTIN PUTNEY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, forcible entry with property damage.

PALOMO VALDEZ-CEJA, Ukiah. Suspended license, probation revocation.

BRAULIO ZONIO JR., Hayward/Ukiah. Dumping in commercial quantities.

MARCO MCCLEAN sends along this article by his friend Alex Bosworth, a regular contributor to his weekly/Friday night Memo Of the Air Show:

Vertical Descent

by Alex Bosworth

So, I ran away from home, heartbreak and humiliation to take an arduous bus trip to visit my mother in Arkansas. My luggage was stolen in Grand Junction, Colorado. Inside my suitcase were all my medications. By the time I got to Kansas City, I was feeling so poorly, I fell down the stairs as I was exiting the bus and fell head-first onto the pavement.

When I woke up, I was in an emergency room in Fayetteville. My mother had driven up to Missouri to retrieve me. She was there when my attending physician told me my liver enzyme test was pretty bleak. “You know where you should go,” he said. “The liver transplant center in San Diego. Besides, I’m sure they have a much better hospice program down that way than anything we have here.” The plan had been for me to move there, but now, time was growing much too short. I visited with my mother at her farm for a few days and we said our goodbyes.

I took a shuttle bus to Tulsa and boarded a flight for home. The hospital in Fayetteville had replaced my medications and so, I took them on the plane, all of them. It was five pharmaceutical bottles, each containing thirty capsules, the total of which I methodically washed down with two whiskey sours and a margarita. A five-year-old across the aisle who’d been waving and making faces at me for an hour watched as I popped the multicolored capsules into my mouth.

“Candy?” she hopefully inquired.

“Medicine.” I replied. After that, she lost all interest in me. They all do, eventually.

The result of taking all those meds at once was nothing short of miraculous. Nothing happened. I didn’t pass out or throw up, not so much as a headache. In short, they proved to be completely worthless.

I arrived home to an empty apartment where I sit, writing this. Those anti-rejection meds can’t help me now. I can’t get to the pharmacy or the hospital, anyway. I have no car and the only people I knew down here at the Mexican border were my wife and her family, none of whom are even speaking to me these days, much less willing to help. The spinal stenosis is gradually getting worse, my feet are like two fiery cinder blocks, my back and hands aren’t faring much better. It’s too painful to walk to the store for drinking water, so I’ve switched to tap.

Someday, they’ll find the black box of my crash and might be able to piece together the factors involved. I’m just too close to make a detailed assessment of all that’s happened.

In 1978, when PSA Flight 182 crashed into North Park, all the pilot could say was, “We’re going down.”

The co-pilot added, “I love you, mom.”

PORTENTS ANYBODY?

Christine Bias writes: “My shed was tagged with this mark. Do you know what it means?”

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Perspective – exactly.

If the Democratic Party insists on learning nothing, that’s up to them. The Republican Party is more or less the same, they still insist that a country gutted of its productive capacity is a good thing, that American citizens should bear the resultant hardship quietly. As you said a while back, Kansas isn’t buying Republican bullshit anymore. I’m not so optimistic about Democrat supporters. They still seem to not comprehend that there’s a hierarchy of needs, that while standing up for bathroom rights is all fine and nice, people have got to eat, three times a day, every damn day and they need to pay the damn rent every month. And that means everybody including women and gays and blacks.

Or, as Brecht said, grub first, then ethics.

IN OUR CULTURE, church has become a kind of social coffee hour. It's not serious. The only places I've seen religion functioning, really sustaining people, is in the most primitive places like southern Spain and Italy. But bring in Coca-Cola and anything of material value, and it begins to fold up. Psychiatry has become the dynamic force in our culture and not the conventional church. It doesn't mean anything any longer if the church says you're damned, but what the psychiatrist says is meaningful, explaining an individual's relation with the church in terms of illusion and superstition. So our values are completely in flux, we're in constant search and it's a very uncomfortable position to be in. It's the opposite of the Ten Commandments where everything was laid out.

— Terry Southern

PRIVATE THOMAS J. RYAN, a regular Army man stationed at the Presidio, wrote to his mother in Oakland and told her he never wanted to hear from her again. Now Ryan is in solitary con­fine­ment in the guard­house thinking it over. Officers at the Presidio explained yesterday that Ryan was always getting into trouble and his mother was always getting him out of it. He was in the guard­house for some minor offense when her last letter reached him. The mother wrote her boy and pleaded with him. She asked him to try and straighten up. She coaxed him and begged him to keep out of trouble, and he answered: “You mind your own business. I never want to hear from you again.” Mrs. Ryan wrote to Captain E.E. McMorland, post Adjutant, and told him what her son had written. The Captain called Ryan from the guard­house and asked him about it. “You write a letter to your mother and apologize for what you said,” Captain McMorland ordered. The man took the position that if he wanted to break his mother’s heart it was nobody’s business but his own; he refused to write the letter. He will be given time to reflect in solitary confinement.

(SF Chronicle, 1917)

JERRY BROWN TELLS PROTESTERS IN BONN, 'LET'S PUT YOU IN THE GROUND'

by Dan Bacher

Governor Jerry Brown doesn’t always deal with critics of his controversial environmental policies well — and that was the case again today when he spoke at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany.

Californians, including indigenous water protectors and those on the frontlines of climate change, disrupted California Governor Jerry Brown’s speech at the “American’s Pledge” event at the UN climate talks to confront his strong support of fossil fuels in his state.

The banner-carrying protesters yelled, “Keep it in the ground” and other chants, referring to the governor’s strong support of fracking, both offshore and on land in California, and cap-and-trade policies that could prove catastrophic to the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil and other indigenous communities around the globe.

"I wish we have could have no pollution, but we have to have our automobiles,” said Brown as the activists began disrupting his talk.

"In the ground, I agree with you,” Brown said. “In the ground. Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.”

“This is very California. Thanks for bringing the diversity of dissent here,” the visibly disturbed Brown continued.

A video of Brown's reaction to the protest is available here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article184097901.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

This is not the first time that Brown has employed harsh words to blast his opponents. On July 25 of this year, Brown blasted critics of his oil industry-written cap-and-trade bill, AB 398, for practicing “forms of political terrorism that are conspiring to undermine the American system of governance” in an interview with David Greene of NPR (National Public Radio) http://bit.ly/2eLu3g6.

Governor Brown, portrayed as “a green governor,” “climate hero,” and “resistance to Trump” by the mainstream media and corporate “environmental” NGOs, has come to the climate talks to promote California as a global model of “climate leadership" at a time when increasing number of Californians are fed up with his pro-Big Oil and pro-Big Ag environmental policies.

"When cities and states combine together and then join with powerful corporations, that's how we get stuff done," said Governor Brown at today's event at the U.S. Climate Action Pavilion, the exhibition space sponsored by U.S. non-federal leaders at COP23. "We're here, we're in and we're not going away."

However, Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, environmentalists and climate activists disagreed strongly with Brown's contention that cities and states collaborating with "powerful corporations" is "how we get stuff done" - and held this non-violent direct action to expose Brown’s deep ties to Big Oil and 'false solutions" such as carbon markets.

“From refusing to ban fracking to letting oil companies dump toxic waste into underground water supplies, Governor Brown promotes policies that incentivize oil and gas production in the state,” according to a news release from the Indigenous Environmental Network. “His cap-and-trade extension includes provisions written by oil lobbyists that prevent state and local agencies from directly limiting carbon emissions from oil refineries. He has also failed to shut down the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, where the largest methane leak in U.S. history forced thousands to flee their homes in 2015.”

On November 9, a Center for Biological Diversity report released at the Bonn conference revealed that three-quarters of California’s oil is as “climate-damaging” as Canadian tar sands crude. "Oil Stain: How Dirty Crude Undercuts California’s Climate Progress" found that eight of the state’s 10 largest-producing oil fields produce “very dirty crude with greenhouse gas emissions comparable to tar sands oil,” according to the Center. The report detailed how “the state’s dirty oil problem is compounded by policies that incentivize crude production.”

The groups today called on Governor Brown to ban new drilling and fracking, phase out fossil fuel production, and commit to "a just transition to clean energy for all."

“Northern California has five refineries stretching along our Bay on the North East side of San Francisco,” said Daniel Ilario, Idle No More SF/Bay Area. “Those living along this Refinery Corridor experience continuous negative health effects such as respiratory problems, birth defects, leukemia and cancers. California’s answer to our global climate crisis, the Cap and Trade extension (AB 398), will continue allowing refineries to expand, pollute, and ultimately destroy life.”

“The Phillips 66 Refinery in Rodeo, CA plans to expand their marine terminal to increase crude oil imports by water from 30,000 barrels a day to 130,000 barrels a day. We will not let this happen. Decision makers around the world need to understand that Governors Jerry Brown’s carbon market scheme will continue killing our people and poisoning our water, air, and soil. We will not accept the false solution of carbon trading that increase pollution in our hometowns while violating indigenous rights and human rights around the world. We must keep fossil fuels in the ground,” said Ilario.

Ninawa Nuneshuni Kui, President of the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil, said Brown's "American Pledge," based on environmentally unjust carbon trading, would lead to the displacement of his people and the destruction of his land.

“I wanted to leave a message here, for humanity and all of planet, that the peoples need to join to defend Mother Nature, the soil, water and air because they are being threatened,” said Ninawa Nuneshuni Kui, President of the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil. “And humanity needs Nature to survive. So I want to say that Nature and the air are not a means of commerce for anyone and it’s every human’s right to live in peace. Jerry Brown’s ‘American Pledge’ will lead to the displacement of my people and the destruction of my territory. We need to respect the rights of Nature and humans beings that need her to survive.”

Eva Malis, a young person from Valencia, CA, pointed out that Californians have been asking Governor Brown for years to step up and "be a true climate leader."

"If he is going to be celebrated by the world as a climate leader, he needs to commit to the communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. Real climate leaders don’t frack. This isn’t just about Californians. The world needs Jerry Brown to do more in his own state," said Malis.

“California Governor Jerry Brown is one of the biggest liars when it comes to being a ‘climate leader,’” summed up Isabelle Zizi of Idle No More SF Bay. “In 2014, hundreds of our drinking water and agricultural aquifers were contaminated with 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater. The cap and trade bill that he passed in the summer of 2017 is in favor of more greenhouse gas emissions, more offsets for the fossil fuel industry, and is a false solution to stop climate change.”

Zizi is in Bonn for the UN Climate Talks. Follow her for updates on actions from the #ItTakesRoots delegation of Indigenous people, frontline communities and people of color.

While Brown portrays himself as a "climate leader," he has in fact received over $9.8 million in contributions from oil, gas and utility companies, often within days of winning big political favors, according to Consumer Watchdog's "Brown's Dirty Hands" report released in August 2016.

“The timing of energy industry donations around important legislation and key pro-industry amendments, as well as key regulatory decisions in which Brown personally intervened, raises troubling questions about whether quid pro quos are routine for this administration,” said consumer advocate Liza Tucker, report author. “While Brown paints himself as a foe of fossil fuels, his Administration promoted reckless oil drilling, burning dirty natural gas to make electricity, and used old hands from industry and government, placed in key regulatory positions, to protect the fossil fuel-reliant energy industry.”

The report claims that twenty-six energy companies including the state’s three major investor-owned utilities, Occidental, Chevron, and NRG—all with business before the state—donated $9.8 million to Jerry Brown’s campaigns, causes, and initiatives, and to the California Democratic Party since he ran for Governor. You can download the report here: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/dirtyhands

Then on February 6 of this year, twelve public interest groups, led by Consumer Watchdog and Food & Water Watch, unveiled a comprehensive "report card" on Jerry Brown Administration’s environmental record showing he falls short in six out of seven key areas, including oil drilling, fossil fuel generated electricity, toxic emissions, the California Environmental Quality Act, coastal protection and water.

The report calls for a moratorium on the building of natural gas powered electricity plants, given what they described as “the glut of electric capacity,” and calls for an outside audit of the state’s energy needs. The groups showed how California can improve its environmental protections to meet standards set in other states. The document also urged Brown to abandon his Delta Tunnels project and to make water conservation a priority

Read the report “How Green Is Jerry Brown?” at: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/isbrowngreen

While Brown portrays himself as the "resistance" to President Trump's positions on climate change and other issues, it is worth noting that Brown and the Trump administration appear to share a lot of common ground on many issues, including water infrastructure, public lands, the Delta Tunnels and the expansion of fracking in California. On April 13, Brown and Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke had a "positive and productive" meeting during the Secretary's visit to California, according to Zinke.

For more information on Jerry Brown's environmental policies, go here: http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/11/09/behind-jerry-browns-green-facade-lurks-dirty-oil-environmental-injustice/

NOTHING LIKE IT

Message from Craig to the AVAistas

Spent last night taking my friend Spider and our pal Bert out for beer and food. Having not consumed a beer in a month, it was refreshing! Today, attended mass at St. Patrick's and received Holy Communion. Although I have certainly gotten a lot of wisdom from other spiritual pathways, there is still nothing quite like being blessed by Christ. Am mentally feeling considerably more centered as a result. Otherwise, no news of note.  Hoping that all is going well in Boonville. That's it from lower Nob Hill tonight.

PS. Gregorian Chant Mass @ Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco November 12, 2017

Please enjoy the ongoing blessings of the season, which are all around us.  Just attended Catholic mass and received Holy Communion at the cathedral in San Francisco. The sermon focused on "the end times", enjoining everyone to prepare for their own leaving of the earth plane, and also to be ready for the second coming of the Lord, and finally our going to heaven. As I sat dispassionately in the pew, fully realizing that life on the earth plane has never been more than a disjointed, dislocating ride on the worldly roller coaster, at some times dangerous, often horrifying, disturbingly insane, and routinely enjoyable too, it was clear that the constantly changing spectacle must be let go of.  Allow me to take this opportunity to thank everyone who befriended me on our collective earthly journey. This body-mind complex is 68 years young. I do not know how much longer it will be seen on the planet earth. I really don't care. Having given my all for the sake of peace & justice, and for the advancement of radical environmentalism in the face of materialism and its idiotic servants, I am ready to depart upwards. I invite all who are interested in cultivating a deeper spiritual experience to stick with me, and to the rest of you, I wish you well wherever your trip goes. Good luck!

Craig Louis Stehr
San Francisco
Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com