Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 1, 2018

• Five Inches
• Willits Balks
• Grateful Owens
• NCRA Declined
• Equipment Returned
• Little Dog
• Kimberlin Appearance
• Wildlands Walks
• Beer Fest
• Hendy Invasives
• Hutchins Endorsement
• Pinches Crash
• Deadbeat Chief
• Sweeney DNA
• Azzi Camp
• Sample Ballots
• Covelo Drive-By
• Hospital Comments
• Measure C
• Trauma Reduction
• Yesterday's Catch
• Walled Compounds
• Envious Lawyers
• Passion Flower
• Crooked Prez
• Disenfranchised
• Crocodile Oatmeal
• Meeting Cancelled
• Lion Proliferation
• 1933
• Gun Divestment
• Collapsing
• Not Funny
• Dirty SF
• Biking

JUST OVER FIVE INCHES of rain fell on Yorkville during the month of April, raising their season total (thus far) to 32.72 inches.

Comparing this rain season to last, monthly totals from Yorkville's DWR Station:

2017-18

5.08" April
8.88" March
1.32" February
9.16" January
0.44" December
7.84" November
0.72" October

2016-17

6.16" April
6.60" March
21.64" February
24.92" January
9.92" December
6.76" November
10.36" October

WILLITS BALKS

Willits officials and residents object to Measure B Committee’s plans to remodel the old Howard Hospital

by Mark Scaramella

Willits is not happy with the apparent attempt to rush a Psychiatric Health Facility into their small town.

Several officials from the city of Willits, along with a number Willits residents, complained to the Measure B Advisory Committee last Wednesday that it seemed like Willits was being left out of plans to convert the old Howard Hospital into a 16- or 32-bed Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF).

Sheriff Allman’s Measure B committee, of course, has not officially proposed the old Hospital for that purpose. But the Hospital Foundation, which owns the land and the old building, lead by the redoubtable Willits Republican, Margie Handley, have assumed their building is so well suited for conversion to the new PHF that they’ve independently paid consultants and architects tens of thousands of dollars to draw up plans for the conversion and have made two detailed presentations to the Measure B committee about the conversion.

But Handley’s presumption seems to have blind-sided Willits, and Willits doesn’t like it.

Handley’s assumption about the desirability of her old structure as a PHF is premature, given that the Measure B Committee hasn’t even launched their “needs assessment” yet.

But Allman’s Committee hasn’t done much to disabuse the public of the impression that the old Hospital is being fast-tracked into a multi-million dollar conversion project either. In fact, several committee members have observed that the Committee can proceed quicker by doing a needs assessment at the same time as they start planning to remodel yesteryear’s Howard Hospital.

The core of the Willits opposition came from Willits officials, lead by City Manager Stephanie Garrabrant-Sierra.

“We assumed that you would be coming before the city for discretionary permitting,” the articulate Garrabrant-Sierra began. “However our attorney has reported to us that if the county were to purchase this building you would be exempt from all discretionary permits for the city. This of course causes us some concern that we would not be involved in the discretionary permits except for one aspect. I'm told that there is a state hospital permit that will have to be complied with. However, and I'm sure you don't know this, but our building inspector and code compliance officer was approached by the architect on this projectm and he was asking how he could skirt that regulation so that there would be no discretionary permit involved with that as well.”

Garrabrant-Sierra continued, “And that would mean that we would have no discretionary permitting power from the City of Willits. I think that's what we are a little bit concerned about. We would like a seat at the table so that we can make sure that this project is the best that it can be, and if the project requires any mitigations we can talk about those and we can talk about the land uses and the zoning and the various issues that this property leads to. I think that that's fair to the city of Willits. We want to open our arms to you and invite you to the City Council meetings and make a presentation on what your plan is. I think that's fair. I think you can come to us and the City of Willits and talk about what you are planning and how you are planning it.”

She went to say that the Willits fire chief “is particularly concerned.” “He says that this is a very challenged building, possibly more so than you may realize. He urges you to be in touch with the State Fire Marshal,” who, Garrabrant-Sierra said, “has not been contacted about this.”

Ms. Garrabrant-Sierra was referring to the Handley-Foundation team’s questionable assertion that the remodeled building would not need to meet California’s restrictive “OSHPD” (Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development) hospital (seismic) construction standards, which, if it did, would raise the cost from their current estimates of $11-$15 million.

oshpd.ca.gov/FDD/regulations/

Other officials complained about the cost of increased calls for service. (The County’s old PHF unit in Ukiah was practically an adjunct of the Ukiah Police Department.) The fire chief said the old hospital was “very challenged” and that the State Fire Marshall should be consulted about those deficiencies. Willits Councilman and former Police Chief Jerry Gonzales wanted the Measure B people to meet with the City Council before doing anything with the old Hospital.

Several Willits residents also complained, saying the cost will probably go up, the unit will be hard to staff, the Handley team’s estimate of 16 beds in the facility is too many since Mendo only has an average of seven 5150s in lock-up facilities at any given time, not enough is being done to reduce the need for locked facilities, greater attention should be given to more distributed non-lock-up facilities throughout the county, it’s too close to three downtown schools, the committee is moving too fast…

Mental Health consultants Lee Kemper and Jim Featherstone explained their functions in preparing the needs assessment — a recommendation for which is to be placed before the Board of Supervisors at their first May meeting. Kemper said his assessment would address “a sustainable spending plan,” locations. goals, objectives, integration with other services for both substance abuse and mental health, identification of service gaps, options, staffing problems…

Committee Chair Sheriff Tom Allman said that after Kemper’s needs assessment, he expected they would then start on a Request for Proposals from private outfits who would bid on staffing the PHF (presumably the remodeled Howard Hospital) because “we need to know cost of having a company run this.”

Mr. Kemper’s consulting partner Jim Featherstone responded to some of the Willits worries by saying that a locked PHF facility does not present any more security problems than a hospital emergency room, and that some of the fears of neighbors seemed exaggerated.

Sheriff Allman noted that a PHF is not for inmates. Non-criminal 5150s in crisis are not dangerous and are not at all the same as the patients who will be housed in the new Mental Health wing at the jail, a facility currently in the planning stages.

County CEO and Committee member Carmel Angelo tried to tell the Willits contingent that they were making “lots of assumptions. If we had the answers we wouldn’t need a needs assessment. No decisions have been made, no locations have been selected.”

Angelo sailed past the fact that the Handley and the Hospital Foundation had also made “lots of assumptions” of the done deal genre.

Although Jed Diamond, the Committee’s Willits rep, said he’d try harder to keep Willits informed of the Committee’s activities in the future, nobody on the Committee made any commitments to make sure Willits is part of the official process should Howard Hospital become the Committee’s preferred PHF location.

THANK YOU FROM BILL & WANDA

Editor:

We want to thank all the Anderson Valley people who wrote letters to the court for our son, Ricky. We are deeply grateful to live in a place where our friends and neighbors were willing to step up to help in our time of need. We know Ricky is as grateful as we are.

Thank you all,

Bill and Wanda Owens, Boonville

HANK SIMS, LOST COAST OUTPOST:

This morning, the Supreme Court declined to take up a petition from the North Coast Railroad Authority, the public agency that owns the long-dead railroad line to Humboldt Bay. The authority had asked the Supremes to undo a California Supreme Court decision that held it to state environmental law.

The Supreme Court’s rejection of the railroad authority’s request marks the end of the authority’s long-running legal battle with two Humboldt County environmental organizations, Friends of the Eel and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, over whether or not the California Environmental Quality Act applies to the state-owned agency’s operations. The state Supreme Court’s ruling — that it does — will stand.

In short, the NCRA argued that because it is a railroad, only the Federal Railroad Administration has the right to regulate its activity. (See its full petition for certiorari at this link.) The environmental groups argued that CEQA is not “regulation,” in this instance — it is merely the state applying its own right of self-governance to projects it owns and operates, akin to a private company applying its own rules and standards to its private activities. The latter argument won. (See the environmental groups’ reply brief at this link.)

Meanwhile, a bill written by state Sen. Mike McGuire to dismantle the rogue authority is making progress through the state legislature. It has passed through two Senate committees with unanimous votes, and will be next be heard by the Senate Appropriations Committee at a date yet to be determined.

STOLEN VITAL SIGNS MACHINE BACK AT HOSPITAL

Well, the search for the stolen (and expensive) "Vital Signs" machine at the Mendocino Coast District Hospital is over.

It was announced Monday the machine is back where it belongs after being taken last Thursday. MSP asked MCDH Director PR & Marketing Communications Doug Shald about the recovery. He said, "It was stolen from the triage area in emergency and returned inside the back door on the other side of the hospital by patient rooms." And that, as they say, is that.

(MendocinoSportsPlus)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I'll do the best I can raising Skrag's kids while the Deadbeat Dad's office does the paternity tests. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Sigh.”

Dear Little Dog:

How timely! I see from the AVA blog you have two homeless kitties. You might want to attend this Kitten Fostering Workshop at the Ukiah Shelter. Maybe invite that deadbeat cat, Skrag?

Your loyal cousin,

Enzo Shortstack

BILL KIMBERLIN is a Boonville resident and a retired visual effects film editor. He’s also an author, having just published a memoir called, “Inside the Star Wars Empire,” published by Rowman and Littlefield/Lyons Press in which Mr. K recounts his 20 years working for George Lucas at Industrial Light & Magic. It’s an amusing inside look at what it takes to produce those blockbuster Lucas films like Jurassic Park and Star Wars. Kimberlin studied film at San Francisco State University and the American Film Institute. After graduation he worked as a sound tech in post-production for a San Francisco film company, and later as a film editor. He produced his first documentary, Jeffries-Johnson 1910, on Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, with the help of Francis Ford Coppola. (Jeffries was billed as “The Great White Hope.”)

Talking about his new book, Kimberlin said, “I’d been taking notes from the day I started working there and later I thought that somebody who actually worked there could write about it. Those movies became more than movies, they were part of the culture.” Kimberlin grew up in Kentfield in Marin County but spent a lot of his childhood in Anderson Valley. Kimberlin’s AV family history includes familiar names like the Prathers and the Falleris. His mother’s sister married Avon Ray whose family owned Ray’s Resort, now known variously as Wellspring or River’s Bend. Avon’s mother was a Prather. Avon’s sister, Pearl, married Frank Falleri who owned the old Philo Market (where Starr Automotive is now) and who also owned the AV Market in Boonville for a time. Kimberlin will appear at Gallery Books in Mendocino on Friday, May 4 from 6:30 to 7:30pm. Q&A will follow.

AV LAND TRUST EVENTS

[1] Spring Wildflower Walk at Galbreath Wildlands Preserve, led by Kerry Heise and Linda MacElwee, Sunday, May 6, 2018, 10AM-1PM. Presented by Anderson Valley Land Trust, Navarro River Resource Center and Galbreath Wildlands Preserve. Contact avlt@mcn.org or 707-895-3150 for reservations and more information.

[2] A Day in the Oaks at Galbreath Wildlands Preserve. Saturday, May 12, 2018, 9:30AM-3:00PM. Join Kate Marianchild and Linda MacElwee as we explore the ecosystems of the oak woodlands. Presented by Anderson Valley Land Trust, Navarro River Resource Center and Galbreath Wildlands Preserve. There is a $25 fee for this event which includes a picnic lunch.

Contact avlt@mcn.org or 707-895-3150 for reservations and more information.

SATURDAY MORNING’S RAIN and cool temps did nothing to dampen the spirits of the thousands of mostly young people who attended the Boonville Beer Festival Saturday afternoon. The beer brigades, some five thousand of them, seemed to suddenly descend, locust like, on the Boonville Fairgrounds where they formed orderly lines for their $50 tasting cups. By Sunday noon they’d de-materialized, and by late Sunday afternoon Boonville was as before. Judging from the scanner traffic, the event was entirely peaceful, and how remarkable an event is a gathering of thousands of young people to drink beer in a confined area with no arrests? Remarkable, for sure.

INVASIVE PLANT REMOVAL VOLUNTEER WORK DAY

Volunteers Needed!

Hendy Woods State Park

Sunday May, 6th 10 AM to 12 PM

For Invasive Plant Removal

• Meet at Day Use Picnic Area
• Enjoy FREE Park entrance for the day
• Bring some gardening gloves, hand trowels/loppers & a picnic lunch
• Meet new people & catch up with old friends
• Ages 5 & up

WE ARE URGING a vote for Michelle Hutchins for County Superintendent of Schools if, for no other reason than she isn't her opponent. Mrs. Hutchins would be the first woman to hold the position after 150 years of men, the last 50 years a combined collection of crooked men and men whose own schooling obviously didn't take. Mrs. Hutchins is smart and capable. Yes, she had some personality differences with the key ladies at the Anderson Valley Elementary School, difficulties inevitable when a new administrator steps into a district managed for years on a Do Your Own Thing basis. Given the intensity of her detractors, whose complaints lack, as they say, specificity, the Superintendent has been a very model of grace under pressure, conceding her errors.

THIRD DISTRICT SUPE’S candidate John Pinches missed Saturday’s debate in the friendly hometown confines of Laytonville’s Harwood Hall because, en route, as the Eel River Canyon rancher swerved to avoid hitting an elk, he hit a tree, totaling his pick-up and injuring himself badly enough to get himself confined to Handley Hospital in Willits. He’s out today, and back on the campaign trail.

PAY UP, DADDY! Freshly retired Undersheriff Randy Johnson was unanimously approved by the Supes last week as interim chief of the County’s Deadbeat Dad’s Office (aka Child Support Services). County Human Resources Director Heidi Dunham told the Supervisors that the current chief is out on some kind of apparently open-ended leave of absence, paid leave presumably. There were no questions about who else might have applied, why Johnson got the job, but the guy seems blessed by the goddess of good fortune, managing to elude most public scrutiny for simultaneously being in charge of the County’s dope licensing as he operated a private fingerprinting biz. The guy seems to be a walking conflict of interest case, not that anybody in authority seems in the least perturbed.

INGENIOUS, DOGGED POLICE WORK finally nailed the California Strangler via DNA evidence obtained from an ancestry website. Here in Mendocino County, assuming the authorities would act on the obvious, which is that the 1990 car bombing of Judi Bari was a crime committed in Ukiah and Redwood Valley, that famous felony could also be solved via the DNA found on the bomber's confession letter, now housed at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Match that DNA to the DNA from the Bari-Sweeney family and bingo! you've got the bomber who is, I and others assume, Mike Sweeney, Mendocino County's former trash czar. On the off chance anyone else is interested, this case is thoroughly discussed at the ava website at https://www.theava.com/archives/1235

I’VE GOT IT! The Press Democrat itself could pick up another Pulitzer for solving the Bari “mystery” all by itself. They’ve got the confession letter right there in their Rose City bunker.

SHAUNA ESPINOZA and her husband, AV Basketball Coach Luis Espinoza, along with Blair Hardieck have arranged for another popular basketball camp with famed coach Laura Azzi, now set for July 16 to July 20. The camp will be open to up to 60 local athletes from third to twelfth grade at the AV High School gym. Details to come as the event approaches. Previous camps conducted by Ms. Azzi have been very well received and definitely contribute to the success of Espinoza’s teams in recent years.

FAST TURNAROUND

Our Sample Ballots are on their way to voters. Official Ballots will begin to be mailed on Monday, May 7. We'll do another Press Release next week.

Thank you

Katrina Bartolomie, Asst Registrar of Voters / Asst Clerk Recorder, County of Mendocino

* * *

County Sample Ballot Booklets

The County Sample Ballots have been mailed to voters according to Susan M. Ranochak, Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder.

Sample Ballots produced by the County (Red, White & Blue covers) have been mailed; voters should be receiving them within the week. The County Sample Ballot includes written information on our local candidates and measures; County-wide races for County Superintendent of Schools, the Assessor County Clerk Recorder and Measure G, the county-wide Transient Tax are in each booklet. Written information on the 3^rd District Supervisor candidates and the 5^th District Supervisor candidates are included for those households. We also have included written information on the District-Wide measures for: Mendocino Coast Health Care District, Fort Bragg Fire Protection District, Coast Life Support District and Southern Humboldt Health Care District.

The Statewide Voter Information Guide (VIG) was mailed last week and should have arrived in households last week. The VIG includes written information on the Statewide Propositions and State-wide candidates who submitted their information.

The County’s website will be up-dated on election night after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. with election results as often as we receive the polling place ballots. The County’s website address is: www.mendocinocounty.org.

The Elections Department now has a new email address that comes directly to the Assessor Clerk Recorder to better serve our voters – mcvotes@mendocinocounty.org

For additional information, please contact the County Clerk’s Office by calling 707 234-6819.

$15,000 BAIL FOR COVELO DRIVE-BY

On April 28, 2018 Deputies responded to the 25000 block of Fairbanks Road, in Covelo, regarding an unknown person(s) discharging a firearm near, or at, a residence, from a motor vehicle. Deputies arrived and spoke to a person who witnessed a person(s) discharging a firearm from a vehicle in the 25000 block of Fairbanks Road. Deputies were able to obtain video evidence of the person(s) possibly linked to the suspect vehicle. Deputies contacted the driver of the vehicle, suspect Orlando Esquivel (20 years of age) who stated that he and suspect Aaron Parker (36 years of age) drove to a residence located on Fairbanks Road because suspect Aaron Parker was upset with one of the occupants that lived inside the residence.

Using a rifle, with a high capacity magazine, suspect Aaron Parker fired numerous shots towards the general direction of the residence, from within the vehicle. Suspect Orlando Esquivel was arrested for conspiracy to commit a crime and a driver, or owner, of a motor vehicle allowing the discharge of a firearm from a vehicle. He was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was held on $15,000 bail. Suspect Aaron Parker was arrested for the Discharging of a firearm in a grossly negligent manner and conspiracy to commit a crime. He was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was held on $15,000 bail.

SAVING COAST HOSPITAL, an on-line comment we liked:

I’m with you regarding wanting a fully functioning hospital. Which is why I’m part of Friends of the Hospital; we’re doing our best to make the board/CEO more transparent and moving in the right direction. And they are. They’re hiring more local folks instead of visiting staff; they have a new, wonderful doctor in charge of ER; fired the harassing CFO Sturgeon, etc. The measure indicates just where the money is going and where it is not going to go. It won’t go to administrators’ salaries and the like. It will go to basic services. If the measure doesn’t pass, the people who will be most harmed will be women and children. More than likely, they’ll cut obstetrics and labor & delivery services. I don’t want to imagine what that will mean to the lives of people living here. The naysayers are much louder than the ayes on this measure. Every time I hear another negative MCDH voice, I think of women in labor having to drive to Santa Rosa in the rain (or give birth in the ER next to accident victims, mentally ill folks, and the like), and it further pushes me to have Measure C pass. For 40 cents a day, $12 a month, we have a fighting chance to keep our hospital and make it work well.

* * *

MARCO ON THE OLD FB HOSPITAL

And didn't the original Fort Bragg hospital become the Gray Whale Inn? So there's your proof of concept. Remind me sometime to tell you the whole convoluted story of an exhausted hitchhiker who one dark foggy night eight years ago offered to pay me eighty dollars if I'd only drive him to the Gray Whale Inn (once I figured out that was the right place, because he wasn't sure). He'd been at the beach --some beach, somewhere-- with his ex-wife that he was trying to patch things up with by a trip to the coast, and they got high and then got into a fight about something, and she took off in the truck and left him to walk back to their hotel, and he walked almost all the way south to Albion looking out the whole time for the hotel. (That's where I picked him up: just short of the Albion River Inn.) And all the way back to Fort Bragg he kept telling me to slow down because he kept being sure it was somewhere right around here. "It's not. It's in town, right?" "It's in a town." "It's in Fort Bragg. That's where we're going. Take a nap."

When I let him out at the Gray Whale Inn ("Yeah, this is it," he said. "There's my truck.") he discovered he only had a twenty, and he needed that. I'm making an analogy here to the way Mendocino Coast District Hospital has been managed over the years, and to the sweaty pitch for throwing even more good public money after bad. You have to have a plan, and you have to know where you're going, and you have to be able to explain it so everyone can understand it. Either that or you have to find a sucker to solve your problems for you, for now, but over and over again forever.

* * *

A READER WRITES:

Re: Coast Hospital: Bad Investment

I was surprised when Mr. Lund announced that the contract with Mr. Edwards to continue as CEO was extended for another 4 years. That doesn’t bode well for the future of the hospital. A 2-year contract would make more sense if the majority of the board felt that they absolutely had to keep him. I hope that people will watch the board meetings, or listen to them while doing other things, before casting their votes on Measure C. The parcel tax will not guarantee that our hospital will remain open but that’s what so many people who support it are saying. And many are unaware that we are currently paying a property tax. Ask supporters how they will finance the seismic retrofit or new building without yet another property tax added.

The bizarre, unprofessional rant, complete with 2 pages of notes, by CEO Edwards was an indication of why he should not be in his position. He began by stating that Mr. Parigi was not the CFO but “a consultant performing the duties of an Interim CFO.” Prior board minutes show that he was the “Interim CFO” and that was the title that Mr. Edwards and the board members used until Mr. Edwards claimed that he was not at the April 26 meeting. It might be the comment about a lack of intellectual capacity that Mr. Parigi purportedly made that is the reason for the rant. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Edwards so enthusiastically supported the previous CFO, Mr. Sturgeon, who was allowed to decimate the finance department before he was asked to leave. I hope we got lucky with Mr. Ellis, the new CFO.

MENDO COULD USE A MEASURE C

Editor:

Napa County’s water future will be decided on June 5. A yes vote on Measure  C, the Napa County Watershed and Oak Woodland Protection Initiative, would protect that future. Measure C is a well-written initiative, based on the best current science and would put in place reasonable measures to protect Napa County’s water supply. It would be good for agricultural, good for the wine industry, good for all of us in the county. Measure  C would stop unsustainable expansion of vineyards in our hillside watershed.

Napa County’s vineyard/wine/tourism economy makes our valley a desirable place to live and visit. But this interdependent economy cannot be sustained if we predicate our thinking on an unlimited water future.

Expanding vineyards into our hillside watershed means less water reaches our reservoirs and recharges our groundwater. Groundwater and reservoir levels drop, leaving less water for existing uses. Given the current climate predictions of less rainfall and more dangerous and frequent droughts, we need to guard what we have to maintain our valley as it is.

I am voting yes on Measure C to ensure a stable, secure and clean water future for Napa County.

Linda Kerr

Napa

ELAINE FROM TRAUMA RESOURCE INSTITUTE (TRI) is coming to Mendocino County to provide the Community Resilience Training for Trainers on the coast. We hope you will attend and spread the word about this very useful Trauma Reduction Support Service to clients and other community members. Please check out the following link for more information, and post the attached flyer for others who may be interested in participating.

crmteachertrainingfortbragg.eventbrite.com

Thank you for supporting your community!

With Regards,

Rebekah Anthony
Mental Health Services Act, Staff Assistant III
Mendocino County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services
Phone: 707-472-2356
 CRMTTflyer2018

CATCH OF THE DAY, April 30, 2018

AUDREY CARD, Covelo. Short-barreled shotgun, loaded firearm, possession of assault rifle.

ZENEN ESPINOSA-REYES, Potter Valley. DUI.

ROSEMARY MCGAUGHY, La Canada/Ukiah. Under influence.

BRIAN MOODY, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery, failure to appear.

JOSE PERALTA-ALBITER, Fort Bragg. DUI.

ELIAS RUTHERFORD, Laytonville. Probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Tesla along with its temp agency is supposedly being sued for not paying contract workers. The same folk way high up on the food chain that proclaim the evils of building a wall themselves live in gated communities behind walls. They tell us that government issued ID is racist yet government issued ID is required of workers to enter those walled oases of calm and wealth and privilege. They’ll ask you with voices of sweet reason, reason and rationality oozing from every pore, isn’t it reasonable to know who it is that works on your property, that walks along your streets? They’ll ask, isn’t it reasonable to know that people that are working here are here legally? Isn’t security a reasonable concern? Sure it’s reasonable, but isn’t it reasonable that what goes for people living in gated and walled compounds goes for the rest of us? Or is that being unreasonable? The disassembly of the inland empire that marks out the USA won’t just be characterized by territorial secession, it will be marked by internal disaggregation, or societal secession where the higher and mighty carve themselves off from the rest, where citizenship isn’t just plain citizenship. Walled compounds are the start. Walled compounds with strongholds are next. Goes without saying that those living in walled compounds will claim Level One Citizenship. The question is how long can they hang onto it.

STEVE SPARKS WRITES: From our 3-Dot regular, The Old Buzzard, comes another in his insightful series – “Signs that the Apocalypse is Approaching’. Buzzard reports,

"American lawyers are generally not too well thought of and are frequently the butt of many scathing comments and jokes. It’s hard to defend them in many cases. Meanwhile, British lawyers no doubt gazed covetously across the pond last week when the American Lawyer, a magazine, published its annual ranking of American law firms by earnings. American firms are typically much more profitable than their British counterparts. Two say their revenues exceeded $3 billion for the first time last year. The Brits’ revenues are watered down by expansion into emerging markets, where they cannot charge fees as high as those commanded in New York, or indeed in London. They have also struggled to break into the lucrative American market, where there’s no shortage of domestic lawyers chasing business (and ambulances!). Attracting talent from the US is also hard, given the superstar salaries offered by top practices over here. Pay in British firms is based more on seniority than the business each partner brings in. Little wonder that Allen & Overy, a London outfit, is rumored to be hunting for an American alliance. I guess if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. It’s just another sign that the Apocalypse is approaching.”

(Photo by Susie de Castro)

“THERE WAS A CROOKED PREZ”—

There was a crooked Prez, and he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked lawyer upon a crooked isle,

They bought a crooked election which caught a crooked mission,

And they both lived together in a little crooked prison.

–Nayvin Gordon

A POX ON BOTH THEIR HOUSES!

shtfplan.com/headline-news/almost-2-3-of-americans-have-given-up-on-political-parties-citing-corruption-in-government_04302018

WHAT MEANS ‘FOCOOS’?

by Jeff Costello

During my time at the Sausalito waterfront (most of the 70s), we had two great cooks. Both are deceased now. I've written about Joni Oaktree ("Soup from the Air") here. The other one was Jesse Bolton, who had been the chef on John Wayne's boat — or should I say "yacht" — before he fell into the waterfront.

Joni was an artist with focoos (food) Bayod. Her family was Italian, Zappetini or "many little Zappas" as she liked to say.

Jesse Bolton, alias Jesse Crocodile, alias "Revoltin' Bolton,” to more properly describe him, was an engineer. If there was a party coming up, he would go around collecting money and food stamps to shop with. No one with anything to contribute begged off, knowing the food would be good.

He'd come back from the Big G market with enough to feed fifty or more people. While he shopped, a crew of assistants would set up a huge barbecue with 55 gallon barrels cut in half for the fire, on one of the docks. Ribs, chicken, whatever, it was the backyard barbecue amped up to ten. With the chicken perfectly cooked and sauced. If anyone curious got too close during the preparation, he would wave a big knife menacingly and admonish them to "Get out of the galley!"

He could delight a crowd of fifty or sixty with barbecue chicken, and concoct a New England boiled dinner over a fire outside in the snow, but my best memory is the oatmeal. I normally didn't eat porridge or cereal in those days, but Jesse made the best oatmeal I still ever had.

Apparently there's an art to it, and now in my dotage I'm still trying to duplicate Crocodile oatmeal.

He was a musician, played mandolin. Although his singing pitch was nothing to write home about, nobody seemed to mind. He and John "X" Stephens played state fair gigs under the name "Roosevelt Holden and Les Frantic," opening for country stars like Ray Price. When Jesse left Sausalito with a heroin habit and returned to his home town of Coos Bay, Oregon, he played there with a band called the Bourbon Guerrillas. On the waterfront Jesse was part of a musical trio called Live Snakes and Crocodiles — Joe Live, Adam Snakes and Jesse Crocodile.

A mutual friend friend from the waterfront who went to the funeral in Coos Bay can't remember exactly when, but we can place his demise somewhere around 2010. Jesse and Joni Oaktree never met, as she arrived after his departure, but it would have been interesting.

HEAD'S UP FROM TRISH

BAMC Meeting on Friday CANCELLED

Hi everyone,The Broadband Alliance meeting that is scheduled for this Friday, May 4th has been CANCELLED.

Sorry for any inconvenience.For recent activity of the North Bay-North Coast Broadband Consortium Oversight committee, you can find info on our website: http://www.mendocinobroadband.org/nbncbc-oversight-committee-meetings/

Also, the OUTAGE REPORT from the 2017 Firestorm has been a tremendous amount of work, and it is days away from public distribution. It will be a very large file and appendix and so I won't send it out via this email list, but will post on our Alliance homepage and also under the "data and reports" menu of the website. I'm going to estimate that it can be posted by Thursday of this week.

Watch our Facebook page for a reminder of when the report is posted andthe link. Find us on Facebook! <https://www.facebook.com/BroadbandAlliance>

Trish Steel

<www.MendocinoBroadband.org>

707-354-3224

MEMO OF THE DAY

ALERT ‐ Mountain Lion Activity in Rio Dell

Residents of Rio Dell need to be made aware of recently reported Mountain Lion activity within the City. Sightings of the Mountain lion have taken place along the river bar and within residential neighborhoods along Riverside and Eeloa Avenues, East of Highway 101. The Mountain Lion has been seen in nearby ravines that are frequented by children.

Mountain Lion sightings are not uncommon in Rio Dell, however this Lion’s activity is unusual in that sightings have occurred during daylight hours in addition to reports of two separate canine attacks that resulted in the death of one of the animals. Residents are encouraged to use caution and keep children and pets indoors. The City has contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on this matter.

Rio Dell City Hall
675 Wildwood Avenue
Rio Dell, CA 95562
(707) 764‐3532
riodellcity.com

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COMMENT FROM RIO DELL RESIDENT: "Neither new construction nor logging is responsible for the mountain lion in Rio Dell. Anyone who has lived here long enough can honestly attest to the increase in mountain lion sightings throughout the state. The ban on hunting them went into effect in 1990. They are an apex predator; nothing hunts them. Therefore their population has increased. It is just simple math. The more lions, more deer they eat, less deer to eat, searching new areas for food. We are a prime example. Our family has lived on our property since 1982, almost 40 years and only one lion was seen. Now we have seen 5 in the last 2 years. One of whom came right up to our yard and killed our dog. The lifespan of a cougar is 8-13 years. The house — the property did not encroach on any living cat’s habitat. Same goes for Rio Dell."

FEBRUARY, 1933, was a terrible time to be out of a job. Every day found a better class of people selling apples on street corners and even tips about jobs from friends were increasingly unreliable, I learned, when I applied for a supposedly excellent secretarial job and was coldly informed, to my horror, that they weren't quite ready to interview new applicants as the former secretary had only just jumped out the window.

— Betty MacDonald, ‘Anybody Can Do Anything’

YOUR GUNS OR MY MONEY

by Steve Heilig

At the San Francisco “March for Our Lives” rally in March, speakers urged everyone to divest of any investments they might have in the gun and ammunition industries. They detailed how such investments often are buried in many retirement and pension accounts, mutual funds, and more. “Are you unknowingly supporting the gun industry?” one young woman pointedly asked. And I thought, Uh oh, hmmm.

When I wound up in San Francisco as a semi-adult on my own, I went to Wells Fargo to open an account. They have branches in every neighborhood and it just seemed convenient; I didn’t have any other real criteria. That was decades ago. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to pile up some cash there, plus a mortgage. I’m no Zuckerberg but they have kinda treated me like one. Even my dog gets the royal welcome, biscuits and all.

But: In one of my jobs I’m a professional ethicist (OK, in healthcare, but still, it’s about “doing no harm”). In another I’m a public health advocate. For a time I was head of an emergency medical group. And in yet another role I’m a book critic. I’ve reviewed a couple books on the gun violence issue, and learned a lot. I’ve authored policies for local and state medical associations urging stricter gun control, taxation of ammunition, and so on. I’ve seen bloodied, shot bodies. And I read the news like a true news junkie.

We now know all too much of our nation’s tragic and bloody gun violence problem. It’s been designated a “public health crisis” by the staid AMA. Beyond being reminded by recurrent mass shootings, the ongoing slaughter includes up to 100 people per day, including suicides. Gun lobbyists argue these are unavoidable, or only “mental health” problems, but the undeniable truth — now known despite long efforts to suppress gun-related research — is that where there are more guns, there is more carnage. For most people, having a gun puts you and your loved ones more at risk than any feared and usually imagined intruder. As for fighting off some hypothetical tyrannical evil gun-grabbing government, well, if you really believe you might do that with your weapons, it’s proof enough you are not sane enough to own them.

We know that sane restrictions on gun sales, ownership, storage and use can save lives, are constitutional even under the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Second Amendment, and are supported by very strong majorities of Americans, including most gun owners. Most sane folks feel that guns and gun owners should be regulated at least as much as, say, cars and drivers. That’s not “gun grabbing” by any stretch. So why the lack of progress? One of the biggest factors in maintaining the tragic status quo is the gun lobby — infamously the National Rifle Association — which kills almost any effort to further regulate guns.

The NRA’s work is really about money — for the gun and ammo industries, and for themselves. Thus it seems decreasing their profiteering might be an effective tactic to decrease the slaughter. Responsible companies refusing to sell weapons or to advertise or accept advertising of them are good steps. Divestment could be another. Movements to remove organizational and individual investments from unhealthy and objectionable industries and practices, such as the tobacco industry and apartheid in South Africa, have gained medical and public health professional support and had positive impact.

So it’s time to practice what I preach. While I’ve liked that Wells Fargo bank is based here in my home city, the list of scandals in the past few years has taken the bloom off my banking bromance. Thus I was triply dismayed to read in the New York Times recently that “Wells Fargo is the largest financier in the nation of the gun industry and is the main bank for the National Rifle Association.” Further research revealed that Wells Fargo has lent more than $400 million to the gun industry in the past five years — since the slaughter of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and has remained unapologetic about such practices.

I have attempted to remain a loyal customer despite Wells Fargo’s scandals, pending the new leadership’s efforts to confront those. They have a new CEO and many new board members. But then I read that my bank's ratio of CEO pay to average worker is the highest in the whole industry - 291-1 ($17.5M to $60,000). That’s capitalism, some will retort, but at some point it becomes obscenity too. So add this to the reasons I can no longer overlook my bank’s partnership with an industry partly responsible for the ongoing gun violence in our nation.

Gun violence is a public health and medical epidemic that cannot be supported, and “thoughts and prayers” aren’t nearly enough. Thus I wish to announce publicly my intent to divest all my resources from Wells Fargo, and to urge others to do likewise. Beyond talking to your own adviser and banker, there are resources online to help do this; goodbyegunstocks.com is just one. I have no illusion that losing my relatively paltry funds will outweigh the blood-soaked accounts of the NRA, but ya gotta start somewhere.

Of course, should Wells Fargo choose to publicly remedy this shameful problem soon, I will gladly reconsider. I sincerely wish my hometown bank would do the right thing. It would be good PR for them at a minimum. Might even gain them some new business. But barring all that happening, anybody know a truly “clean” banking institution? I won’t hold my breath. And for all you gun addicts out there - please don’t shoot the messenger.

(Steve Heilig is public health director for the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, co-editor of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, and was certified as an NRA Junior Marksman as an adolescent.)

THAT COLLAPSE YOU ORDERED…?

by James Kunstler

I had a fellow on my latest podcast, released Sunday, who insists that the world population will crash 90-plus percent from the current 7.6 billion to 600 million by the end of this century. Jack Alpert heads an outfit called the Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab (SKIL) which he started at Stanford University in 1978 and now runs as a private research foundation. Alpert is primarily an engineer.

At 600 million, the living standard in the USA would be on a level with the post-Roman peasantry of Fifth century Europe, but without the charm, since many of the planet’s linked systems — soils, oceans, climate, mineral resources — will be in much greater disarray than was the case 1,500 years ago. Anyway, that state-of-life may be a way-station to something more dire. Alpert’s optimal case would be a world human population of 50 million, deployed in three “city-states,” in the Pacific Northwest, the Uruguay/Paraguay border region, and China, that could support something close to today’s living standards for a tiny population, along with science and advanced technology, run on hydropower. The rest of world, he says, would just go back to nature, or what’s left of it. Alpert’s project aims to engineer a path to that optimal outcome.

I hadn’t encountered quite such an extreme view of the future before, except for some fictional exercises like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. (Alpert, too, sees cannibalism as one likely byproduct of the journey ahead.) Obviously, my own venture into the fictionalized future of the World Made by Hand books depicted a much kinder and gentler re-set to life at the circa-1800 level of living, at least in the USA. Apparently, I’m a sentimental softie.

Both of us are at odds with the more generic techno-optimists who are waiting patiently for miracle rescue remedies like cold fusion while enjoying re-runs of The Big Bang Theory. (Alpert doesn’t completely rule out as-yet-undeveloped energy sources, though he acknowledges that they’re a low-percentage prospect.) We do agree with the basic premise that the energy supply is mainly what supports the way we live now, and that it shows every evidence of entering a deep and destabilizing decline that will halt the activities necessary to keep our networks of dynamic systems running.

A question of interest to many readers is how soon or how rapid the unraveling of these systems might be. When civilizations crumble, it tends to fast-track. The Roman empire seems to be an exception, but in many ways it was far more resilient than ours, being a sort of advanced Flintstones economy, with even its giant-scale activities (e.g., building the Coliseum) being accomplished by human-powered work. In any case, the outfit really fell apart steadily after the reign of emperor Marcus Aurelius (180 AD).

The Romans had their own version of a financialized economy: they simply devalued their coins by mixing in less and less silver at the mint, so they could pretend to pay for the same luxuries they had grown accustomed to as resources stretched thin. Our financialized economy — like everything else we do — operates at levels of complexity so baffling that even its supposed managers at the central banks are flying blind through fogs of debt, deception, and moral hazard. When that vessel of pretense slams into a mountain top, the effects are likely to be quick and lethal to the economies on the ground below.

In our time, the most recent crash of a major socioeconomic system was the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990-91. Of course, it happened against the backdrop of a global system that was still revving pretty well outside the USSR, and that softened the blow. Ultimately, the Russians still had plenty of oil to sell, which allowed them to re-set well above the Fifth Century peasant level of existence. At least for now. The Soviet Union collapsed because it was a thoroughly dishonest system that ran on pretense and coercion. Apparently, the US Intel Community completely missed the signs that political collapse was underway.

They seem to be pretty clueless about the fate of the USA these days, too. If you consider the preoccupations of two very recent Intel chiefs — John Brennan of CIA and James Clapper, DNI — who now inveigh full-time on CNN as avatars of the Deep State against the wicked Golden Golem of Greatness. Personally, I expect our collapse to be as sudden and unexpected as the USSR’s, but probably bloodier because there’s simply more stuff just lying around to fight over. Of course, I expect the collapse to express itself first in banking, finance, and markets — being so deeply faith-based and so subject to simple failures of faith. But it will become political and social soon enough, maybe all-at once. And when it happens in the USA, it will spread through the financial systems the whole world round.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

“All hail the king, emperor of the earth, ruler of the air and seas, arbiter of what is funny.”

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ED NOTE: Trump is right. Michelle Wolf is not funny. Ditto for those smug late night libs, Colbert and that Brit twit. Chris Rock is funny. Larry Chapelle is funny. If there are any funny white guys I haven't seen them. The last funny white guys were George Carlin and Sam Kinnison. Robin Williams had his moments but all that mania he came with was exhausting. Before he became obsessive about his legal problems, Lenny Bruce was very funny. Most New Yorker cartoons — this one above, for instance — are not funny. Actually, looked at in terms of stand-up comedy, Trump is funny as hell.

PD DISCOVERS…

"Though known for its compassion to the needy, San Francisco may have hit peak saturation with tent camps, stinky urine and trash littering the streets, and the new interim mayor has vowed to do something about it...."

Has San Francisco's dirty, smelly streets gotten out of control?

ME, MY MOUNTAIN BIKE & MY FOOT

by Anne Fashauer

I purchased my mountain bike over 10 years ago; I treated myself to a nice one, from a bike store in Ukiah. It’s not super nice, just nicer than something from a non-bike shop. It’s purple and I really like it – especially all of the gears. I still have my 10 speed Schwinn that I received on my 16th birthday, but my “new” bike has 24 speeds, making climbing hills a lot easier.

I have ridden the bike off and on over the years; sometimes it sat in the garage for years, sometimes I would ride it every summer nearly every day. When Jesse Rathbun opened his bike shop in Boonville – Boonville Bike Works – I got re-energized to ride again. He tuned up the bike and got it serviceable again after it’s last hiatus. At first I just rode in the summer again, not liking the slipperiness of the hills when wet. Then an ongoing issue with my foot got me riding in all seasons, except pouring rain and heat.

My foot has been bothering me for a number of years. I ignored it, had it adjusted by a chiropractor, did stretches and exercises to strengthen my arch and finally saw a foot doctor. My first visit was about four years ago; I received a cortisone shot and went on my way. Once the pain of the shot itself wore off (a few days), my foot pain was gone. A year later, it came back and I went back, got another shot and away I went. Then, six months later, doing a one-legged down dog pose, I hurt it again. Back to the foot doctor, who would not give me another shot but suggested I have the foot surgically repaired.

I decided to ignore that idea, rested my foot and rode my mountain bike. After a time, my foot stopped hurting and I began walking again. Then, in December of 2016, a ski trip and a pair of rental boots did me in. I felt as though my foot was broken and I could barely walk on it. I decided I would have the surgery.

Back to the foot doctor I went, who gave me another cortisone shot to reduce the pain so I could at least walk. He ordered x-rays and other pre-op tests and I had those done. When the x-rays came back, it turns out that I have a broken bone in my foot – one of my sesamoid bones is in two to three pieces; it has been that way for a long time and I do not know how I broke it.

As the date of my surgery neared, about a year ago now, I felt nudged to get a second opinion. This from three different sources and after the third, I decided I had better listen. I actually saw two different doctors for two different “second” opinions. The first said he would want to know more before he would operate. The third took his own x-rays and said he would operate. However, that cortisone shot took my pain away and I decided to put any surgery off until the pain came back.

Earlier this month I walked a 5K; it was really fun and I had a very good time, but the training for this and the actual walk were too much. My foot pain is back. So, back to the bike I have gone. I usually ride around my property and the neighboring one, about 3 miles or so. Jesse at the Bike Works has been super encouraging and suggested a nice ride and I have done that twice – the first time riding six miles. Then yesterday I did 10. I felt tired but I also felt great. And riding the mountain bike doesn’t hurt my foot.

I am going back to see a doctor about my foot; this time to the conservative one who wants to know more before he would consider surgery. Any foot surgery will require an extensive rehab period and will affect my life significantly, so I’m not in any rush. In fact, if the pain turns out to be something that is just annoying and I can live with, I might do that. I miss hiking with my dogs but I love riding my mountain bike.