Valley People (April 25, 2018)

JENNIFER JJ THOMASSON, of the Anderson Valley Market Thomassons, now Jennifer Schlafer, is the proud mother of a baby girl who joins Jennifer, husband Jeff and the Schlafer’s two boys at their home in Redwood Valley.

THE YELLOW IRIS at Scharffenberger Winery, Philo, are in bloom, and every time I see them I’m surprised all over again that they’re regarded as “invasive.” I wish they’d invade my place, and bring all the other irises with them.

DIDN’T KNOW the guy was an artist, and a pretty good one, too, the ref being to Jimmy Humble, whose paintings are presently on display at Mosswood.

YOU HAVE UNTIL the 9th of June to get clean and sober for the second annual Clean and Sober Music Fest at the Boonville Fairgrounds. For the price of admission you get our very own Real Sarahs, among other entertainers, plus “camping, entertainment, food and good ol’ sober fun.”

FROM 5TH DISTRICT Supe’s candidate, Dave Roderick, whose campaign flyer tells us he wants to “Integrate advanced trade skill training in our high schools and expand Mendo College’s advanced manufacturing tech programs.” Yes! Back to the future with a reinstatement of vocational training. Our Nation’s Future is going to need real survival skills when the old economy goes poof!

LONG-TIME AVA contributor David Yearsley has received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2018-2019 to support work on his latest book project, Bach Laughs. Readers of America’s Last Newspaper will have encountered some of his writings on ol’ Johann over the years since 1990, when Yearsley began contributing. Excerpts from his previous monographs—Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint; Bach’s Feet; and the forthcoming Sex, Death, and Minuets: Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks—have appeared first in Boonville’s famed broadsheet. Of particular interest to Yearsley are the ways the composer’s life and works help us understand—and misunderstand—the paradoxes of the present day, concerns explored in pieces such as Bach and Taxes, Bach as Jihadi, Bach and Climate, to name but a few.  No composer’s image is more severe than Bach's, yet even in his own time he was hailed as a sublime humorist. Yearsley says he now “plans to take Bach’s comic genius seriously.” The Guggenheim Foundation makes only one award each year in the category of “Music Research,” and Yearsley said he felt “ridiculously lucky” to have been nominated. He hastened to add that  "the encouragement and example of the AVA  taught me how to write and to think and to resist received truths, especially in the case of outsized cultural and political figures of Bach’s stature." The fellowship will allow Yearsley to take the year off from his teaching duties at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. You’ll find him often in Boonville in the coming months at the central offices of the AVA, "ready to talk Bach—and kindred matters of great importance."

INTERESTING ITEM from the minutes of the recent AV Fire Department Budget Committee meeting: “Committee member Scaramella said he'd heard that among the steps being considered since the Redwood Complex fires and the after-action report (now in draft form at the County level), individual Fire Chiefs will have authority to initiate reverse 911 calls in their area without going through dispatch. Scaramella wanted to make sure the Chief was aware of it and that local reverse 911 protocols are developed if/when this authority is enacted. Chief Avila replied that the Fire Chiefs have been told that changes are coming but have not been trained or familiarized with the new system. Avila also said that Mendocino County has not yet done an independent OES after-action review like Sonoma County did and he hopes that an independent outside report is prepared at some point.”

THE AVHS Music Production class will have its original compositions performed by the  Del Sol String Quartetworld of San Francisco. The famed quartet will perform 17 student compositions on Monday, April 30 at 7pm in the AVHS Cafeteria.

BOB FOWLER, the ava's senior meteorologist, brings our rainfall stats up to date, and we're talking Boonville here: Bob has our total at a little over 25 inches on the season, with 3.1 inches in last week's deluge to get there, but still short of the annual 30 or so inches we've seen over the past few years.

OOPS. Cindy Wilder writes: “If Ron Verdier reads the paper this week he will be surprised to hear he is running for supervisor. The guy's last name is Rodier, I think."

THE CANDIDATE is indeed Mr. Rodier. Mr. Verdier is the talented architect who makes his headquarters in Boonville.

BLACK HAWK DOWN! Frost fans thundered through the Anderson Valley early last Thursday morning, destroying the sleep of everyone south of Anderson Valley Market here in Boonville. But, in the immortal words of wine guy Ted Bennett, "My grapes are more important than your sleep."

AND THOSE VINEYARDS advertising themselves as "fish friendly"? They annually belie their claim by the death brown Roundup streaks in between their vines as the fish friendlies poison-down the weeds this time of year, when everything is otherwise a God’s glory of green.

NOT THAT industrial grape growing is responsible for all the environmental woes of the Anderson Valley and inland Mendocino County, but when's the last time anybody saw a fish like this in Anderson Creek? Or the Navarro for that matter? Up through the sixties and early seventies (Pre-Grapes) they were still thriving.

REPRESENTATIVES of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting were in Philo last week for a close-up look at the station's neo-cult management practices. Don't get your hopes up for any changes in insider hiring, fiscal chicanery, ever more pay for invisible management, surly, boorish behavior of staff, and so on, which is what happens when… well, no need for gratuitous insult here. But here's what we can expect: The two feds get a government-paid B&B week in the glorious spring time of Anderson Valley, and probably a weekend in Frisco before flying back to Trump City. They'll eventually write a weasel-worded report that says they found "minor irregularities that station management assured us are mere oversights and will be quickly remediated. We found criticism of the station largely unfounded and based on unfamiliarity with standard management practices…"

GOVERNMENT RADIO is circular. The government funds the NPR programming, which the station returns to the government to pay for the programming. A real crackdown on a small group of petty chiselers is not in the interests of Government Radio.

THANKS to an agreement with the Boonville Hotel, we are pleased to announce that we have been permitted to manage a new farmers’ market on its grounds. This will be a certified market unaffiliated with the McFarm Association. The Hotel wants only sellers of agricultural products and food who have all necessary county permits to vend. Like last year, the market will be every Saturday from 9:30am to noon. If you have interest in vending in 2018 contact us and we will be happy to send you the requirements for vending. As in all previous markets the manager decides who vends and where he/she will set up. The Hotel has no desire to be involved with the market or to referee any problems. They have requested that their management and staff do not receive any market related comments or questions, so if you have interest, questions or comments, contact us directly. We look forward to seeing everyone at the NEW Boonville Farmer's Market and hearing from potential vendors. Steve and Nikki, Petit Teton Farm Managers, Boonville Farmers’ Market Farmer@petitteton.com 684-4146

THE 36th ANNUAL BOONTLING CLASSIC is set for Sunday, May 6 at 10am. A 5k run/walk from Anderson Valley Elementary school down AV Way and back. Plaques to the top man and woman finisher. Ribbons for the top three in each age division. Drawing for prizes. Entry fee is $10. Commemorative t-shirts also $10. More info: 621-2701 or flick@mcn.org

MIKE KOEPF WRITES:

"Attended the wild flower exhibition in Boonville yesterday. Learned from a nice lady manning a microscope that a lovely, little flower that grows around my house, and one that I sometime pick to display in a vase, is called a "death camas.” A few bites and it's the hospital or lights out. Later, strolled to the nearby “goat festival” and met supervisor candidate, Ted Williams. Nice, sweet kid, intelligent, idealistic, BUT with strings attached — notably, the nuclear core of looney libs of bygone years who’ve turned this county into their own private, political goat rope, sans regret or introspection. It was nice to meet Micky Colfax and Charlie Acker again hovering close along with so many of the usual suspects off camera from the Mendocino Coast Democratic Club — Norman de Vall, Paul Tichinin, Don Kirkpatrick, Paul Katzeff, Tom Wodetzki. They’re all on board anticipating strings attached to their fair haired lad. If Williams was to win, my only hope is that he owns a pair of scissors and can cut the strings to those engaged in a desperate search for a Hamburg clone.

“PS. LAST NIGHT at R.D. Beacon’s Cocktail Lounge—David Eyster made a fun-filled appearance pressing the flesh with the locals belly-up to the bar. He was wearing a pork-pie hat and Hawaiian style shirt reminiscent of Gene Hackman in the French Connection. Like Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, Eyster always gives the bad guys exactly what they deserve. As I left, I shook his hand and told him I predicted he’d win his upcoming election by a landslide. The acute DA pointed out that he only needed one vote to win since he’s unopposed. As evidenced by his positive reception at The Beacon Light it’s obvious why he is. Also present was Amy Bloyd, nee Lilliberg, once the Queen bartender of the old Boonville Lodge. However, it was a non-flashing night. In honor of Eyster's visit, Chief Beacon reduced the drinks to “happy hour” prices.”

UKIAH HIGH SCHOOL students pulled off an appropriately (thank you, Meg Courtney, for the word loan) raucous gun control rally in front of the County Courthouse, Ukiah, last week. Here in Boonville? Our high school scholars kept their noses in their books, er, cell phones, uh, laptops. Two on-line comments probably represented most adult opinion of the Ukiah demo: (1) They do this to get out of going to school; the crowd is small and everyone walked out. Where to, home? (2) Get back to class and learn how to write a good letter, make a convincing speech, and run a meeting. Standing on the street whining is a ridiculously ineffective way to try to make a point.

JUDGING the Supe's race purely by the number of candidate signs in the Anderson Valley, Roderick is wayyyyy out in front. The mighty ava predicts Roderick in a runoff with either Williams or Skyhawk, probably Williams. But to beat back either Williams or Skyhawk, Roderick will have to show up in both Albion and Mendocino in tie-dye, and drop a rhetorical “paradigm”' or two at candidate's nights.

THE ACTIVE MENDO DEMOS, of the politically feckless central committee type, are torn between Skyhawk and Williams, so torn the County's Demo Central Committee has announced they won't endorse for the 5th District seat, a seat the Demos assume belongs to them, although the Supervisors, in theory, are a non-partisan body, and also in theory act in the best interests of the whole county. They've endorsed Haschak for 3rd District supe, although judged purely by their prose, Mrs. Haschak would be the more attractive of the two as a supervisor. The ava is for Pinches in the 3rd because he's always been devoted to all of Mendocino County and available to all his constituents. And he has never feared talking back to Mendo's little Deep State, the permanent bureaucracy in Ukiah.

AN INTERESTING CANDIDATE FORUM page maintained by Kathy Wylie and Cathy Wood is available via Facebook. It's eponymously called, I think, Mendocino Fifth District Supervisor Race. Ms. Wood is candidate Williams' step-mom, but from what I see she's maintaining an unbiased, open-to-all page focused strictly on the issues. Ms. Wylie has served as foreman of the County Grand Jury and still is, I think, president of the Mendocino County Federation of School Employees (Classified and Certificated staff).

THE FIVE MEN running for the 5th District represent, by far, the smartest, best informed group of candidates I can remember in any Mendocino County election race over the past fifty years, which isn't saying a whole helluva lot considering, but encouraging nonetheless.

IN THE COURSE of some candidate talk on use of herbicides and pesticides, Chris Skyhawk made the useful point that "local jurisdictions are not allowed to prohibit the use of herbicides due to pre-emption (where the state takes regulatory powers from local authorities). If we were a Charter County we could take back some of that power."

THAT'S RIGHT, and not-so-old timers will recall that Mendocino County overwhelmingly passed into local law an ordinance prohibiting the aerial application of chemicals following a grisly episode that saw L-P helicopters aerially spray a bunch of kids on Greenwood Road as they waited for a school bus. But then at the state level, Willie Brown, ever attentive to big money interests, and at the behest of Big Ag, hustled into state law a measure that prohibited local jurisdictions from regulating chemically-enhanced agriculture.

SKIP TAUBE nicely summed up the Mendo pesticide situation: "Do you think enforcing Measure V could help reduce the use of poisons in the wine grape industry as well as everywhere; as the reported use of RoundUp (glyphosate) in 2015 was over 18,000# on wine grapes, 7000# of herbicides in the forest, 2000# on pears, etc etc?!!!!!!!!!" And "that works out to over 1 cup a year for decades for every man, woman & child living and eating and drinking and breathing in Mendocino County (and the animals, plants and fish get what's left after we are long gone). My cup runneth over!"

ANYBODY serving as supervisor ought to have an understanding of inland water issues, especially the precariousness of the entire Diversion system at Potter Valley, and how Mendo gets annually shorted on the income from water piled up in Lake Mendocino, most of which is owned by Sonoma County, an arrangement which, for reasons of major historical blunder, have continued since 1954. Supervisor Pinches couldn't even get his colleagues to talk about re-negotiating that deal when he was supervisor! Anyway, We liked candidate Roderick's response to rival candidate Ted Williams:

"Ted, Yesterday you asked for clarification regarding my statements about the need for expanding water storage facilities in Mendocino county, specifically within the coastal zone. You framed the questions with the obvious concern of environmental impacts that such projects invariably present. This is true. However, it is now beyond doubt that our environment is changing, rapidly, and that rainfall patterns of the past can not be assumed into the future. We can not wait 30 years and discover that we should have planned for a secure water source for the coastal areas. Cape Town South Africa has learned what it means to not plan for water scarcity, as their "day zero" approaches. Yesterday, April 19, I was the only supervisor candidate from Mendocino county invited to attend an all day tour of the main fork of the Eel River and the diversion system to the Potter Valley irrigation district and power generation facility. I was given access to areas the public does not usually get to see. More importantly, I spent nine hours with hydrologists, river system biologists, water rights experts, representatives from Cal Fish and Wildlife, Cal state Water Resources Control Board, supervisors and council members from our neighboring counties and cities. I was able to ask questions about the future of water storage facilities in our state and our county and what was being done to prepare for changes that are occurring now. Without exception, the group agreed this is an issue that needs action now. Not everyone agreed on how to do it, citing impacts that will occur from any plan that involves water catchment of a scale needed to provide an emergency water storage for thousands of people. My plan involves siting a state size water project within a watershed system of class 2 or higher tributaries , meaning they have no native fish populations. There are multiple sites that qualify under this criteria namely within Jackson State Forest, which is in close proximity to the populations of Fort Bragg and the Mendocino. Nothing will be done to address our water security if the conversation does not begin. Conservation works only if you have actual water to conserve. Individual catchment such as rain harvesting does not provide enough primary supply to be effective, year round. These are the challenges we face as we move forward with this conversation."

THE DAYS are getting longer and the nights are becoming warmer and it’s nearly time to plant your summer garden. The Mendocino County Fair has a fun fruit and vegetable competition every year in the Agriculture Building during the fair and you can enter your home grown goods for viewing and judging. Start planning now to select plants that you love, ones that love your location and ones which are fun to enter in the fair. All types of produce from onions to oregano have categories which you can enter. Roma tomatoes and butternut squash are among to most contested categories each year. Giant pumpkins award a nice cash prize. Largest tomato and largest apple have special awards too. Start planning now and impress your friends and neighbors in September. Entry is available later in the summer online at mendocountyfair.com  You can stop by the office and pick up a book. See you all at the Fair September 14th to September 16th this year! — Donna Pierson-Pugh and the entire Fair Fan support group