Letters (Dec. 20, 2017)

• Barbara Lamb! Come On Down!
• Justice?
• Justice? Yes, Justice
• Leave Class K Alone
• Bitter Tears
• Save Class K: The Kabin Kode
• What Now?
• He’s Jerry Brown, Right?
• Way To Go, Marilyn

BARBARA LAMB! COME ON DOWN!

Dear Editor,

We would like to announce that the C’mon Home to Eat raffle for those who participated in the featured local food dinners during October is Barbara Lamb.  She received a $40 gift certificate to Lauren’s restaurant.  We would like to thank the many participating restaurants: Aquarelle, The Bewildered Pig, The Boonville General Store, The Boonville Hotel, Boont Berry,  Bruxo, The Buckhorn Pub, Lizzby’s, Lauren’s, Pennyroyal, Stone and Embers, and The Yorkville Market. Most all of these restaurants feature locally-grown food all year long!

Barbara Goodell, AV Foodshed

Boonville

JUSTICE?

Dear Editor,

Justice — My name is Joshua Hanover and I'm currently housed in the protective custody part of the Mendocino County Jail. I would like to start off by apologizing to the community of our small county of Mendocino for the robbery/kidnapping on the Covelo Road on July 16, 2017, part of the "Jackson Five" crew.

I feel like I was a big influence on the other two codefendants, Daniel ‘Chino’ Sanchez and Matthew Sturgis who are also here with me because of the statements that I not only made toward them but also the statement I made towards Trevor Michael Jackson who subsequently received 25 years at 85% in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. And because of my statements to law enforcement, which by the way were not totally accurate, he will not see his little girl, Taylin Grace Jackson for at least 20 years.

The most important reason for writing to you is that I was promised a "no state prison sentence" deal through district attorney David Eyster for my testimony against my codefendants. So because of my participation in the crime and my testimony against my codefendants I have received 12 years at 85% in prison.

How is that justice?

Sincerely,

Joshua Clayton Hanover

Ukiah

JUSTICE? YES, JUSTICE

Dear Editor:

With your permission, let me please set the record straight in regards to misinformation in a recent letter published from jail inmate Joshua Clayton Hanover. Taken to its essence, Hanover's letter complains that he negotiated a plea bargain with me to avoid prison but, to his feigned public dismay, is instead receiving a 12 year state prison sentence for his involvement in the bungled Jackson Five kidnapping and robbery caper on Covelo Road.

First, Hanover is certainly a pathetic criminal. In am early ill-conceived effort to save himself, Hanover lied to law enforcement investigators when he was originally arrested, lies that initially led to criminal charges being filed against and arrest warrants sought for two innocent men. We quickly caught on to Hanover's ruse and corrected this miscarriage of justice in the making.

Thereafter, Hanover also offered to provide "insider" information to law enforcement as to the whereabouts of then fugitive Trevor Jackson in exchange for some sort of self-serving local deal. Participating in this further scam with a person of Hanover's ilk was never considered by the prosecution. As an aside, Hanover’s "offer" was bogus and an epic fail because Hanover lacked access to credible information about the whereabouts of his supposed "friend." In an end of the game Hail Mary, Hanover finally tried to offer himself up as state’s evidence against all of his fellow robbery buddies, an offer that also was not considered because of Hanover's propensity for lying.

Hanover’s recent letter to the AVA is a manifestation of that propensity, one awash with crocodile tears.

Second, my local prosecutors and I will continue to apply a heavy hand of justice to those in and about our communities -- be it locals or temporary visitors — who exercise life altering bad judgment in choosing to participate in robberies, kidnappings, and other violent crimes against the local citizenry.

Justice, asks Hanover? Yes, Justice, Mr. Hanover; and there will continue to be more of the same justice available for those like you who turn to violent crime and callously prey on others as you did. In a perfect world —meaning let's hope that voter approved Proposition 57 doesn't intervene — no one should plan on seeing Mr. Hanover locally anytime during the next 10 years.

Thank you for this opportunity to set the record straight.

C. David Eyster, District Attorney, Mendocino County

Ukiah

LEAVE CLASS K ALONE

Dear Editor,

At a recent hearing with Supervisors Hamburg and McCowen, the proposed changes to our Class K ordinance were discussed and members of the public were allowed to comment. The supervisors have been gathering information to support or challenge the changes. Out of approximately 12 speakers, only one was for the changes (North Coast Builders Exchange). The rest argued for the continued use of Class K, unaltered. The changes proposed would basically gut the ordinance, requiring many of the code requirements which make building a home so expensive today.

As a builder of 40 years in Mendocino County, I've seen the code morph from a simple easy to read manual to a multiple volume set of unreadable regulations (most of which are promoted by the lobbying efforts of special interests), making the process of building a home ever more onerous and expensive. If our county wishes to promote affordable housing, which it is mandated to do, then they should not consider these changes.

Call or, better yet, write your supervisor and express your concerns, or our county will fall further behind in providing safe affordable housing for our residents.

• hamburgd@mendocinocounty.org
• mccowen@mendocinocounty.org

Jim Boudoures

Philo

BITTER TEARS

Editor:

Columnist George Will reports that the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of income taxes and the bottom 45 percent pay no taxes. I’m crying bitter tears for the wealthy as I contemplate this rank injustice.

But he stops short of giving us the reason for this horrible unfairness. It’s because the people at the bottom have no money. Let’s take some of the billions that go to the top and use them to quadruple the wages of the people at the bottom. Then those at the top would pay fewer taxes and those at the bottom would pay more.

Everyone would be happy then, right?

Richard Salzman

Sebastopol

SAVE CLASS K: THE KABIN KODE

Dear Friends,

Some big changes are in the works for Mendocino’s Class K Ordinance. If you want to see what they are considering, and want a chance to weigh in, read on!

The Mendocino Board of Supervisors has a Standing Committee (of Dan Hamburg and John McCowen) that met to consider a number of changes to the Class K Building Ordinance on Monday, December 11 at 9am. These proposals are very likely to go forward if we don’t email, call them or take some other action. On Tues., December 19, McCowen and Hamburg plan to make their recommendations public, and send them to the rest of the Supervisors, who will meet on this as a full Board in early February (date not yet set). So we have just one week to make our opinions known to Hamburg and McCowen before they finalize their proposal. And then we have till February to work on the full Board. Now’s our chance to speak up! Several of us attended the meeting on the 11th and were quite dismayed at the outcome. It appears that unless there is an overwhelming pushback that these recommendations will stand. They are essentially gutting Class K, perhaps our last avenue of relatively affordable housing. Between now and their finalizing of their proposal on the 19th we urge you to flood your Supervisor with emails and phone calls. And when we get the date of the Board meeting in February, we'll let everyone know. We hope that at that meeting the boardroom will be overflowing with an energized crowd. Where do you stand? United We Stand? Where is our leverage? Please talk to each other, pass ideas around, time is short, this almost slipped under our radar. Don't wait! Tell everybody you know.

Below are the points the subcommittee is considering. At the meeting on the 11th we believe the subcommittee agreed to leave the minimum acreage to 1, and to allow an addition of a 750 square foot attached unit to the 2000 max square foot limit. Otherwise, most of the below points are likely to stand if we don't speak up. These are likely to add between $22,000 and $40,000+ to the cost of a Class K structure, (int fire suppress and perimeter foundation). That does NOT fit the definition of affordable.

Here's their recommendations as of Sept, with minor alterations mentioned above. All future Class K structures come into compliance with CA State Law and require automatic fire sprinklers in all single family residential structures. Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) requirements shall be required for all new single family residential structures. A perimeter foundation, as required by California Building Code (CBC), shall be required under all new single family residences, and all accessory structures greater than one story in height, unless otherwise determined by an engineer. Three (3) inspections will be required to obtain a Class K permit. A new single family residence shall be limited to 2,000 square feet of habitable space under Class K.

A minimum parcel size of five acres shall be required for any structure. The Class K Ordinance shall state that the most recently adopted version of the Uniform Building Code (UBC) would be the operative code. This would avoid the necessity of having to re-adopt Class K each time the UBC was re-adopted.

Stephanie Gold, Boonville

WHAT NOW?

Editor,

I’m not going to attack Mr. Philbrick’s letters to the AVA, and not just because I don’t want to be accused of elder abuse. For one thing, like any real American, I believe in Free Speech all but absolutely. I also know this cliché about “Radical Leftist Democrats” straightjacketing us “real Americans” in “political correctness” is a straw man. It’s just another instance of well-adjusted, middle-of-the-road, middle-aged, middle-class “white men” projecting their own evils on all who they suspect of exploiting them. It’s the Great Silent Majority that decides what is “politically correct” and what is not.

Habitually projecting your own social evils onto your opponents is sound strategy if you’re waging a counter-insurgency war or conducting a counter-intelligence operation. But it’s not a good strategy for achieving international peace, national security or domestic tranquility, as both the blood-splattered 20^th Century and this particular moment make plain.

But who cares about such things when you think you’re being protected by the planet’s Supreme Commander? Bottom line: “white males” are still the dominant political group in this country, they control our elections, and they’re the ones that gifted us, the world, and Comrade Putin, with Trumpites. Anyway, since at least six out of ten American adults know that Trump is grossly unfit for office, what now? For starters, if those who voted for him haven’t done so already, they should admit their mistake, take their licks and make amends by making sure it doesn’t happen again.

And what are these White Nationalist Repugnants in Congress doing unanimously marching us toward a most un-civil war at home to go with their endlessly lucrative black market wars overseas? Don’t these desktop Field Marshalls remember how the oceans flanking us have helped make us passably white, affluent old gentlemen about the safest people on earth? And since when did having future generations buy us an “Invincible Global Military Reach” become our new American Dream? Where in the Declaration of Independence, our Bill of Rights or the US Constitution do we find that bright shining lie? Don’t any of these Trumpite geniuses suspect that maybe, at long last, we the people ain’t quite as ignorant, chickenshit and apathetic as these masterminds presume? Pleased as punch to be the tail wagging the dog, hasn’t it occurred to them that we’re the dog they’re jerking around and that maybe some of us may not appreciate it?

Who hired these cardboard Christian Soldiers proudly peddling their junta’s Daily Line as Gospel? And since when have chest-pounding Christian Fundamentalists been asserting that the end justifies the means? Who’d they consult: Jesus or Trump? Trump the tyrant, atheist, serial adulterer, sexual predator etc., etc., etc.? And who the hell needs these electronically finger-painted Imperial Proclamations so fantastically strange, destructive, cruel, stupid, crooked and blatantly un-godly it makes you want to wash their mouths out with soap?

Have we sunk so deep into a bowl of refried bananas that we’re willing to allow anonymous and interchangeable money-laundering lobbyists, bagmen and fixers to impose on us “permanent federal tax laws” that steal from everybody but the idle rich and the superrich of the very worst kind? (Koch Brothers for the 51^st State of Jefferson’s Dual Monarchs!) As if these “Greed is Good” retrogrades ain’t already way too rich, and far too powerful, even for their own good, much less anybody else’s.

The problem in this country is that we have far too many citizens willing to kill for far too many things, and far too few citizens willing to die for anything they can’t buy or sell, use, abuse and/or throwaway. And so, in this pivotal moment, we’re forced to answer for ourselves some age old questions. Witness to evil, when does silence become complicity? When does ordinary human hypocrisy morph into cowardice? When does cowardice become treason and sacrilege holy?

B. Patterson

Prineville, Oregon

HE’S JERRY BROWN, RIGHT?

Dear Editor,

I did a little survey on my own around for Fort Bragg, Ukiah and Comptche. I asked people who Kim Jong Un was. Out of 135 people I asked, 110 of them did not know who he was. Some thought he was a basketball player. Some said he was a baseball player. Some had no idea. Isn't that a shame? Our society does not even know who is threatening us with a nuclear weapon. They are so wrapped up in their own political thoughts trying to undermine President Trump. Isn't that something to think about? Why don't we let the Hillary Clintons, the Maxine Waters, the Nancy Pelosis, the Chuck Schumers, and I could name a bunch more — why don't we just let them take over? Then we will really be up shit’s creek without a paddle. They won't call it the United States of America anymore, they will call it the Liberal States of America. That's what we have to look forward to as they keep pecking away at President Trump who is the only person alive who can get this country straightened out and back on its feet again. Wake up you Republicans. Wake up you stupid assholes and stand up for your country. It's about time.

God bless Donald Trump.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

WAY TO GO, MARILYN

Editor,

I just wanted to inform the above reporter that I think she did an excellent job on that article. I was having coffee at the Cove Coffee at Point Arena Harbor and happened to see your newspaper and the article attracted my attention. Anyway, I think she was spot on. Please pass on the compliment. I know it's a tough problem as pointed out in the article but she explained it well.

Ken F.

Manchester