Off the Record (Dec. 20, 2017)

NO SOONER had Ted Williams announced that he'd be a candidate for 5th District supervisor, a caller left this message on our nut screener: "Another doper in the 5th seat? No way." Click.

WE THINK Mr. Williams is a fine candidate. We first encountered him when he was a high school computer wizard who helped us clarify an argument we were in with the first incarnation of MCN. Since his precocious youth, Mr. W has lived in Albion for many years and has converted that early computer wizardry into a prosperous life for himself and his young family. He has also served the Coast community for many years as a volunteer emergency services guy. After years of grifters and incompetents occupying the 5th District seat, Williams is a definite step forward.

WE ASKED THE CANDIDATE about the caller's marijuana slur: "I’ve never been a part of the cannabis economy. I won’t need to recuse myself, which is important given the impact of prop 64 on our county economy. My profession is software development. A rough bio is at http://ted.net"

LONDON BREED as San Francisco's mayor with the sudden death of Ed Lee is likely to be a lateral move in political terms, characterized by the kind of inert drift the city that used to know how became accustomed to with Lee. The major problems of affordable housing shortages and more and more of the walking wounded living on the streets won't be addressed other than rhetorically. Breed is a windy liberal with zero to show for her decade in office.

THE POST-MORTEMS for Lee don't mention that he was an ineffectual mayor. Nice man from all accounts, but if being nice is the political standard in SF these days why not Grandma Smuckers, or a giant talking huggy bear? But then, as our proud land continues its inexorable slide into what's shaping up as unpredictable forms of collapse, maybe at this point cities are ungovernable. Frisco became comprehensively worse under Lee; the thousands of damaged people living on the streets became a lot more prevalent, and even began pitching tent city drug bazaars downtown. Although The City spends $310 million annually on what The City claims is fewer than ten thousand thanatoids, the true rub is that the beneficiaries of most of this money are the helping pros, machine Democrats who resist any reform that imperils their funding and their cush no-questions-asked jobs. Same-same here in Mendocino County, of course.

ISN'T IT PAST TIME to demand precision from people who promiscuously label and doom others as "racists," "sexists," "homophobes" and on through the categories of doom. Many people may categorically dislike, in theory, great swathes of their fellow Americans while on an everyday basis they are practicing liberals, carrying on amicable everyday relations with a full range of people they don't tolerate in the abstract.

KARL WITT, a HumCo marijuana bigwig, was arraigned last weekend in Mendocino County Superior Court. Witt is charged with "possessing marijuana for sale using underaged individuals, a felony." Witt, a kind of Fagin figure it seems, was southbound for the Emerald Cup in Santa Rosa with his underage helpers when he was stopped near Willits. The arresting officers found "one thousand four hundred nineteen (1,419) "stoner stocking stuffers," as one Courthouse staffer described Witt's cargo. The defendant has two felony priors in Wisconsin, one for felony aggravated battery.

RE FIRE INSURANCE, A READER WRITES: I have always tried to keep my insurance up to date and adequate. A few years ago the insurer sent someone out to my house to look inside and out and they recommended the coverage we had, which seemed reasonable at the time. This spring my agent called about my renewal and concluded that the current level was sufficient. Now that our home is a vacant lot 20-20 hindsight is all the rage. But prior to the fire no one said plan on $400-$500 per sq ft rebuild costs, or that you would not only lose your house, but also your foundation, driveway, walkways, storage sheds, fences and all your landscaping. All I can say is all of you wise folks out there should be glad if you still have a house and can review and increase your insurance, because I bet most are not insured for a TOTAL LOSS.

LOTS of Fort Braggers were understandably indignant when a repeat misdemeanant named Ricky Santos managed to drive his under the influence self into the Christmas parade, hitting Aura Johannsen and her horse. Santos didn't stick around the accident scene but was eventually arrested and charged with hit and run. And promptly released.

SGT JONATHAN McLAUGHLIN explained the catch and release to Kelci Parks of the Advocate this way: “I know there are questions as to why Santos was not charged with a felony in this case. Unfortunately, because the rider in this case was reportedly uninjured at the time of the call, the felony section does not apply as it specifically applies to a person, [rather than] an animal.”

AURA JOHANSEN herself later wrote to MSP: "So I guess the fact that I was hit after watching him hit my horse means nothing. I was struck while attempting to get farther away from my horse. I went onto the hood of the vehicle and slid off while vehicle while it was still moving and landed on my lower back. I immediately had back pain which was stated several times at the scene. Not going into details but no ambulance was ever called to the scene. I did decline an ambulance after the officers somewhat rude offer and I did not immediately receive medical attention as I had an injured/tramatized horse to care for. I have since sought medical care for constant lower back pain since the incident but as of yet have not gotten a diagnosis. My current priority is getting my horse and myself healthy, I am already behind on bills due to vet/doctor bills but will be seeking legal council."

A READER WONDERS? “What is it with McCowen? He starts his career associating with pot growers, then he hates them, and now he loves them. You have followed his career better than anyone. Only in Mendo?”

ED REPLY: He was probably invited to speak at the recent pot fandango in Santa Rosa. I doubt he volunteered. Maybe he will enlighten us. He’s been rather miffed with the ava lately over our criticism of the Supes’ various giveaways, a few of them absolutely indefensible via the consent calendar which, with these five solons, functions as a sort of automatic teller for CEO Carmel Angelo to shovel public money to favored insiders. Elected people these days seem to instinctively assume the prone position before the people they’re supposed to be supervising. Getting back to McCowen and dope, Hamburg’s the only known toker on this board, but when a large section of your constituents are involved one way or another with the miracle plant, the supervisor could hardly ignore them. I’ve never heard of him toking the bazooka himself.

RECOMMENDED READING: IN THE PLACE OF JUSTICE, by Wilbert Rideau. Rideau shot and killed a white female bank teller in Lake Charles, Louisiana back in 1961 after taking three bank employees hostage. To say he had no plan doesn’t begin to describe his crime, which he relates in all its pathetic detail in his fascinating book. Rideau had just turned 19. He was barely literate, and he barely escaped execution. And, as a little guy, he also escaped comparable terrors at the infamous Angola Prison, then considered absolutely medieval even by the standards of the time. But he went on to edit the famed prison newspaper, Angolite, and won a new trial after his appeals of his murder conviction had failed many times, finally being convicted of manslaughter and released after 44 years inside, many of those years on Death Row. Rideau was described by one warden as “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America.” Self-taught, Rideau, became a fine writer, as you can know for yourself by reading In the Place of Justice.

CLOSER TO HOME, we have the Rideau-like case of Tai Abreu of Fort Bragg whose public defender managed to convert his vague self-incrimination into a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. All three defendants in the 2001 murder of Donald Perez were subsequently found guilty of the crime, but two of the three pled out and got twenty years each. Abreu, then 19, was talked into going to trial by his deluded public defender. There is zero evidence that Abreu participated in the murder part of the scheme, but under California's murder law if you're present when a murder occurs, you're automatically involved. And Abreu was there. He “confessed,” just like the kid in "Confession Tapes" without knowing the first thing about his right not to talk about being in on the confused pothead plot to lure the vic to Mendo to rob him. Abreu got a one day trial during which Public Defender Linda Thompson essentially joined the prosecution in testifying against him. One of the stoned conspirators, Aaron Channel, will be out soon; August Stuckey also got 20 years but must do well in prison before he can be considered for parole. (I understand he is not doing well.) Abreu is in for life. Mendo PD Thompson talked Abreu into going to trial when he, too, should have taken the DA's offer of 20-to-life. We’re gearing up for what we hope will become assistance from the Innocence Project or similar program to get Abreu’s case revisited. If a retro state like Louisiana can find mercy in its justice system one would think the liberal bastion of California can find justice in its.

BIG RAISES FOR THE ELECTEDS! $24k per year more for Treasurer, $18k per year more for Assessor-Clerk Recorder, $14k per year more for Auditor, $21k per year more for Sheriff, and only $7k per year more for District Attorney. The positions of Auditor-Controller, Treasurer-Tax Collector, Assessor-Clerk Recorder, District Attorney and Sheriff are up for election in 2018 and historically run unopposed. It is imperative that salaries for our elected positions are competitive with other counties and the private sector in order to attract the most qualified candidates. [emphasis added]

MORE MONEY FOR REDWOOD QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Agenda Item 4t) Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Quality Management Company for up to $120,000 to Provide Support, Implementation, and Participant-Specific Data to the County of Mendocino’s Whole Person Care Pilot Project for the Term of July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018

4u) Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Community Services Inc. (RCS) in the Amount of $186,400 for the Term of July 1, 2017, through June 20, 2018, for Housing and Case Management for Specialty Mental Health Services at Haven House for Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Clients

COUNTY TO PAY $110k for Wellness Management program.

Agenda Item 4x) “Approval of Agreement with Health Fitness Corporation in the Amount of $110,000 to Provide Wellness and Prevention Related Services to the County’s Wellness Program For the Period of January 1, 2018, Through December 31, 2018, for County Employees and their Eligible Dependents.”

FOR $110k the Swellness Office will “manage and interview the health and activities of county employees.” Excuse me? What’s next, a social worker kicking down the door and snatching the Bud and giant bags of  Cheetos? In general, many County employees have succumbed to gluttony and sloth, as have a majority of Americans. The prob for the County is that the rolly pollies are prone to costly illnesses that drive up the County’s health insurance costs.

COUNTY TO PAY OVER $250k for a consultant to manage the new jail medical services contract. Agenda Item 4ad) Approval of Agreement with Rebecca Craig in the Amount of $84,992 Per Year for a Three Year Term (from December 19, 2017 - December 18, 2020) for a Total Contract Amount of $254,976 to Provide Contract Management Services for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO)

SUPES WANT ON THE GRAVY TRAIN TOO! Board of Supervisors Meeting, Monday, December 18, 2017; Agenda Item 5b) — Discussion and Possible Action Regarding Setting Elected Officials Compensation for the Board of Supervisors to Take Effect December 31, 2017 (Sponsors: Executive Office and Human Resources)

THE CHART that goes with this self-serving agenda item suggests that the Supes raise their annual pay from about $62k per year to a “comparable counties average” of over $85k per year. But the chart conspicuously includes the much-higher Sonoma County Board salary in the “neighboring counties” list. Without Sonoma County skewing the average the “comparable counties average salary” would be $72.7k/year. And take out the equally pricey Napa where, like Sonoma County, the cost of living is much higher (which they of course don’t adjust for), the “comparable counties average salary” would be $67.3k/year.

DA SPOKESMAN, MIKE GENIELLA, notes that "Cameron Whitlock, killer of contractor Wallace Kuntz in 1990, is up for parole at a hearing Thursday in Tracy. The DA's office is opposing his release. Although parole has been denied twice before, Whitlock might stand a better chance in this era of crowded prisons and the state tendency to be lenient on so-called "low risk" prisoners. Whitlock has served the minimum for a life sentence and is in his mid-50s. Wallace Kuntz's son, Tom Kuntz of St. Helena, will be at the hearing. The son presents a compelling argument about why parole for Whitlock should continue to be denied. He's articulate, well prepared and committed to honoring his father's memory."

WE WROTE FIVE YEARS AGO when Whitlock came up for parole: Cameron Whitlock, Point Arena, will remain in prison for at least another five years for the 1990 murder of well-known Mendocino Coast contractor, Wallace Herbert Kuntz. Whitlock lost his bid for parole following a hearing last week in front of the State Board of Prison Terms at Solano State Prison in Vacaville. Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira and chief DA Investigator Tim Kiely appeared at the hearing, and argued against Whitlock's release. Also appearing was Kuntz's widow and the contractor's two sons. Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster said Tuesday that he was pleased with the prison board's decision to wait for five years before allowing Whitlock to renew his bid for parole. Whitlock was convicted in May 1990 of second-degree murder, robbery and vehicle theft. Kuntz's killing was “tragic and senseless,” Eyster said. Kuntz was working at a construction site 22 years ago on the Point Arena Indian Reservation when he was killed. Kiely and other investigators said Kuntz was sitting in his pickup truck getting ready to drive home when Whitlock walked up to the driver's side window and shot him in the head. Whitlock then climbed into the truck and shot Kuntz again before driving the victim's truck about two miles with the body still inside. Investigators said Whitlock pulled over, dragged the contractor's body from the vehicle and covered it with brush. Whitlock then torched the brush, engulfing Kuntz' body in flames.

EVEN WHITLOCK, assuming he is found genuinely remorseful, which I hear he isn't, ought to get a fair shot at parole. But the way the system works is that the people best placed to evaluate this or that guy's rehab are the people who see him and work with him every day. But the opinions of these people are routinely overridden by parole boards and hometown politicians who want to be seen as “tough on crime.” I know lots of prisoners and lots of people who have been prisoners, among them quite a number of bona fide tough guys, and every single one of them will tell you that about twenty percent of inmates should be locked permanently away, but the other eighty percent do not present an ongoing menace to society.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING, nay must viewing of the best documentary since "Making A Murderer." Remember the CIA's murder of Frank Olson back in '53 (I think it was), a scientist involved in the agency's lsd experiments? The great filmmaker Errol Morris tells the appalling story of Olson's acid-hastened murder in Wormwood, via NetFlix. (Tinfoil hat alert: If you even suspect the government is talking to you through your tooth fillings or is systematically poisoning you with contrails, this truly excellent film is not for you.)

FOG BELT GRIFTERS: Point Arena’s Doug Burkey and Sheryl Lyn Smith, former members of Point Arena's city council, have been sentenced to a year in jail and three years formal probation on two felony charges of forgery. The couple is also ordered to pay Ms. Smith's family $91,000 in restitution for property illegally diverted to her and her new love interest, Doug Burkey, from the estate of Smith's late husband, Aron Leventer.

ARRESTED in August of 2016, on a Sonoma County warrant, Ms. Smith claimed she jointly owned Timber Cove property with her late husband. He had conveniently died two months after the couple’s break-up without including Ms. Smith on the deed to his property. Ms. Smith’s "new friend and neighbor," Doug Burkey, "offered himself as a buffer” in Smith's negotiations over the property with her late companion’s family. Sonoma County detectives thought the death of Ms. Smith’s ex was suspicious and the transfer of his property to Ms. Smith even more suspicious. They pursued investigation of the transaction which has now resulted in both the "buffer" and his buffee in the Sonoma County Jail for 12 months. The paper trail on the fraud is absolutely damning, which you can see for yourself at the AVA’s website.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS are forbidding officials at the nation's top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases - including "fetus" and "transgender" - in any official documents being prepared for next year's budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are: "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based."

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of "science-based" or "evidence-based," the suggested phrase is "CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes," the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered. (AP)

KC MEADOWS' excellent editorial in Sunday's Ukiah Daily Journal contained lengthy quotes from Ukiah's sensible police chief, Chris Dewey, buttressing her opinion that Ukiah's quality of life is not helped by succumbing to spare change artists. The Chief pointed out that these guys accumulate alms that they spend on dope and booze, quickly transmogrifying themselves into public nuisances the cops must spend much of their duty time suppressing. I think the very best place to give money is the Food Bank at 880 N. State. (The Fort Bragg Food Bank is at 910 N. Franklin) That's where you find the many inland people who are trying to keep body and soul together on fixed incomes or not enough income to make ends meet, those ends drifting farther apart by the day.

ECCENTRIC spellings of given names present occasional probs for us in the news biz. The other day a young woman named Koty popped up in the Sheriff's Log. "Gotta be Katy," I shouted down to the engine room. "Change the o to a. And that's an order!" The engine room came right back with, "Looked her up. That's her name. K-O-T-Y." Why a parent would want to do that to a kid…

A LOT of New Yorker fiction, seems to me, is written by neurotics for other neurotics. Proust was a neurotic but he was an interesting neurotic. The New Yorker neurotics… Anyway, I read some place, maybe even in The New Yorker, that the recent story called "Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian was the venerable mag's most read story ever, and has since prompted a whole critical literature about it. It certainly held my enfeebled attentions. I can't recall anything as vivid about the sexual experience as, in this case, mostly suffered by a young woman. I also think even the dullest high school student could grasp it, and I would hope the more alert English teachers of the young would assign it for discussion, especially at this time as the phallocracy is under full-on, and long overdue, attack.

AS IT HAPPENS, I'm reading a big bio of Shirley Jackson, most famous for her short story "The Lottery," called "A Rather Haunted Life," which I recommend for lots of reasons, from the fascinating Jackson herself to the picture her life paints of American intellectual life in the fifties and sixties. "The Lottery" created a huge controversy when it appeared in The New Yorker in 1948 similar, kind of, to the excitement "Cat Person" has ignited.

FROM THE NEW YORKER: “Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916 and brought up, with a younger brother, in one of the city’s affluent suburbs. Her parents were conservative country-club people, who regarded their high-strung child with some perplexity. Jackson identified herself early on as an outsider and as a writer. “When i first used to write stories and hide them away in my desk,” she later wrote in an unpublished essay, “i used to think that no one had ever been so lonely as i was and i used to write about people all alone… i thought i was insane and i would write about how the only sane people are the ones who are condemned as mad and how the whole world is cruel and foolish and afraid of people who are different.”

MR. AVA, “Anybody from the county ever, ‘Off the record,’ communicate to you about this stuff? Or do the County elites merely relegate the AVA or its readers/commenters to a group of irrelevant anarchist, crazy people, and old hippies. As always, Laz.”

WE ENJOY what you might consider a surprising number of back channels, but critics of the Supervisors, to name the most egregious local civic offenders, are simply ignored because they can be ignored. Used to be the large circulation Press Democrat would pick up stories from their little Mendo media brothers and sisters and, because of the size of the PD and its influence in the County lo these many years ago, occasional reforms would result. The PD is barely read in the County these days, leaving its job to the UDJ, what’s left of the Willits News, the upstart Willits Weekly and, natch, the mighty AVA. All media, though, are in flux. I daresay many more people these days keep up with the Kardashians than pay the slightest attention to the functioning of the local government which daily impacts their distracted lives. Our paper-paper is treading water, but our on-line paper keeps pace with  the loss of old school newspaper readers. Most people get what they know of the great world outside from television, hence Trump. In Mendo? The AVA is the default, turn-to media. Yeah, we’re pretty much relegated, but I’m proud to say that Supervisor Dan Hamburg, for instance, go out of their way to boast, “I never read the AVA.” They do, though, and if it’s true that one is known by his enemies, the AVA has all the right ones. Do not lose heart Laz, my son! Criticism has a drip effect, and us drips are felt, believe me.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

(1) Social Security was always called the “third rail” of politics, i.e., to touch it was to risk a fatal jolt of electricity. But Paul Ryan went on record last week as saying once the tax ‘reform’ bill is passed that he’ll turn his attention to Social Security and Medicare in 2018. Ryan intends to cut those programs to pay for tax cuts to the top 1% and to please his owners, the Koch bros, whose goal for decades has been to kill FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. The Koch bros see both programs as “communism” as defined by their late father, Fred Koch, who left them a fortune and also founded the John Birch Society whose goals the Kochs intend to implement via puppets like Ryan. The Kochs and their network of wealthy donors ponied up $890M to win the 2016 election and they will spend like that until they die and/or we stop them by voting DEM. Spending by this cabal of plutocrats dwarfs the puny spending of George Soros, et al.

(2) Here we go again. Social Security is not a government welfare program. It is not paid from the general revenue. It has no effect on the deficit. But the greedy wingnuts want you to believe that cutting Social Security will reduce the deficit. They have been spreading that lie for many years, because they will get richer if you believe it. And for some reason, most of us believe it. Besides, these sociopaths can’t cut Social Security. What they want to do is privatize it so that they can rake off the investment fees. That would be about 10% of the transactions. The Social Security Administration charges about 1% for the same service. No wonder these savages are slavering to get their hands on the money.

TRUTH & RECONCILIATION!

Application for KZYX/Z Board of Directors Election – 2018

Mendocino County Public Broadcasting

Member Name: Bruce Anderson

Address: 13920 Highway 128, Boonville

Telephone: 707 895-3016

email: ava@pacific.net

Board seat applied for: at-large

Please explain in no more than 400 (four-hundred) words why the members of KZYX&Z should vote for you as a Board Member. Your ballot statement will be mailed to our members. We would appreciate it if you would include answers to the following five (optional) questions:

Member off and on, more on than off, since the station's dubious origins as a project of a transient grifter called Sean Donovan. I saw Mendo Public Radio immediately become the private audio club it remains today, complete with an ongoing enemies' list and any number of banned or otherwise non-personed Mendo persons, from former 5th District supervisor, Norman de Vall to KC Meadows of the Ukiah Daily Journal, to the marvelously talented Marco McClean. I expect to win the votes of the self-respecting sectors of the membership, that portion of KZYXers who understand that as a tax-subsidized entity Mendo Public Radio belongs to all the people of Mendocino County, even people outside the lib-pwog echo chamber dominated these many years by the cringing, censorious claque whose descendants rule it today. I also think a certain percentage of KZYX’s present paid membership would appreciate a trustee independent of the self-interested persons who dominate it.

Why are you interested in becoming a Board Member?

To agitate for fiscal transparency; term limits for programmers; a daily local news program professionally rendered; to see KZYX/Z at last become a truly public radio station.

What can you contribute to the Board and to Mendocino County Public Broadcasting?

An historical understanding of the enterprise and, perhaps, my newspaper as a means of promotion.

What are your interests and experience?

Interests catholic, experience vast.

What are your affiliations with non-profit organizations, professional societies, etc.?

None.

What do you consider a board member’s fundraising responsibilities and what is your fundraising experience?

A trustee ought to beat the drums for KZYX with the County's numerous service clubs. It's presently invisible (inaudible) to the large majority of Mendocino County residents. My fundraising experience? I've kept my family solvent for many years.

For any questions, please contact the Election Coordinator Ed Keller.

Please send this application to the Elections Coordinator at Email: bod@kzyx.org

Phone: 707.895.2324 Fax: 707.895.2451

Mail: KZYX&Z Board Elections, PO Box 1, Philo, CA, 95466

We must receive your application by 5PM on Tuesday, January 30, 2018!