Mendocino County Today: Monday, Jan. 22, 2018

• KZYX Whistleblowing
• Women's March
• Female Councilors
• Suspicious Fires
• Little Dog
• Old Wine
• Mendo Bay
• Kai Busting
• Yesterday's Catch
• Housing Issues
• Fake Stuff
• Basic Truth
• Doing Time
• Perpetual War
• Wyoming
• Shooting War
• Trumpcycle
• DWR Allegations
• Miss 1946
• Momma Says

SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED

Subject: CPB regulations
From: "Larry Minson" <lminson@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, January 21, 2018 5:03 pm
To: "Patricia Kovner" <pkovner@yahoo.com>, "Bruce Anderson" <editor@www.theava.com>

Dear Ms. Kovner and Mr. Anderson:

I was a board member at KZYX for about 9 months last year. Unable to persuade the rest of the board to comply with the rules, regulations and laws, under advice from an attorney, I resigned rather than be an accomplice to what was going on.

I was told by the election committee and later by the board itself, that the primary duty of the board was to raise money. This is not correct. The board is charged with overseeing the finances and keeping the operation transparent and is the direct supervisor of the general manager. I was denied access to the books as well as to posting articles on the website, even though the articles were puff pieces about programmers and the like. This was punishment for trying to do my job.

I uncovered that the station is paying $200+ per month on a 6 year lease for a copy machine, including about 15 cents a copy for each copy made. The station only prints, on average, about 100 copies a month, all in black and white, due more to election mailings than internal documents. I was told that the employees like to make a lot of personal, color photographs and the GM, Jeffrey Parker, was quite happy with this arrangement. He told me that I should travel to Philo to attend weekly employee meetings, find out what the employees wanted, and do their bidding. A really good, brand new black and white laser copier can be had for the cost of 2 months lease, plus we would own it. After the 6 years are up, the leased copier will still be good to use, but the station must return it to the dealer at that time.

I learned that one full time employee was literally doing nothing, but the GM told me to ignore that because this employee was probably going to retire in a few years.

Stuart Campbell was the treasurer and kept all the finances secret from the board. He presented the board with the fact that his wife was surreptitiously hired as a full time employee in a secret process that usurped the board's duties and violated all kinds of stuff. Then, he "resigned" from the board, as required, but continued to attend private board meetings and may also still be running the finances.

The current board president, Jenness Hartley, who was handpicked by her predecessor without discussion, is a party to this secrecy and refused to even raise these issues at board meetings.

The board is the laziest, most irresponsible board I have ever seen. They are all too busy being important and beautiful people to perform their duties and don't even know what those duties are.

Stuart Campbell has been running a constant tab on a line of credit that costs the station $11,000 in interest every year. He takes the CPB grant money to pay down the line of credit, then there are insufficient operating funds which makes him run up a new tab. He could easily cut that out, live within a generous budget, and save the station a lot of money, but he says that he needs the line of credit in case emergency funds are required. However, if that were to happen, we should have a zero balance owing rather than being maxed out, and no repairs have ever cost anywhere near the $11,000 he is throwing down the toilet.

Attached is a copy of our Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreement. We are in gross violation of said document and the penalties are so severe that the station would immediately go dark. I also have a written copy of the KZYX bylaws, which the board is also in gross violation of. If you want a copy of the bylaws, let me know and I'll send them to you.

I hope this has been helpful.

Good luck,

Larry Minson

 

attached: Certification Requirements for Station Grants Recipients

* * *

Ed note: Sarah Reith, the KZYX reporter, is Campbell's girl friend.

THE WOMEN’S MARCH IN FORT BRAGG

by Rex Gressett

In two interesting political days not quite a week apart, MLK Day and the Women's March, you could watch Fort Bragg people rise like the first shoots of political springtime, smelling sweetly of serious commitment to shared ideals.

The Women’s March on Saturday was pushing back at the current federal administration, pushing back at its ominous opposition to save our planetary skin. The Women’s March came hard on the heels of Martin Luther King Day the previous Monday with its own implications for push-back. The Women’s March filled Fort Bragg’s Bainbridge Park almost to capacity, packing the park with a sunny, positive, confident liberal presence. There were toddlers and beautiful babies. There were earnest high school kids. There were bigwigs almost in disguise. Dan Gjerde, our fourth district supervisor, kept an extremely low profile, huddling with Doug Hammerstrom, the ousted councilman once the abject minion of now ousted City Manager, Linda Ruffing.

Gjerde knows Fort Bragg like few people do. He’s been paying close attention since he was a kid at Fort Bragg High School. Mayor Lindy Peters was there in trademark aviator shades. Neither Gjerde nor the Mayor spoke to the crowd. The Fort Bragg Democratic Club was the apparent event organizer. The signs were great. "Grab them by the midterms," "times up," " fired up," " act up," "paid family leave," and "no more nukes." The placards, although diverse, seemed strangely harmonic like a single thought. Bernie Sanders had left his mark on this crowd. The day was radiant. 2018 was in the wind.

It was a very civilized march. Everyone was nice. Colorful. Not a cop in sight. How rare in this nation at this time is that? Perhaps the Democratic Club had arranged for the speakers and subtly crafted the presentation of the event to be inclusive of the wide range of democratic politics. Maybe it just fell out that way, although women and equality were a big part of the fabric, resisting Trump, general common sense liberalism and environmentalism all had their clamoring advocates. It was more than anything a gathering of energy for the mid-term elections. Everybody was aware that something basic had changed in the nation, and it was this basic change that got us all walking up to Bainbridge park.

The Weinstein moment meant more to the nation than we can completely understand. It set something great in irresistible motion. The fundamental awfulness of exploitation, its mortally personal dimension, seems a violation of the very soul and the soul seems the very thing we could all agree is inherently worth defending. It is about the sanctity of the person and their right to be free.

Do I have that right?

It seems a solid foundation for the construction of a wiser society. It seems a great gift. It certainly was evident in the unspoken understanding of the whole crowd and in many signs, in the sensibility of the crowd and in their aspirations for expression. Saturday afternoon in Bainbridge park. Me-Too was the beating visible heart.

No one really knew what to say other than what everyone believed. As the speakers ran on, the crowd started to erode in big blocks. Most did not linger.

As we all wandered off, I wondered a little at the people who had not come to the march. There were at least a thousand people present, there may well have been more. But that leaves 6,000 or so who couldn't make it. Of course the vast majority of those who didn't come, don't make it anywhere they don't specifically want to go and missed the Women's March the same way that one misses the procession of the equinoxes, willingly but inadvertently.

But there are a great many people in Fort Bragg, perhaps a voting majority, who would not at any cost attend the Women's March on principle. On the surface they have the upper hand. A percentage of them support Trump and outright oppose the purposes and the principles and the politics of those who stood up at the Women's March. A much greater percentage, I divine, supports the substance of the ideals on display but resists the packaging of the gloriously flamboyant and feisty left wingers. The in your face element is comparatively sedate in Fort Bragg, but sufficient to generate a generally negative reaction.

As the march dissolved and people walked down various avenues of shadowed houses that stretched in all directions from the colorful life that had filled Bainbridge Park, the things that could unite us seemed to glimmer for a moment in the aftermath of the day’s testimonials.

The intolerance for the lack of respect for women is something that obliterates political distinctions. It seems very natural in Fort Bragg. Dignity and freedom is the same for all of us. It’s what they were saying at the demonstration in the park but it’s also what they are thinking in a thousand Fort Bragg homes whose occupants would never turn out for a “liberal” demonstration.

I really don't believe that the Women's Marches of yore had that element of potential contagion. Me-Too gave it to them. The gaudy, almost raunchy, populism one saw expressed in the Fort Bragg march — a living wage, equal pay, privacy protections and fair courts — might easily find local support in the communitarian DNA of the non-marchers as well. The at-home Fort Braggers have already come around to a rigorous scrutiny of their employees at City Hall. In Fort Bragg, populists and progressives united at least electorally could do anything.

INTERESTING SIGN AT MENDO WOMEN'S MARCH SATURDAY

It looks like there was a "local twist" at the Women's March in Fort Bragg and perhaps a hint of who'll be running for city council seats in the Fall. Local election watchers think ousted, we mean soon-to-be "retired," City Manager Linda Ruffing is a 12-1 shot to run for one of the seats. (MendocinoSportsPlus)

FORT BRAGG HOUSE FIRE, downtown on East Pine Street, one block off Main Street, Saturday, January 20, 2018. (Apparently unoccupied at the time of the fire.)

(Photos by Judy Valadao)

* * *

SUSPICIOUS FIRE

January 20, 2018 / 10:48 a.m.
Location: 119 E Pine Street and 720 Stewart Street

Suspects: Unknown

Victims: Walter Peterson / Kathy Oliver

On January 20, 2018 at approximately 10:48 a.m. Officers of the Fort Bragg Police Department were dispatched to assist Fort Bragg Fire for a report of a fire at 720 Stewart Street. As Officers were responding, the Fire Department was dispatched to an additional structure fire located at 119 E Pine Street.

One Officer responded to 119 E Pine Street and one Officer responded to 720 Stewart Street. When the Officer arrived at 720 Stewart Street the resident was waving the Officer down to the alley way behind the residence. The officer noticed the garage was on fire and quickly requested fire personnel to respond to the location. The Fire Department arrived on scene and put the flames out with minimal damage.

The second fire burning at 119 E Pine Street was fully involved when the Officer arrived. Officers closed the streets while the Fire Department fought the fire. Due to the timing and how close the fires were located to one another, both fires are being ruled as suspicious in nature and an investigation is being conducted. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707) 961-2800 or our anonymous Crime Tip Hotline at (707) 961-3049.

(FBPD Press Release)

* * *

WILLITS' GUY, 'LAZ' undoubtedly saw the fire captured by these excellent photos by Judy Valadao:

Totally unrelated but, I happened to be in Bragg yesterday. On the northern end of town I saw blackish smoke, which is never a good sign. So being a news whore I wondered toward the smoke and found a two story old house totally engulfed in fire, it was directly behind a rundown look’n car wash. Talk’n to a local he said, this was the second fire this morning, in this area. Then this morning I read the Advocate online, they claim the FD called both fires suspicious… In the same article they say, a planned Woman’s March was scheduled in the same area at the same time…but when I was there I never saw any signs of a march, or an excess of women in pink hats…

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “A girl friend gave me the hat. I was all ready to go to Fort Bragg for the Women's March when You Know Who laughed and said, ‘You think the ladies aren't on to you, Little Dog? They'll hold you up as Exhibit A of what they're fighting. Stay home, fool. You ain't foolin' nobody’."

TRADE IT ALL FOR ONE BOTTLE OF GERMAINE-ROBIN

AN MCN-listserve poster asks:

In a cool, dark, unused corner of my home is a wine rack full of dust covered wine bottles. Wine and I parted ways years ago so I'm not sure what to do with the contents of the rack. So, wine people: Do I sell it, dump it, turn it into salad dressing, what?

All are 750 ml and one bottle each unless otherwise noted.

• Edmeades Vineyards - 1982 Zini Vineyards Zinfandel (3 bottles)
• JanosMajor Johanneshof - 1971 Hungarian Cabernet Franc Ausbruch (2 bottles)
• Gladstone Cellars - 2000 Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley
• Sutter Home - 2000 Merlot
• Chumela Vineyards - 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon
• Buena Vista - 2000 Merlot
• Lolonis - 2006 Merlot, Redwood Valley
• Bella Sera - 2000 Merlot
• Turning Leaf - 1999 Merlot
• Casarsa - 1993 Merlot (1.5 ltr.)
• Navarro Vineyards - 1984 Edelzwicker (smaller bottle, maybe 375 ml?)

Thanks for your help.

OR, better yet, put it in a nice white box and do like the local wine people do: pretend to be charitable by donating it to the Hospitality House. Then take a nice tax write-off.

MENDO BAY

(Photo by Judy Valadao)

CAUTIONARY TALE IN UKIAH CANNABIS COMPANY’S TROUBLES WITH LAW

Until three weeks ago, the owners of Old Kai, a Ukiah cannabis company, thought they had an open path to operating legally in California’s new marijuana marketplace. They thought wrong, and the pot industry is closely watching their case.

pressdemocrat.com/news/7849842-181/troubles-deepen-for-co-founder-of

ED NOTE: I thought Ms. Johnson did an excellent job on this one. IMO it's highly unlikely that our Supervisors dare take on Sheriff Allman or DA Eyster. Allman is the most popular political figure in years in far-flung Mendo, probably since the legendary Sheriff Standley at the dawn of the 20th century. Allman's known from Gualala to Covelo in a county whose average resident has only the haziest notion of who his or her supervisor is. Eyster runs a distant second to the ubiquitous Allman who appears at community events, including birthday parties, from one end of the county to the other. Put it to a vote, both Allman and Eyster would have high approval ratings. The Supervisors, fresh off an entirely undeserved and huge raise they just gave themselves and their top gofers, would have negative approval ratings, as would county government generally. The Supes simply don't have the political juice to take on the ethics of recent pot busts, not to mention the confusion over local legality inspired by the Supes themselves, whose overly complicated application process changes every time they meet. Then there's the fact that pot busts generate a lot of money for local law enforcement who can always rightly claim that so long as it's illegal at the federal level it's gotta be illegal here, too. The cops have zero incentive in the present context not to bust the pot brigades. And this Seymour guy should have known he wasn't street legal before he set out. People not involved in the pot business don't have a lot of sympathy for all these crooks, er, farmers, frantically trying to get legal after years of tax-free income. The County thought they could garner a lot of registration money from legalization but have made it so difficult to qualify only the big boys of the business even try and, like Seymour, are liable for arrest, legal in Mendo or not. Seymour bought a misdemeanor from Eyster last time he was popped. He's absolutely screwed this time.

CATCH OF THE DAY, January 21, 2018

GREGORY CAMPBELL, Covelo. DUI.

MICHELLE CARR, Ukiah. Getting credit with someone else’s ID, probation revocation.

CAYTLIN COLLICOTT, Willits. Throwing object at vehicle causing injury, controlled substance, conspiracy, resisting, probation revocation.

SALVADOR GARCIA-POLVOS, Ukiah. DUI, evasion.

WAYNE GRIFFIN SR., Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, county parole violation.

CHARLES HENSLEY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent Flyer)

JOSEPH HOAGLEN, Covelo/Ukiah. Mandatory supervision sentencing.

JAMES KNOX III, Kelseyville/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance, parole violation, resisting. (Booking photo not available.)

BRANDON MITCHELL, Laytonville. Domestic battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, vandalism, failure to appear, protective order violation.

RYAN ROYDOWNEY, Covelo. Receiving stolen property, evasion, unlawful display of registration, conspiracy, failure to appear, resisting, probation revocation.

CASSIDY SCHMELTER, Tustin/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JASON ZUMALT, Redwood Valley. Redwood Valley. DUI.

MISDIRECTED FRUSTRATION

To the Editor:

Farm Worker Housing Unfair

In Friday’s (Jan. 5) Ukiah Daily Journal on the front page it says “Housing is being built on Brush Street for agricultural workers.” 72 units, will feature efficient appliances, solar energy and low flow water fixtures. What the heck is happening here! Governor Brown makes our state a Sanctuary State and now we are going to house mostly undocumented workers, give them appliances and all the works and Ukiah approved this? Why may I ask is there not being housing being built for the seniors and the veterans? I know that people will say that there is senior housing built for seniors, but who could pay those prices? Yes I know there is Autumn Leaves, no one wants to live there. There are some senior manufactured parks, but rarely is any of them available and you cannot rent there, you must buy one. As a senior, I am deeply upset that Ukiah does nothing to help the seniors or the veterans that have fought to keep us safe, or the seniors who helped build Ukiah in so many ways, and have worked here for many years and now we are just pushed into a corner and we are not even thought of, no housing for us, not even a thought of building decent housing for us. Ukiah should push this housing for the seniors and veterans and show the rest of California how proud they are to have the best housing for such special people as we are, set an example. As for this 72 unit housing for agricultural workers, I am against it 100 percent and I hope there are other people that are against this and write letters also. Right now I am deeply ashamed that Ukiah is letting this happen, that it was approved and is going to happen and that nobody knew this until it was posted on Jan. 5. This really irritates me to no end, I cannot believe Ukiah has let this pass. Again, shame on you Ukiah, you have no idea who needs the help the most, the seniors and the veterans.

Linda Warden, Ukiah

ED NOTE: This letter appeared recently in the Ukiah Daily Journal. It raised the contradictions, as we used to say when there was still more or less a "left." But like a lot of Mendo white people the anger of the letter writer is mis-directed. County policy, for years now, has been implicitly aimed at subsidizing the wine industry, not that any County official would admit it even if he or she were aware of the net effect of much local social policy. The fundamental problem at all levels of government is economic assumptions untethered to economic realities. At the state and federal levels of elected government race demagogues of all ethnicities keep Americans at each other's throats while the owners of the country, the One Percent, grow wealthier than ever.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

FAKE government, FAKE Congress, FAKE media, FAKE education, FAKE religions. What is one to do?

SOULLESS LIARS

Editor,

“S---hole? Yeah, I said it. So what?”

That would have been preferable to first tacitly admitting, then later denying and traipsing out a parade of stooges, creating a conspiracy of once-normal people now somehow terrified and willing to repeat lies and parse words supporting a clearly unfit and unstable man. For what? Job security?

Donald Trump has created an army of soulless zombie liars. Most decent people would resign if asked to publicly lie to cover up detestable acts by a detestable person with detestable morals and goals. No decent person would join the mob implying that the two honest men in that room — a Republican and a Democrat — were liars.

Trump is doing the ultimate evil to our democracy. If left unanswered and unpunished, this tsunami of lies and attacks on the boundaries of basic decency will somehow become the norm, undermining credibility, undermining the morality of the heart, undermining courage to openly speak truth. Like a cancer, it will destroy this once great dream we call the American experiment, because there will no longer be truths upon which to base the decisions that guide our sacred privilege to vote for our own salvation.

John Markarian

Santa Rosa

JERRY’S COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG

Editor;

My Country Right and Wrong

“It’s no secret that the billions of dollars demanded by the Pentagon for the armaments industry are necessary not for ‘national security’ but for keeping the economy from collapsing.” — Hanna Arendt

Proof. I’d like to see Jerry Philbrick prove his false claim that Japan started WWII when it bombed Pearl Harbor. Most historians agree that WWII began with Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in March of ’39. Over two years before Pearl Harbor. Japanese Imperial aggression in China and the Pacific also helped begin WWII. The US declared war on Japan on 12-8-1941. I guess one could imagine the war starting only when the US finally got involved, that is if Eastern European and Chinese lives don’t matter much.

America did in fact start the so-called wars in Korea and Vietnam. They weren’t wars in any typical sense. Those countries posed no threat to our national security. Both conflicts became “wars” when the US belligerently invaded them with spies, propaganda, economic mayhem, ruthless dictators, and finally troops to quell the violence we fomented. Both invasions were illegal, immoral, and ill-advised to put it mildly. Premier Diem was at the time one of the most brutal dictators in the world. For some never-explained reason the US is always installing the worst kind of butchers to spread its twisted version of “democracy.” Never explained by official or mainstream media sources, that is. A person has to work at it to find the truth of what our government actually does out there in the real world in our name, and fortunately there are many fine scholars who devote their lives to doing just that.

Every US president from McKinley on have been expansionist imperialist. They have all put America on a course of permanent militarism. Our thriving military-industrial complex now threatens peace in the world and has all but bankrupted our economy and trashed our precious Constitution. The Imperial Presidents, especially since 9/11, have shredded the parts of the constitution that protect us from autocratic tyrannies.

If seeing through our government’s lies and propaganda makes me un-American, then there must be two Americas. I was born here from European descendants and will not be driven out by liars, criminals, national supremacist, racial supremacist, religious supremacist, or any other kind of self aggrandizing haters of the real America built on freedom, liberty and justice.

I couldn’t agree with Mr. Philbrick more, all the bastards in high office and board rooms who are the real anti-Americans, who’ve ruined our economy and our reputation in the world, who’ve lowered our standards of living and education and health; they should all be sent to some destitute dustbowl where the glories of their perverse version of Democracy have been exported, and left to rot in what they sowed!

Some more quotes from some others who are most likely also full of shit as Jerry Philbrick concludes I am.

“Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican liberty.” —George Washington, farewell address 9-17-1796

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience… In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell address, 1-17-1961

“Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.” —Hanna Arendt

“Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments of bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing with our offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare…. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or the venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.” —James Madison, chief author of the US Constitution

Remember, never believe anything that comes out of the mouths of politicians or the vested interests for which they all work. The corporate media is not liberal in any sense except for its liberal use of official sources, hand-picked “experts” and celebrity shills. Turn of your TV and go to the library.

Thanks,

Ross Dendy

Elk

WYOMING LANDSCAPE — With Cow Chips

(Photo by Harvey Reading)

SHUT DOWN

Editor,

The shutdown. The Democrats are so jealous of what Donald Trump has done in the first year they can't stand it. The only way they can get even is to create some kind of leverage on him by shutting down the government. That’s Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi for you. Those people are rotten to the core. President Trump has done more in one year than any other sitting president we ever had in the history of the United States. That's not that hard to do because our other presidents had things so screwed up that probably you or I could have done it. Then we have Mr. Moonbeam Brown threatening to arrest our own citizens if they don't agree with his rules and defy the federal government from doing their work with the illegal immigrants. Isn't that something? He's going to arrest our own citizens over illegal immigrants. This is going to start a shooting war probably between the federals and the state people because the government is not going to give up. Most of the citizens are going to be on the side of the federal government. Jerry Brown is a rotten son of a bitch; his whole administration is. At some point he should be impeached. Actually no, he should be coated with honey and staked to an anthill. That would be better.

Somebody should write something telling us how come we would be wrong to defend ourselves against our own state for coming to try to arrest us over the fact that if we don't turn over illegal aliens. Explain that to me. If somebody comes around to arrest us there's going to be shots fired, believe me. Somebody tell me where I'm wrong. What's wrong with defending ourselves against these communist sons of bitches?

God bless Donald Trump

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

ASSEMBLYMAN FRAZIER SLAMS ILLEGAL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN DWR & STATE WATER BOARD

by Dan Bacher

SACRAMENTO – On January 18, Assemblymember Jim Frazier, D-Discovery Bay, issued a statement responding to alleged unlawful ex parte communications between the State Water Resources Control Board and the Department of Water Resources regarding the proposed Delta Tunnels outlined in complaints filed by Delta region local governments, public agencies and advocacy organizations.

“If these allegations are true, it attests that DWR has been illegally manipulating the process in favor of the disastrous tunnels project and doing it behind closed doors. I’m appalled that the State Water Board would show such bias and not represent the whole state but only a portion of the state.

These allegations are more of the same unethical, unprofessional and illegal behavior by DWR that we have seen in the past, exposed by a recent State Auditor’s report.

The public, especially residents of the Delta, deserve to have confidence that the process is fair, transparent and focused on what is best for all Californians, not just the interests of a few.

I am grateful to the local governments and advocacy organizations in the Delta for bringing these apparent violations – discovered through a Public Records Act request – to light. I join them in calling for a full investigation into the prohibited communications alleged in the complaints.”

In a victory for Delta Tunnels opponents, the California Water Fix hearing team at the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento on January 17 announced that the project hearing days scheduled for January 18 through February 1, 2018 are cancelled.

They cancelled the hearings to give the hearing officers time to review all four motions filed by counties, cities, fishing groups and environmental organizations yesterday asking for a 90 day stay in the hearings due to alleged illegal “exparte communications” and meetings between the Department of Water Resources and State Water Board staff.

“Unless the hearing officers notify the parties of any additional changes to the hearing schedule, the parties should assume that Part 2 of the hearing will resume on February 2, 2018 with policy statements only. Unless rescheduled the evidentiary portion of Part 2 will resume on February 5, 2018,” the team said.

On January 12, the Save the California Delta Alliance yesterday filed a request for continuance of the California Water Fix proceedings at the State Water Board. The alliance, represented by lawyer Michael Brodsky, alleges ex-parte communications between DWR and State Water Board staff, and requests that steps be taken to correct the problem, such as “disqualification of hearing team members and replacement with administrative law judge; removal of flow criteria from evidentiary hearing and including it with the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan update, or dismissal of the petition.”

This emails documenting the ex-parte communications were released through a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request by Patrick Porgans and Associates.

Brodsky was encouraged by yesterday’s decision by the California Water Fix hearing team.

“It’s a recognition that this is a very serious situation and that the ultimate outcome of the hearings could be irrevocably tainted if they don’t take some action on the ethical violations that have taken place,” said Brodsky. “They gave the Department of Water Resources until Friday to respond. It might have been better to REQUIRE DWR to respond.”

“I’d like to thank Patrick Porgans, who brought this whole situation to our attention with his CPRA request,” emphasized Brodsky.

Read the request for continuance here: req for continue tofile (002)

On January 15, San Joaquin County, Sacramento County, City of Stockton, City of Antioch, and Local Agencies of the North Delta also jointly prepared and filed one motion asking the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to stay the hearing on the controversial project at least 90 days.

For more information on the DWR and State Water Board’s illegal export communications scandal, go to: www.dailykos.com/...

MISS LESLIE, 1946, Golden Gate Park

I QUIT

Jan. 22, 1918: Miller Vaughan of Sebastopol, a twenty-year-old lad, who is a member of the 161st Infantry Regiment at Camp Greene, is en route to camp under armed guard as a deserter, as the result of obedience to his mother’s orders. The boy was granted a fifteen-day leave November 15 and came to his home for a visit with his parents. His father was injured about that time and the mother told the boy he must remain at home and assist her in taking care of the place, which she was unable to handle alone. Finally Mrs. Vaughan sent the boy to this city in civilian clothes with his uniform and directed that he turn it over to the recruiting officer here and tell him that he was going to quit the army. This the lad did, only to be taken into custody by the officer and turned over to the authorities. The lad must now face court martial for desertion, as he had overstayed his leave more than a month when he reported.

(SF Chronicle)