Valley People (March 21, 2018)

FIFTH DISTRICT Supervisor Candidates' Night at the AV Grange on April 9^th starting at 7:00. The election will be June 5^th.  All five candidates: Arthur Juhl (Gualala Real Estate Broker), David Roderick (Hopland business owner and farmer), Alan Rodier (Ukiah farmer and attorney), Chris Skyhawk (Albion youth/family counselor), and Ted Williams (Comptche computer programmer and Albion-Little River Volunteer Fire Chief) will each talk about why they think they are the most qualified for the position, answer a set of general questions, and then respond to questions from the audience.

BRUNO P. FONTAINHA, owner of the Rancho Navarro property at 3500 Seabiscuit, is being foreclosed on by a Sherman Oaks outfit. I bring it up not to embarrass Bruno but because Bruno could stave off these proceedings if he points out to his creditors that the formal notice of his mortgage arrears, was published in the ICO, Gualala, not the legally adjudicated paper for Navarro to Yorkville it should have been posted in, the Anderson Valley Watchamacallit.

LAST WEEK, Maya Kehl, a student at Anderson Valley High School, alerted us that she and her classmates would be joining a national student walkout to honor the 17 young people murdered in Florida. “It will start at 10:00 and last 17 minutes,” she said.

MISS KEHL was as good as her word.

THE 17-MINUTES of national solidarity, Boonville division, began promptly at 10 am as students silently, and with a solemnity not ordinarily associated with young people, assembled around an explanatory banner in front of the high school gym to demand gun reform, and to remember the 17 high school students murdered in Florida by a deranged young man wielding an automatic weapon.

I WAS DIRECTED to JT Carlin the president of the K-12 student body of 220. I’d already been surprised at the students’ mute seriusness, and I was surprised a second time to find an impressively articulate young man in an increasingly non-verbal county and country, who efficiently and thoroughly explained the reason for the silent demonstration:

“WE WANT to see our nation's government take more action to protect our nation's future,” Carlin began. “My family has moved around quite a bit. I have been part of several families. And guns have been a common fixture in them. They are a big part of a rural community like this one. But there's a fine line between owning and responsibly using a firearm and using it like these shooters have. The Second Amendment is very tricky on the subject. There are ways of regulating guns which do not undermine the ideals that our country was founded on. If they want to keep the Second Amendment intact while reducing the risk of these shootings, there needs to be more regulation and education to teach people how to safely use firearms. We also need more mental health screenings, and more background checks before purchasing a firearm.”

THE FULLY INFORMED Carlin went on to explain that AVHS is a “fairly low risk school in a small community, and a troubled kid here has a lot of people he or she can turn to for help. People who have problems need to be identified early on then get help. Our school does a fairly good job of that.”

FOLLOWING a brief address by high school principal Jim Snyder, the students filed back into their classrooms.

BOONVILLE WINTER MARKET CLOSES. Thanks to all the vendors and customers who have made the Boonville Winter Market such a success for 10 years. Some might remember that we began as the GrangeMart at the AV Grange for two years before we moved to Boonville to become the Boonville Winter Market. Our first year in Boonville was in front of Lauren’s restaurant. We then moved to our final location in front of Seebass, next to the Boonville General Store. Thanks also to the AV Grange, Lauren's, the Boonville General Store and Seebass for supporting the effort to make a farmers’ market available year round in Anderson Valley. Unfortunately, we no longer have someone available to coordinate this effort. For this reason, the Boonville Winter Market will no longer be in operation. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements on the future of farmers’ markets in AV.

BUT FARMING in the Anderson Valley continues: “It feels as though we've taken a month off.  With daily frost and hail  and rain and sleet we've spent very little time in the gardens lately  except to weed them and feed animals.  And there's little need to be in  the commercial kitchen since the produce from last year has all been  processed and the only full freezers are those containing meats...pork,  beef, squab, chicken and rabbit...and those are quickly being depleted.   So, we've spent our time catching up - cleaning out files and burning  many pounds of paper; inputting numbers into our tracking system; fixing  all the damaged and broken things that accumulate in a year; catching up  on unfinished business; planning for the future; and being politically  active in any way we can.  Many of the starts for this year are being sown by a friend in Ft Bragg,  since the weather is more stable on the coast.  In preparation for  planting once the weather settles, 5 flats of onions, which she started  and recently delivered, are hardening off outdoors.  In the greenhouse  we sowed several flats of greens which are just coming up.  The garlics  are doing well in the field as are the overwintered onions.  Otherwise  the kale, collards, favas, arugula, choy, and mustards are all going to  flower - our favorite part to eat.  We've harvested all the cabbages for  sauerkraut and are still harvesting a small amount of broccoli each  week.  The plum trees have finished blooming (hopefully a few bees  managed to pollinate them), the peaches are flowering now and the pears  are about to pop.  The most beautiful bloomer, the quince hedge, is  loaded with buds.  We hope your spring has sprung and that you too had time to take care of  unfinished business." (Nikki and Steve at Petit Teton)

NOTES (they don’t call them “minutes” any more) from the February 21 meeting of the Mendocino County Association of Fire Districts are finally floating around. The meeting was held in Anderson Valley, with representatives of most of the County’s 20-some fire districts and departments and fire “companies” in attendance. CEO Carmel Angelo and Supervisor John McCowen, fresh off their joint (sic) botch-up of pot policy, were also on-hand. Most of the discussion was about what to do after Mendo separates itself from Sonoma County’s Coastal Valley EMS operation (which we’ve discussed in some detail previously) — Mendo (i.e., Angelo) is not happy with the lack of service they got during the Redwood Complex Fire or with the continuing delays in the processing of the Exclusive (ambulance) Operating Area implementation.

ONE OF THE sub-conversations was about what kind of revenues fire departments can expect from pot taxes (as called for in last year’s pot tax and regulation measure approved by County voters). Answer, according to the unbylined notes: “Short term benefits from current County cannabis taxes appear quite dim.”  (Mark Scaramella)

BEAT BACK THE WEEDS! Anika Williams writes: "Thank you to those who came last time, hope to see you again! We had so much fun last month we are doing it again! Volunteers Needed For Invasive Plant Removal at Hendy Woods State Park Sunday March, 25^th11 AM to 1 PM. Meet at the Hendy Woods State Park Day Use Picnic Area. Enjoy FREE Park entrance for the day. Bring some gardening gloves, hand trowels/loppers & a picnic lunch. Meet new people &/or catch up with old friends. Ages 5 & up. (Rain cancels)"

FROST FANS battered pre-dawn South Boonville early Monday morning to destroy the sleep of some three hundred nearby residents, and some not so nearby. These fans are clearly in violation of the County’s 50-decibel, max, sound ordinance. Which remains unenforced because the wine industry calls the political tune in Mendocino County. We suggest that the many persons disturbed by these early morning aural assaults call 911 to demand the persons responsible be cited. But, but, but… aren’t the wineries exempted from the noise ordinance because they’re farming? No, they’re exempted politically. The right to farm protection they cite shouldn’t apply because the affected residential neighborhoods pre-date the Anderson Valley wineries. The frost fans are four years old, although a lot of them were installed a couple years prior to being turned on. SoBo has been residential (and quiet farming) since Boonville was Kendall City, circa 1856. Right to Farm says people moving into a noisy area can complain about racket that pre-dates the newbies. Of course the frost fans are far worse than, say, a boom box belting out moron music at top volume. If you’re within a mile of a frost fan the din is so loud it’s impossible to sleep through even with ear plugs.

JAMES CONAWAY'S latest book is called Napa at Last Light: American’s Eden in an Age of Calamity. The author has written several books on Napa's wine industry, this latest one highly critical of the ecological and sociological damage done to the Napa Valley by the Golden Horde, the billionaires who descended on Napa over the past quarter century and have since converted the once bucolic farming community into a garishly over-crowded tourist trap pegged to a wine theme.

HERE IN THE ANDERSON VALLEY, the Golden Horde is so far fairly subdued, but they're here, fouling the hillsides and ridgetops with apparently endless vineyards, and as has happened in Napa and areas of Sonoma County, they, the Golden Ones, have diverted and often sucked dry the Valley streams that put the water in our watersheds.

THERE ARE LOTS of little guy wineries who farm responsibly, but the big boys engage in a heavily industrialized production process dependent on herbicides and pesticides, and when's the last time you've seen a frog anywhere near a major vineyard?

FORTUNATELY for the Anderson Valley, we remain so very, very rural that we don't have the infrastructure — large-scale water and sewage systems — that made it easy for the super-rich to destroy the Napa Valley, where all they had to do is arrive and buy up the place.

BUT THE WINE INDUSTRY dominates Mendocino County, and all the elected apparatuses from the Supervisors to city councils are auto-yes votes for whatever the wine and tourist industry wants. And, of course, elected people at the state and federal level — Huffman, Wood and McGuire — are wholly owned subsidiaries of the wine juggernaut.

AS THE DROUGHT kicks back in, expect the fighting over water to intensify, especially in the Ukiah Valley where wine reps have gotten themselves placed on the requisite boards of directors to make sure their industry retains first dibs on water's finite supply.

FOR PEOPLE who advertise the Anderson Valley as "the unhurried Napa Valley," and even look forward to a version of Napa here, Conaway's book should be a cautionary tale.