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Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017

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RAINING ALL DAY but, as Marshall Newman notes, "As of 2:30 p.m. today (Wednesday, November 15, 2017), Weather Underground’s Boonville rain gauge has recorded 0.45 inches of rain and the National Weather Service Boonville rain gauge has recorded 0.00 inches of rain. Please keep mentioning this problem in the Anderson Valley Advertiser – maybe the folks at NOAA will take eventually notice (it IS their responsibility) and fix the equipment."

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MALCOLM MACDONALD REPORTS: "The result of a closed session meeting of the Mendocino Coast District Hospital Board of Directors (Tuesday night): Wade Sturgeon has resigned his post as Chief Financial Officer at the hospital, effective December 1st."

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ERMA CRABTREE

Erma "Mom" Crabtree — "Mom Mom" passed away peacefully at her home on November 10, 2017, at the age of 97. She was born in Covelo, CA on the Round Valley Indian Reservation on August 10, 1920. She attended school in Covelo and graduated from Round Valley High School in 1938. Erma graduated from the Ukiah School of Vocational Nursing in 1966 and was a LVN at Hillside and Adventist Hospitals for 20 years. "Mom" was proud of her family and always supported them. She was always surrounded by her kids, grand kids, great-grand kids, great-great grand kids, and all their friends. "Mom Mom" will be remembered for her beautiful smile, and the generosity to all the young athletes in the community for over 70 years. She was the one who was always sitting in the same place at all the youth, high school, and college games cheering on all the local teams and players. There was never a time when she was at a game that kids, parents, and grandparents wouldn't stop to say hello or to give her a hug. Erma is survived by her sister Vera Smith and Brother-in-Law Francis Crabtree. Her daughter Carol Day and her husband Doug, son's Ray Crabtree, Roy Crabtree and wife Sherie. Grandchildren Mary Ramos, Donna Campigli, Darin Day, Lisa Day, James, Christina, Carrie, and Daniel Crabtree, Ronny, Michael, and Tammy Higgins, Rhonda Klein and Michelle McInerney. Numerous great grandchildren and great-great children, and also numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her daughters Janice and Phyllis Crabtree and Marilyn Higgins. Grandson's Jonny and Troy Crabtree, sisters Aura Cordova, Loraine Treppa and brother Filbert Anderson. Father Levi Anderson, mother Aura Want and step-father George Want. There will a viewing on Thursday, November 16, 2017, at Coyote Valley Gymnasium at 4pm. Funeral services will be on Friday, November 17, 2017, at Coyote Valley Gymnasium at 10am, burial to follow at 1pm at Russian River Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Ukiah Babe Ruth. If there are any questions contact Dave Kessler (707)354-6666. Arrangements are under the direction of the Eversole Mortuary.

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ED NOTES

A CYNIC might suspect, and the only way to accurately assess Mendocino County events is cynically, that the charges against the late Peter Keegan were delayed until he was diagnosed as terminally ill. Then it was simply a matter of juggling lawyers and court dates and otherwise stalling matters until the defendant was safely dead. If the case had proceeded as it would have promptly proceeded most places, it was going to be a wobbler — difficult to get a jury to unanimously agree that Keegan deliberately bludgeoned his wife to death because the initial police response was, how shall I put it, unprofessionally done. There was also a problem with contradictory post-mortems, and other errors by people who are supposed to know how to handle suspicious deaths. The DA can now say on his next campaign trail that he boldly followed the evidence where it led him as the death certificate was quietly changed to homicide — back in 2012. Five years later (!), a criminal grand jury concluded that there was more than enough evidence to indict the dead man, Keegan, by then confined to a wheelchair with only weeks to live, for murder, after listening to Keegan slander his late wife as a drunk and a drug addict, blithely revealing that he illegally prescribed drugs to her and friends of hers, another felony. The Keegan sons can claim that their father was never tried for murder, much less convicted. In this one, everyone got off except Susan Keegan.

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LOOKS FROM HERE that old fashioned sirens are still the best area warning system, much more likely to reach the imperiled than reverse 911 calls to people who may not be reachable via the new technologies. I’ve never heard the Redwood Valley-Potter Valley sirens but I’m told they can raise the dead, reaching every area of those two regions. And in red flag weather, PG&E should simply cut power to the danger zones. Better (much better) to lose television reception for a few hours than your life or your house, most of us surely agree.

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SOME YEARS I get a flu shot, some years I don’t. This year I happened to be in my doctor’s office so I got one from the mad Filipino, his nurse. Her method of injection is just short of assault off my prior experiences with her. I guess she was trained to be emphatic, but two running steps and wham! What the hell? Not that it hurt. In fact, it made me laugh, and she said, “Not so bad, huh?” made me laugh harder.

I’VE NEVER been able to tell the diff between a bad cold and the flu, wherever the flu was said to be from, although the Chinese usually seem to get the blame. Same tubercular cough, same malarial sweats, same general energy depletion. I find the only thing that knocks down the worst coughing is water, gallons of it. Brandy and grapefruit juice is pretty good, too, if you’re not too drunk to remember the water. Water, water, water seems to abbreviate the affliction by a day or so. I’m reconciled to one very bad health week annually.

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FOREST WORK

(In response to Flynn Washburne’s recent piece, “Real Men Of Fort Bragg”):

“I too worked in the woods, though for just a season when first arriving in Mendocino County. It was the best paid job I had ever had. However, my life wasn’t worth ten cents. Maybe this perilous condition is what lies behind the somewhat inverted, corporately glorified, cliche of the intrepid woodchoppers in the glade. Everybody knew the terms. There was a perfunctory rule about wearing a plastic helmet and practicing “safety”. The fatality rate for loggers when I worked was exceeded only by workers in the coal mines, another occupation surrounded with faux-mythic glory. To get to the job, my wife woke me at three, I drove to Potter Valley at four, took a crummy or a cat to the site by seven, worked twelve hours, got home about 9:30, took a bath, ate, and fell asleep to wake again in the middle of the night. Fortunately I was the greenest of the gang, was laid off around Thanksgiving, and thus did not suffer the inconvenience of getting myself killed. I came close when the cat driver pushed some teepeed redwoods in a clearing, now Third Gate in Willits, while I was still putting the choker cable around one of them at the stump, The tree rolled on the stump up my arm at that moment and upon consideration I decided to back up for reasons related to matters of health and well being. I very well understand the writer’s remark about some loggers being “hung over or still drunk from the night before,” There was a lot of violence and heartache following from the, in some ways, heroic woodman’s craft. It took skill and guts. Exploitation of both land and workers was of course inextricably joined, and the higher Hidden Hand residing elsewhere deposited the profits at the bank. It couldn’t care less about damages done down the line. Although I turned in log decks twice as high as my co-workers, it didn’t particularly mean anything. It is a blessing to me now when Einar Erickson fired me with the first snows. (There were Autumn snows then.) Erickson was born in the woods near Albion. It was magnificent work in one sense, comparable to chasing Moby Dick across the ocean and bringing down the prodigious beast. But the temperate rain forest is gone, along with the hardworking temporary help.

William Ray, Willits

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TURN OFF THE POWER WHEN…

Editor:

There is a lot of conversation about improving the fire warning system to be better prepared for wildfires in the future, but I am not seeing anything about preventing them.

Weather reports 48 hours in advance of the Oct. 9 fire predicted the winds, wind direction and humidity. Had there been a system for assessing the risk of fire from such a weather condition, the appropriate response would have been for PG&E to turn off all electricity in areas where lines are above ground. There was plenty of time to let everyone know it would be happening.

It’s inconvenient to have had a 12-hour power outage, but it’s nothing compared to the result of not doing it. A consortium of all the fire chiefs could have the responsibility for making the decision.

Robert Brent

Sebastopol

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UKIAH BACKS AWAY FROM ALLOWING OUTDOOR MARIJUANA GROWING

by Justine Frederiksen

The Ukiah City Council Wednesday will consider approving changes to the current regulations for residents growing cannabis that would not allow cultivation in outdoor greenhouses.

That change in particular, which city officials said was an attempt to qualify for certain state grants, received strong pushback from the public and members of the Planning Commission when it was proposed.

“I think the majority of our citizens really don’t want outdoor growing,” said Commissioner Laura Christensen, wondering how city staff could enforce the requirements that each greenhouse have foundation bolts, secure locks and air filtration.

“State voters allowed outdoor growing, no restrictions (with Prop. 64),” said Mayor Jim Brown, who spent nearly two years crafting the proposed changes with Council Member Maureen Mulheren as the City Council marijuana ad-hoc committee. “We decided that is not for Ukiah, and at first said, ‘screw the grants.’

“But then we came up with a compromise allowing six plants (rather than 12) in a greenhouse,” Brown continued, explaining that the rules would be enforced the same way other nuisance codes are enforced: by neighbors calling in on neighbors.

“Complaint-driven works until you’re afraid to call on your neighbor,” said Commissioner Christopher Watt. “(Your neighbor) has a $15,000 crop in their greenhouse and you’re going to go to the police? That just doesn’t work.”

Resident Jeff Trouette said it also wouldn’t work because he felt it would be impossible for responding Ukiah Police Department officers to tell where the marijuana smell was coming from, just as it seemed impossible for officers now to determine which backyard a barking dog was in.

“I want this regulatory body to protect me from my neighbors, so I can leave my windows open at night to cool my house down,” said Trouette, adding that he was against the changes unless “they have some teeth in them that allow me to complain and shut down (rule-breakers) immediately.”

“The (cannabis) industry has really screwed us,” said Commissioner Linda Sanders. “I’m here to think about the neighbors and care about their quality of life.”

Planning Manager Kevin Thompson said the update the City Council was being asked to consider at its Nov. 15 meeting would not allow outdoor growing, and reduces the number of plants for personal use from 12 to six mature plants, which is the number allowed by state law.

“Outdoor cultivation is prohibited, and no change is proposed for the ban on outdoor cultivation,” the staff report notes, describing indoor cultivation as having to be in a “Fully Enclosed and Secure Structure,” defined as: “a space within a building that complies with the California building code... Walls and roofs must be constructed of solid materials that cannot be easily broken through … plastic sheeting, regardless of gauge, or similar products do not satisfy this requirement.”

Other changes to the city’s cannabis ordinances are expected to be considered at the council’s Dec. 6 meeting, Thompson said.

The council’s next meeting begins at 6 p.m. Nov. 15 in the City Council chambers at 300 Seminary Ave.

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“STICKER SHOCK Coming With California’s New Pot Market” is the title of a recent Associated Press item by reporter Michael Blood. The “sticker shock” he’s referring to is the retail price, not the price the pot grower gets which as far as we know is historically low.

Blood reports that taxes, fees, permits and compliance at City, County and State levels will raise the retail price of recreational pot from $35 per 1/8th ounce (in Los Angeles) to $50 or $60 per 1/8th ounce. Converting those numbers to a per pound price means that the retail price of pot will increase from, respectively, $4500 per pound to between $6400 per pound and $7700 per pound.

Local growers who have trouble selling their bulk pot at $400 or $500 per pound might be better off selling direct, like many local wine producers. But so far, only medical marijuana can be purchased on line, and that only if:

…Licensed as "special dispensary status" if there are under three licensed facilities to a brand

…Delivery origin cannot be in a city or county that has banned delivery

…A physical copy of the patient order must be carried at all times by the delivery personnel, and it must comply with federal and local protections on health information

…A copy of the dispensary, co-op, or caregiver license that authorizes delivery and sale must be carried at all times

…The delivery employee must have a government issued identification card at all times while making deliveries.

We’ve never even seen a “government issued identification card” for pot deliverers.

We also can’t find any info on whether or how online sales of recreational pot will be permitted or regulated in California. But, as the AP article notes, with “legal” marijuana going for $50 or more per 1/8th ounce, there’s likely to be a significant black market since Californians can legally buy, possess, and smoke recreational marijuana starting in January. We wouldn’t even be surprised if fake legal sales start showing up with fake track and trace labels and fake provenance documents.

One current on-line pot retailer says in the small print: “We have successfully shipped thousands of orders around the world using extreme stealth, regardless of your country/state’s laws on marijuana.” When combined with the expensive and difficult to comply with pile of rules and regs at the county and state levels involving sign offs from up to a dozen local and state agencies (depending on what kind of permit is applied for), the incentive for black market sales seems obvious. As would on-line sales, if or when it’s authorized, since on-line sales wouldn’t need a store front and all that goes with it.

MR. BLOOD’S AP ARTICLE also quotes a marijuana attorney as saying it costs up to $200k to be fully licensed and permitted to sell retail pot — if the local area allows retail sales, presumably under another set of restrictions.

LOCAL GROWERS, even if they’re smoking some of their own product, permitted or not (or some combination), are sure to notice the difference between the wholesale price they get compared with an equivalent retail price of more than ten times that.

There seems to be an opening for such direct and online sales because starting in 2018 adults 21 and over can possess, transport (our emphasis) and gift up to an ounce of cannabis to other adults 21 and over, as well as possess, transport and gift up to seven grams of hash, and they can grow up to six plants indoors. Lots of obvious wiggle room there — and no permit required.

PLUS the semi-legal semi-legit medical side of the cannabis business remains in place.

BUT BANKS will not openly do business with legal pot because it’s still a federal felony and their licenses might be jeopardized. So retail businesses will have to handle their finances another way, presumably cash, which subjects them to theft or other problems — especially when it comes time to pay the various taxes on their product — and subject themselves to audits?

LOTS OF LOCALS are starting to wish they could put the legalization genie back in the bottle with the rest of the toothpaste and the pot infused tincture (pardon the overmix). But it’s too late.

YOU’LL KNOW that pot has reached equivalency with wine when growers have their own tasting rooms and their own online sales websites. Until that time, there’s going to be a lot to overcome. (ms)

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NO WAY, JOSE

On November 8, 2017 at approximately 8:00 p.m., Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies received a radio call for service for a domestic related physical assault at a residence located in the 46000 block of Pacific Woods Road in Gualala. After Deputies arrived, they initiated an investigation and identified the victim as a 25 year-old female and the suspect as Jose Gonzalez, 20 of Gualala.

Gonzalez

The female and Gonzalez were determined to be cohabitating partners involved in a romantic relationship. Deputies learned the female and Gonzalez were engaged in a verbal argument that escalated when Gonzalez restrained her after she made an attempt to leave the location. The female sustained minor visible injury to her hands and nose as a result of being restrained by Gonzalez. Gonzalez was subsequently arrested for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse/cohabitant and transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail. Gonzalez was to be held in lieu $25,000 bail.

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CAUGHT YOUR TURKEY YET?

Me neither. Almost as importantly, I need to inform you that as tomorrow is not the 2nd or 4th Thursday of the month there will not be General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz at Lauren’s Restaurant this week. In fact there will not even be a Quiz next week, the 4th Thursday. This is due to some little gathering many of you seem to enjoy at this time of year taking place that day. Hope you have a lovely time.

Steve Sparks, The Quiz Master, Friend of The Turkey.

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PRIVATE DEBRIS REMOVAL REGISTRATION DEADLINE

Property owners with any burned structure from the 2017 Redwood Fire Complex are required to participate in an approved fire debris cleanup and removal process. If property owners choose not to participate in the regional Consolidated Debris Removal Program, property owners must submit a Private Cleanup Form to the Mendocino County Environmental Health Division no later than November 16, 2017.

Property owners moving forward with private debris removal must conduct the private cleanup with a qualified contractor. Private cleanups must be conducted in accordance with the Mendocino County Debris Cleanup and Removal Program. This self-certification process requires an asbestos assessment by a Certified Asbestos Consultant, proper handling and disposal of burn debris at an approved landfill, erosion control measures, and confirmation soil sampling to demonstrate cleanup goals have been met.

To conduct a private cleanup, you must submit a Private Cleanup Form to Mendocino County Environmental Health Division no later than November 16, 2017. It is strongly advised that property owners review all requirements thoroughly before pursuing their own debris removal. Disaster funding will not reimburse for this work, and a Building Permit to rebuild will not be issued unless the property has been remediated to the standards established in the Debris Cleanup and Removal Program. If property owners do not participate in the Consolidated Debris Removal Program or submit a Private Cleanup Form, Mendocino County may pursue abatement and seek to recover costs for contract work, staff time, and administration time with a lien recorded on the property deed should abatement expenses not be reimbursed.

The Private Cleanup Form and requirements are available at www.mendocinocounty.org/fireinfo and Environmental Health located at 860 N Bush Street in Ukiah. For more information on the Consolidated Debris Removal Program please contact Planning and Building Services at (707) 234-6650. For more information on the private debris removal requirements, please contact Environmental Health at (707) 234-6625.

Attached: Debris Cleanup and Removal Requirements

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WARRANT WEDNESDAY STARRING FARAND HOAGLIN.

Far and wide we looked for him, and no sooner had he assumed a starring role in Warrant Wednesday than Farand was in custody, tucked safely away in the warm and friendly confines of the Mendocino County Jail.

Hoaglin

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COLD CASE STILL COLD

To the Editor:

Eight year old Johnny Ussery Jr. wakened to his mother’s alarm clock at 7:30 a.m. on Monday Oct. 14, 1968. Johnny didn’t find his mother in her bedroom. Her purse had been emptied on her still made bed. She wasn’t in their mobile home. He stepped out the front door of their trailer behind Nancy’s Antiques. He spotted his mother, Clyda Dulaney, lying on the ground, her face as pale as her blonde hair.

The horrified lad screamed and bolted into the trailer next door, seeking help from his great-grandmother, Nancy Warren. He found her dead body in her trailer. Her television was on, its screen flickering snow.

Johnny exited the back door of Nancy’s trailer and ducked into the back door of his home. He roused Brett, 5 years old, and Lane, 4. Johnny dressed them and himself, and led them out the back door to a neighbor’s house. He blurted out, “Mommy and grandma are dead.” The neighbors called the Sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Reno Bartolomie led law enforcement to the crime scene at Nelson Ranch Road and Highway 101. Clyda’s body had laid on a gravel walkway through a hard driving rain that washed it clean. The near-term expectant mother had been garroted with a leather boot lace 36 inches double-looped about her throat and tied tight at the nape of her neck. She had been severely beaten beforehand.

Nancy Warren had been garroted in the same fashion—a double-looped boot lace. She had been beaten even more severely than Clyda.

Crime scene processing discovered fingerprints in Nancy’s trailer that didn’t belong to family members and first responders and went unidentified. There was also blood under Nancy’s fingernails. Although $300 remained in plain view, the only valuables missing seemed to be an elaborate jewelry box and its contents, worth $5,000, as well as change from a cash box. The jewel box had been in open view in a closet next to $300; the money remained in place.

The sheriff snapped into action; over the next few days, he questioned 35 people. He investigated a trio of purse snatchers arrested the day after the murders, with no luck. Later, there would be a report of a white 1956 Plymouth station wagon with paper license plates containing three men in front of Nancy’s Antiques at about 8 a.m. on the morning of the murder. It left headed south on Highway 101 toward Hopland.

A third report from a waitress in Hopland described a station wagon with three men in it. One was stocky, 5 feet 10 inches tall, in his early 20s, with average length bright red hair. Another was also in his early 20s, medium built, and had long brown hair. The third man was a husky 6 footer with dark hair and a couple of days’ worth of scruffy whiskers. The waitress reported overhearing, “We will get away with this the same as we did in Oregon.”

The connections between the double murders and these incidents involving three male suspects remain unknown.

There were more promising leads in Clyda’s murder. Only 24 years old, she was separated from John Ussery Sr., the father of her three sons. The divorce was an ugly one, with custody of the three boys in dispute. But John Ussery Sr. was quickly determined to have been in Eugene, Oregon at the time of the murders. Law enforcement declared him clear of suspicion.

Sergeant Donald Dulaney was returned from a Sacramento training session in a CHP unit, arriving in Ukiah at 4 p.m. Monday. He willingly gave a statement to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office that evening. According to Dulaney, the family had watched a Disney program on TV the night before the murders. At about 8:45 p.m., Dulaney took Clyda and her sons to her trailer, dropping them off at about 9:30 p.m. He then headed off to his scheduled training in Sacramento. At the Route 20 turnoff, he realized he had forgotten his uniform. He returned to pick up the uniform from his apartment before turning around for Sacramento, signing in at the Highway Patrol Academy at 1:45 a.m. Sunday.

In December 1969, Sheriff Bartolomie’s memory was jogged by TV coverage of the Manson Family. He recalled that on June 22, 1968, five of the Manson Family women were arrested in Philo, along with three young men. An infant was taken into foster care. Both sheriff’s deputies and the highway patrol were there for the felony narcotics arrests.

No mention is made of the three men picked up with the Manson women. However, Mendocino Court documents show that Susan Atkins, Ella Jo Bailey, Mary Brunner, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Stephanie Gale Rowe were credited with service of 63 days in jail on a 60 day sentence for the felonies. They were released on Aug. 16, 1968. At least two of the five were in Mendocino County still later than that. Atkins ignored her parole restrictions, and was arrested. Mary Brunner had to return to Mendocino to reclaim her infant from foster care. Sheriff Bartolomei traded information about the Mansonites with the prosecutors in southern California, to no avail. There were too many possible suspects, and yet no motive. With four reports of trios of suspicious strangers, it is uncertain just how many unknown suspects there are.

Nearly half a century later, the murders of Nancy Warren, Clyda Dulaney, and Clyda’s baby girl remain unsolved.

— George Dorner, Ukiah

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MR. DORNER’S LETTER prompts us to post our version of these same events: Most of the people who remember the murder of Mrs. Dulaney remember it only in the bizarre context of the Manson Family because it's mentioned in the books on Manson, and it's mentioned in these books because the Manson Family lived in the Anderson Valley at the time. To some researchers the Dulaney murder appeared to be as vicious and as senseless as later murders committed by the Manson cult.

On the rainy morning of October 14th, 1968, six miles south of Ukiah, a seven-year-old boy ran out of his trailer home and found his mother dead on the wet ground outside the front door. The boy ran for his grandmother's trailer nearby. She was dead too, garotted like the boy's mother with a pair of long leather boot laces.

The dead women were Nancy Warren, 64, and her granddaughter, Clyda Jean Dulaney, 24, wife of CHP officer, Don Delaney.

Clyda was 8 months pregnant.

The seven-year-old was Johnny Ussery whose younger brothers Lane, 5, and Brett, 4, were still asleep. The three boys were from Clyda's first marriage to a logger named John Ussery of Eugene, Oregon. Clyda had left Ussery for Don Dulaney, a Ukiah-based CHP officer twice her age. She was pregant with Dulaney's child when she was murdered.

Clyda's former husband was quickly eliminated as a suspect when it was verified that he'd been in Medford, Oregon, at the time of the murders. Finding his mother and his grandmother dead, Johnny had calmly returned to his trailer to get his younger brothers dressed, then, his two little brothers in tow, the three boys trudged south to the home of Don Torell where Johnny told Mr. and Mrs. Torrell that “Mommy and Grandma are dead.”

A swarm of deputies led by Sheriff Reno Bartolomie was soon on the scene. The sole witness to the previous night's mayhem, which occurred in a driving rain that obliterated the footprints assumed to have surrounded Clyda Dulaney's outdoors corpse, was Mrs. Warren's miniature dachshund. The two dead women were fully clothed. They'd both been brutally beaten about the face before they'd been strangled with brand new hightop leather boot laces, two turns of which had been pulled tight around the neck before the laces were knotted in back.

Mrs. Warren operated Nancy’s Antique Sales on Highway 101 south of Burke Hill on the two-lane portion of the highway about where the strawberry fields and sales stand are today. Clyda Dulaney was a graduate of Ukiah high school who, only months before, had left her husband for officer Dulaney, 49, a man several years older than her father.

Clyda's former husband had been engaged in a bitter custody dispute with Clyda for his three boys. Mr. Ussery said Clyda had deserted him and the boys for Dulaney, evidence, he insisted, that Clyda was unstable and therefore not a fit mother.

Robbery was the apparent motive. A metal cash box had been rifled and left on a table although a plastic box and glass jar containing approximately $300 in cash rested in plain sight in a closet of the older woman’s trailer.

Officer Dulaney lived in Ukiah with a teenage daughter from his previous marriage while Clyda and her children lived on her grandmother's property at the south end of Burke Hill. Dulaney said they lived apart while he looked for a house in the Ukiah area that would accomodate him, his pregnant new wife Clyda, her three boys and his daughter. When Clyda gave birth to their child, Dulaney would be supporting a family of seven, and he said he wanted a house big enough for all of them.

Dulaney was in Sacramento for a special CHP training course when his new wife and her grandmother were found dead. The investigative assumption from the beginning was assuming that the two women were murdered after he was either in Sacramento or on the road there.

The CHP officer told the Sheriff’s office that he dropped his wife and step-children at Nancy’s Antique Shop at 9:30 the previous night with the intention of continuing on to Sacramento. But, he said, he'd forgotten his uniform, so he returned to his Ukiah apartment, picked up the uniform and continued on to Sacramento via Highway 20 east where he signed in at the Academy at 1:45am.

A neighbor said she saw a blue pickup truck leaving an orchard near the antique shop about 8:15 the morning the women were found. She said five persons "wearing hippie-type clothing" were in the vehicle. Dulaney, 49, who was described as genuinely distraught by investigators, quickly returned to Ukiah.

“The only information I had was what I had read in the newspapers," Dulaney told the Ukiah Daily Journal. He said he and his expanded family had been watching The Wonderful World of Disney at Dulaney’s Ukiah apartment before he, Clyda and the boys headed south for Clyda Dulaney's trailer six miles to the south. The family had left Ukiah about 8:45. Dulaney said he dropped his wife and the three boys off at their temporary home and headed for Sacramento where he was scheduled to begin a CHP refresher course the next day, Monday morning. Dulaney said that he had reached Highway 20 before remembering that he had failed to bring his uniform. He then returned to Ukiah picked up his uniform and resumed his trip to Sacramento where he logged in at 1:45am.

Dulaney hired Timothy O’Brien, a Ukiah attorney who often represented law enforcement people. O'Brien, who soon afterwards became a superior court judge, said that Dulaney had been "deeply concerned over any false impression which might have been gained regarding his cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department following the death of his wife and child."

O'Brien helped Dulaney with his statement for the police. “When the statement was completed, I signed it,” Dulaney said. “There was no lack of consideration.”

Sheriff Bartolomie said he interviewed 35 suspects, referring in one newspaper account to "the hamstrings of Warren Court " which, the Sheriff suggested, had prevented him from detaining a trio of roaming purse snatchers who'd robbed a Ukiah matron in the days prior to the Burke Hill murders. The Sheriff thought the three transients could well have murdered the two women, but, lacking evidence to hold them, sent them on their intinerent way.

A year later, in 1969, following the gruesome killings of Sharon Tate and friends in Los Angeles, Bartolomie said he thought the Manson Family may have also been responsible for the unsolved murders of Clyda Dulaney and Mrs. Warren. The Sheriff said both the Tate murders and the two murders south of Ukiah were “in the senseless category.”

And the Manson Family had been in Mendocino County at the time of the Dulaney and Warren murders.

Seven persons belonging to a nomadic cult were arrested on drug charges in Navarro in the Anderson Valley on June 22, 1968. Susan Denise Atkins, 19, aka Sadie Mae Glutz, was among those arrested. Additionally, “Several Mansonites were guests of a Ukiah man at his home off Boonville Road,” reported the Ukiah Daily Journal.

But there was never any evidence linking the Manson Family or Dulaney or Clyda Dulaney's former husband to the crime.

Someone or someones came in off 101 in the night, took the money they could see, strangled the two women they found there, and continued their journey to whatever unlucky destination called them. (Research by Deborah Silva)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, November 15, 2017

Andrade, Calderone-Aldana, Freeman

ALEJANDRO ANDRADE, Clearlake/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LORENA CALDERONE-ALDANA, Fort Bragg. Forged driver’s license, false ID, no license.

MICHAEL FREEMAN JR., Covelo. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

Kachur, Lawrence, Magdaleno

JOHN KACHUR, Ukiah. Failure to register.

DEBORAH LAWRENCE, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

LUNA MAGDALENO, Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance. (“Sex: Transgender.”)

Mendoza, Miller, Valdez

JESUS MENDOZA, Ukiah. Burglary, probation revocation.

MATTHEW MILLER, Fort Bragg. Suspended license, probation revocation.

HAROLD VALDEZ, Fort Bragg, probation revocation.

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SOUTH FORK EEL RIVER SALMON HABITAT RESTORATION PRIORITIES

Prevent extinction of Chinook, coho salmon and steelhead in the South Fork Eel River.

Eel River restoration project planning is underway. National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have started a process working with the local community to identify priority habitat restoration projects in the South Fork Eel River. Your local knowledge will help us get the most out our planning.

Please Attend, Comment and Get Involved!

November 27, 6-7:30 pm: Beginnings Octagon, 5 Cemetery Rd., Redway, CA 95560

November 29, 6-7:30 pm: Harwood Hall, 44400 Willis Ave., Laytonville, CA 95454

For more information please contact Julie Weeder at (707) 825-5168

EelRiverFlyer4

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’ll say this for the race matters crowd: they’re right, race does matter, only not on the odious ‘merits’ of racism. Race matters because it matters to racists, and because they won’t shut up about their preoccupation, meaning the rest of us have to deal with their bullshit whether we want to or not. All the toxicity of identity politics boils down to two things: identity groups seeking power for themselves, versus pushback from well-meaning people who nonetheless end up feeding the toxicity. (E.g., providing fodder for white supremacists to proclaim that their opponents support identity-based rights for everyone except white supremacists, when the real point is to get beyond identity affiliation and simply deal with people, just as they are.)

Unfortunately, the true and committed white supremacists are not likely to accept a multi-ethnic society for civility’s sake. There will always be bitter-enders who will either vow to do as much harm as possible as long as they don’t get their way, or make a stab at separatism and ethnic cleansing if things are allowed to go that far. Appealing for civility isn’t going to appease the yahoos; they have to be dealt with on their own terms.

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TEXAS COPS HUNT MAN WITH MASSIVE “FUCK TRUMP” BUMPERSTICKER ON THE BACK OF HIS TRUCK

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LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Skrag is fatter by the day. Look how close he stays to his enablers who feed him all day. They don't know what a degenerate he is, the stuff he does at night. I do, though, because I'm on duty 24/7 and know him for what he is.”

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REPORTS EXPOSE RACIAL AND ECONOMIC INJUSTICE, INEFFECTIVENESS OF POLLUTION TRADING

by Dan Bacher

Two days after protesters from indigenous and front line communities challenged Governor Jerry Brown to leave oil and gas “in the ground” as he spoke during his European “climate tour,” non-profit organizations released two new studies criticizing the racial and economic injustice behind and ineffectiveness of cap-and-trade programs.

During the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) last week, Governor Brown urged European leaders to adopt similar cap-and-trade policies as those developed in California However, a report released Monday reveals the environment injustice of what cap-and-trade opponents call “pollution trading,” showing that it is not a real solution to climate change.

The report, published by the advocacy organizations Food & Water Watch and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, details the disproportionate burdens of air and water contamination and serious human health effects placed on low-income communities of color by market-based pollution trading schemes like the one authorized by Brown’s cap-and-trade bill, AB 398.

Paying to Pollute – The Environmental Injustice of Pollution Trading shows that under many of these plans, including California’s cap-and-trade program, “localized pollution and public health impacts actually increase in low-income communities of color,” according to a joint statement from the two groups.

The California Legislature extended California’s cap-and-trade program through 2030 when they approved Brown’s AB 398 this summer. Over 65 environmental justice, indigenous, conservation, and consumer groups opposed the legislation, though some “Big Green” NGOs, eager to make a deal with Big Oil and other corporate interests, backed AB 398.

The bill ignited a storm of controversy when it was revealed that the legislation was based on a Big Oil wish list — and developed behind closed doors between Brown administration representatives and Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron lobbyists.

Big Oil and other corporate polluters have traditionally located facilities in low-income communities of color like Richmond, California and the San Joaquin Valley, resulting in a disproportionate, localized environmental and public health burden. The new report “illustrates how market-based programs further concentrate polluting emissions in low-income areas, while also often failing to reduce overall emissions under the programs at large.”

The report states, “Free market environmental policies are fundamentally changing America’s approach to pollution control. Market-based pollution credit schemes are undermining successful environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act by allowing industries to pay for the right to dump contaminants into our waterways and air. The health and environment of communities surrounding these pollution sources pay the price for these free market environmental policies. All too often, these are lower-income neighborhoodsand communities of color.”

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said, “Pollution trading schemes like cap-and-trade unjustly burden lower-income communities of color. This is a fact. So many of us are rightfully desperate for solutions to our climate crisis, but market-based policies won’t save us. The only real way to significantly reduce carbon pollution is to stop producing it. We must move off fossil fuels now.”

"Low income and communities of color have a right to clean air and a healthy environment," added Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice." Fossil fuels need to be kept in the ground, not traded to help giant corporate polluters make money off of the health of our communities and our planet."

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) also commented on the release of the new report.

“As a member of the Appropriations and Budget Committees, I’m fighting to ensure that our government understands the reality of climate change and takes action to address it,” said Lee. “We must face the facts: the pollution that damages our environment has a direct impact on our public health.”

“And too often, communities of color have been forced to live in the most polluted, contaminated areas, causing asthma and severe illnesses among children, the elderly and our most vulnerable,” said “It’s time for us all to demand environmental justice and ensure that every community is protected from the devastating impacts of pollution and climate change. It is a moral imperative for Congress to take immediate action to end our reliance on fossil fuels,” Lee concluded.

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/new-report-details-racial-economic-injustice-pollution-trading-programs

On the same day, a new scientific report unveiled by the Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog reveals that Governor Jerry Brown’s greenhouse gas trading program to cut emissions “is a bust so far, thanks to oil industry efforts to keep it that way.”

The nonprofit think tank Near Zero finds that California’s cap-and-trade system has not cut emissions in California. Instead, changes in the mix of sources generating electricity did the trick to cut emissions by nearly 5 percent in 2016.

In fact, the group reported that last year emissions rose significantly in the transportation sector by 1.8 million tons and in the refining sector by 1.2 million tons. The group cautioned that the state “needs to reverse these trends…in transportation fuels and refining to reach its ambitious 2030 climate target.” 

For the Near Zero analysis, see:

http://www.nearzero.org/wp/2017/11/10/californias-climate-emissions-are-falling-but-cap-and-trade-is-not-the-cause/ 

“Near Zero’s research shows that Governor Brown has to get serious about leaving gas and oil in the ground if he really wants to meet 2030 targets for slashing emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels,” said Consumer Advocate Liza Tucker in a statement. “Rather than doing a victory lap around Europe right now, he should be pushing policies with real bite in slashing emissions, rather than letting the industry write the regulations on cap-and-trade for him.”

“While Governor Brown pushes market-based solutions in Europe that clearly aren’t working at home, the results back home show those solutions aren’t working because the approach is too lax,” said Tucker. “When California extended its cap-and-trade program this year through 2030, Governor Brown allowed the oil and gas industry to write the rules maintaining features like an overabundance of permits and other loopholes to ensure that the program just won’t have teeth.

“The oil and gas sector finds it cheaper to pay to pollute than to install equipment to prevent emissions. That kind of system will not help avoid disastrous levels of global warming because the power sector simply can’t deliver all that will be needed. But the cap-and-trade legislation may have been a thank you to the energy industry from Brown, who benefitted from nearly $10 million in donations to his campaigns, causes, ballot measures, and to his party since his election in 2011,” she concluded.

For more on California’s system of cap-and-trade, see: http://capitolwatchdog.org/article/jerry-browns-cap-and-trade-bill-would-exempt-refineries-air-pollution-regulation

On November 11, Governor Brown told indigenous protesters disrupting his speech in Bonn, "Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.” More information: www.indybay.org/

 

9 Comments

  1. Eric Sunswheat November 16, 2017

    AVA wrote: “…The delivery employee must have a government issued identification card at all times while making deliveries.

    We’ve never even seen a “government issued identification card” for pot deliverers.”

    A response: The delivery employee, if operating a licensed motorized vehicle while making deliveries, would have a government issued identification card, drivers license pursuant to Department of Motor Vehicle regulations requirement to drive. Non drivers, or exempt, on assignment for non motorized or walk about carrier delivery, could obtain California ID cards from DMV offices upon proof of identity, that normally include birth certificate and place of residence.

  2. Mike Kalantarian November 16, 2017

    Regarding that dry Boonville rain gauge that Marshall Newman mentions: I believe it resides up behind Stalag Calfire (at the shallow end of Anderson Valley). I also think Calfire may be responsible for maintaining it (they are listed as “operator” on the webpage below). So it might be more expeditious to contact the Stalag Commandant to see if someone can unstuck it.

    http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/stationInfo?station_id=BNV

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    Also, regarding turning the power off when fire conditions exist: I don’t think that’s a realistic solution. There were a few weeks of Red Flag Warnings (off and on) before the fires eventually broke out. People simply will not tolerate going without power during such lengthy stretches of time. Weather is difficult to prognosticate precisely, so it would be extremely difficult to anticipate exactly when the power would need to be flipped off.

    It would be better to just start undergrounding the lines, especially in the more disaster-prone areas.

    Things cost money, especially good things. This is the reality Reaganites choose to ignore. No taxes, no money – it’s as simple as that. This is why we have no money for public improvements, while a very small minority selfishly hoard more than they will ever spend. All the plutocrats have to do is pump a very small percentage of their wealth into our political system to keep it this way, and put another small bit into the media to brainwash the rest of us. Until enough of us wake up, it’s going to stay this way.

    • Eric Sunswheat November 16, 2017

      As home power battery technology improves, and solar electric panel installation becomes more widespread, red flag electrical grid shutdown may pencil in, within certain geographical areas. Under grounding electrical utilities could play havoc, with restoring service in earthquake prone zones.

  3. Harvey Reading November 16, 2017

    Re: FOREST WORK

    Excellent. I cannot help wondering if the dozer driver was perhaps distracted by meditation on flying insects.

    Re: TEXAS COPS HUNT MAN WITH MASSIVE “FUCK TRUMP” BUMPERSTICKER ON THE BACK OF HIS TRUCK

    Great bumper sticker, and in Texas of all places. The “good” foks with their posse gonna get that heathen and “traitor”, though. Apparently the truck owner doesn’t understand that free speech applies only to racists and Trumpists.

  4. Harvey Reading November 16, 2017

    I agree with Mike K. Particularly his last three paragraphs.

    The Reaganites simply continued an old wepubican wet dream of theirs, “trickle-down (supply side)” “economics”, that goes back to the 19th Century and before. Wepubicans have served wealth forever, and the democwaps have, too, though for not quite as long.

    The cwaps appeared to show a small degree of enlightenment during the depression of the 1930s, but gradually came to toe the line drawn by the wealthy by the mid 1970s. They have continued their decline since.

    Both right wings of the wealth party are unfit to govern. Both will completely melt down, I predict before the election next year, or, at worst by the end of 2020; especially if the cwaps run gruesome Hillary again, assuming her brain has not completely exploded by then.

  5. Jim Updegraff November 16, 2017

    trickle-down economics is “voodoo economics”. The GOP is a slave to the “voodoo Economics”

  6. Craig Stehr November 16, 2017

    ~THE LAST WORD ON POSTMODERN POLITICAL ABSURDITY~
    “Bodies, names and forms are only instruments. The true actor in this world is Divinity. Realise this in every inch of the creation. Wake up and shake off your ignorance. Feel, practise and become one with it.”
    –Swami Chidananda (first president of Divine life Society/Shivananda Ashram, Muni-ki-Reti, INDIA)

  7. Jim Updegraff November 16, 2017

    Comments in the press yesterday about Iran entering the conflict in Afghanistan. Hardly new news, as I recollect I commented since time ago in AVA Iran was sending agents into Afghanistan to prepare for Iran forces to move in.

  8. Jim Updegraff November 16, 2017

    My experiences with the white supremacists was was when I was Chair of the Sacramento County Chapter of the ACLU. They appear to be poorly educated lower income whites. Or as they would be called in the Deep South “poor white trash”.

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