Mendocino County Today: Friday, May 4, 2018

• Cannabis Update
• Davemobile
• Little Dog
• Deficit Slashing
• Ed Notes
• $300 Downer
• Big Band
• Flynn-Creek Detour
• Latimer Mistrial
• Dragonheart Mistrial
• Hare Creek
• Mental Health
• Willits Nixle
• Ambulance Area
• Farm Labor
• Foodshed News
• Yesterday's Catch
• Intellectual Collapse
• Zodiac DNA
• Planning Agenda
• Robust Debate
• Improv Shows

WE HAVE NOT HEARD from Mendo’s consulting code enforcement officer, retired Ukiah cop Trent Taylor, in a while. When he last appeared before the Supervisors a few months ago he grudgingly agreed to help whoever the County picked as Pot Czar to “streamline” the pot permit process. So far we have not heard of a single specific improvement in the contorted process from either Taylor or newly hired Pot Czar Kelly Overton other than vague marginal stuff like social media outreach and cutting edge management techniques like two lines at the permit application counter where there used to be one.

Next week it seems Mr. Taylor is going to make another appearance in front of the Board of Supervisors with an “Update on Cannabis Code Enforcement for May 8, 2018 Cannabis Program Update to the Board of Supervisors.”

Next Tuesday’s report says that Mr. Taylor “has been working closely with the Cannabis staff to develop and implement strategy to deal with complaints related to permitted and applicant cultivation sites,” which makes no mention of streamlining the process. And there’s no indication that Pot Czar Overton will be on hand with him, so Mr. Taylor appears to have gone back to routine pot code enforcement duties such as they are, having had zero impact on “streamlining” the unstreamlineable process.

So what does “code enforcement” mean these days?

Taylor: “Enforcement action related to cultivation not in the permit program continues and we have had cultivators remove a number of gardens this season that could not be permitted or made compliant.”

“Cultivators” have “removed a number of gardens this season”? Outdoor cultivation has only just begun so we have no idea what “gardens” have been “removed.” In the past Taylor called it “self-abatement.” Which means “harvested” a few days after Taylor made a phone call to the offending “cultivator.” Which is hardly “code enforcement.”

In fact, according to Taylor, “The primary complaint so far this year is light glare from hoop houses at night. About half of the light complaints also included complaints about generator use.” Something tells us “garden removal” was not the solution to those complaints.

Taylor adds, “The 29 complaints related to applicant/permits were for 24 site locations. Of the 24 site locations 9 have been issued a cultivation permit and 15 are still under review.” Which apparently means that the “code enforcement” on many of the (light and noise?) complaints was to simply issue the violator a permit.

MAYBE some of this will be cleared up next Tuesday when Mr. Taylor gives his report to the Board. We’re not expecting much clarity though. Everything having to do with the pot permit process is muddled to the point of invisibility.

DAVE SEVERN'S CAR WAS STOLEN FROM UKIAH...

He reports: "I’m back home with my car. It ended up in the Lowe’s parking lot in Cotati. It cost me $305 to pay for towing and storage. Everything was still in the car and when I filled the gas tank it was obvious the thief had put some gas in."

A NEW WRINKLE in car theft — negative Blue Book vehicles.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Hah! We've got a clear case of karma going here. Look at the size of this tic we pulled outta Skrag, the king of deadbeat dads.”

FORT BRAGG DEFICIT VS NEW CITY MANAGER

Budget Round One Knock Out

by Rex Gressett

Wednesday, May 2 at high noon City Manager Tabatha Miller and Finance Department head Victor Dimini met with the Finance and Administration Committee of the Fort Bragg City Council to report on a vigorous behind the scenes attack by staff at city hall on the hemorrhaging of red ink that former City Manager Linda Ruffing bequeathed to the city before she was induced to take wing. The meeting was a report on the perennial Fort Bragg budget deficit no one ever knew about and also a review of Committee’s financial goals.

Fort Bragg Council Committees consist of two members each. It seems more like a team than a committee. The Finance and Admin team is Councilman Will Lee and Mayor Lindy Peters. They came to Town Hall to publicly discover that in a couple of months our new City Manager Ms. Miller has pushed the half million dollar deficit down to a paltry $40k. Wham. Personnel cuts at City Hall were off the table for the moment, although a single job chop would have put the city back into the black. One law enforcement position was axed.

The meeting was unattended except by the two membrers of the team, plus administrative staff and yours truly. No surprise. It was midday Wednesday, the exact middle of the working week. There was no coffee. Victor Dimini from Finance, Isaac from operations and Ms. Miller were there to report and take direction from the Committee. Fort Bragg’s ultra-competent gem among Administrative Assistants, Brenda Jordain stood in for the City Clerk to record the proceedings.

The back story was the out of control spending, pension padding and flagrant mismanagement that has run Fort Bragg into a perennial deficit for 10 years, more than half of Ms. Ruffing's term in office. This was the administration that lauded itself so extravagantly for its incomparable financial competence. It was indisputably competent in a way, as long as Ruffing held the throne no one had any idea that there even was a deficit. The emergency $3 million repayment to Water and Sewer first blasted the bubble of silence and threw the city council into panic and rigorous financial reform. The sudden discovery of glaring "accounting mistakes" was the first explosion in the boiler room of the good ship Ruffing. The deficit, on the other hand, is the long-term consequence of the strong woman/super manager’s reign of mismanagement. Ms. Miller took on the mess without complaint and basically eliminated the deficit in a couple of months. Amazing what professionalism, honesty and shrewd accounting can render.

It’s true that bringing the deficit down from $500k to $40k involved some slight of hand as well as some real reform. $80k was a perhaps more optimistic recalculation of projected revenues. $60k was a deferment of pension payments (the pension health care fund is no longer available to current employees but still costing the city). They deferred this pension payment to make the deficit smaller although paying it would have meant some savings. Next, they clipped $100k out of the contingency fund for litigation at the exact moment that Fort Bragg is likely to be sued over redistricting. But there were hard reductions in costs as well. No doubt they are running much tighter ship these days at City Hall.

Symbols have meaning. Restraint, effectiveness, and leanness are clearly at play. But in truth, it is not all that surprising that Ms. Miller was able to fix the deficit so convincingly and so quickly. The budget is a phantom, a projection, a guide perhaps, but still largely a mutable illusion. The allocations of budget accounting are a matter of art. Any worthy budget can be refashioned depending on what is wanted.

There was also no doubt Lee and Peters are grooving. The removal of the deficit at the very dawn of the election cycle is of extreme good providence. Amen.

Balancing the budget used to be goal #9 on the finance committee's list of goals. Now that the unimaginable has become very likely they have moved it up to #1.

ED NOTES

STANDING O for the Fort Bragg City Council. The FB Five voted unanimously Wednesday night to resist efforts to impose electoral districts on their small town.

A MARGINALLY employed young attorney named Jacob Patterson has threatened to sue the city because FB's elected council does not reflect its Hispanic minority. Patterson's mother, Michelle Roberts, is the executive director of the Coast Hospital Foundation. She is widely assumed to be a candidate for the FB City Council.

WE THINK PATTERSON and his mother are fronting for Fort Bragg's Appropriate People to gerrymander Fort Bragg so they, the Appropriate Ones, can regain what they view as lost dominance on the Council. Their nasty vilification of popular City Hall and town clerk June Lemos as "homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic etc" has back-fired big time. It goes without saying that Ms. Lemos is none of the above. Her crime? Participating in MSP's satirical funzies with the redistricting wackiness.

PATTERSON was a no-show at Wednesday night's Council meeting; mom appeared but only to irrelevantly rage about the satire and Ms. Lemos.

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FLOW KANA, the mega-pot operation in Redwood Valley is not doing well. They've already tried to re-finance their expensive property purchased for big bucks from the Fetzer family, but they're short on product, much of which so far has come from growers in Southern Humboldt. Because Mendo’s pot rules are so costly and burdensome, many Mendo growers are either taking their chances in the black market or they’re stuck in permit limbo waiting for the County or one of the several state bureaucracies to finish processing their permit application. Flow Kana won’t take your pot unless you’re fully legal at the County and state level and enrolled in the even more burdensome track and trace system.

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MENDOCINO COUNTY'S Most Interesting Man, Mike Sweeney, was recently spotted at the Westside Ukiah home of his girl friend, retired Press Democrat reporter Glenda Anderson. Sweeney, retired from the County job he created for himself as Mendocino County's lushly compensated lead trash bureaucrat, is just back from a sojourn in New Zealand. He's also the architect of the proposed Taj Trash Transfer Station proposed for Highway 20, although Fort Bragg has a large-capacity transfer station owned by WMI on Pudding Creek.

THE FBI itself said in 1991 what everyone in and outside law enforcement knows — the men closest to an injured or murdered woman are always considered the primary suspects. But the FBI magically excluded ex-hubbykins Sweeney from the Bari Bombing suspect pool and, a few years later, declared their investigation of the bombing over "because no one will talk to us."

NOR DID THE FBI test the famous Lord's Avenger Letter, the Bari bomber's confession, for DNA. (Or they did test and sprinted away from the results.) We long ago concluded that Sweeney, the one and only suspect in the attempt on his ex-wife's life, was and is protected by the FBI because he probably worked with them as an informant for many years, all the way back to his college days with a campus Maoist group involved in multiple bombings, and at least one murder of a police officer. That's the only explanation for his unique exemption for the suspect pool in the car bombing of his ex.

IF SWEENEY wasn't affiliated with the FBI they would have arrested him years ago, especially considering they had in their possession the DNA evidence that could have led to the solving of the case. That confirming evidence now rests with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the Rose City daily that they are sitting on a major story. Back up a little: We assume the Lord's Avenger Letter is stuck away in the newspaper's archive. Given that Sweeney's girl friend, Glenda Anderson, worked for the paper and had unquestioned access to the paper's archive…

BTW, SWEENEY'S primary in-County defender has always been Supervisor John McCowen, whose ramshackle building at 106 West Standley, Ukiah, once served as free office space for both Bari and Sweeney. We think that dreary space, still lent to recumbent "activists" as the Mendocino Environment Center, was leased to the FBI during the Redwood Summer period as the fed's listening post, much as the FBI set up phony activist offices in black ghettos in the 60's and 70's to monitor radicals.

IF POLICE can round up that murderous Citrus Heights psycho after 50 years looking for him, why can't a much simpler case like the Bari Bombing, with confirming DNA available in Santa Rosa (presumably), not to mention whatever's stashed at FBI headquarters, why can't we at last know Who Bombed Judi Bari?

DOWNS’ DOWNER

David Downs, the Chronicle’s popular marijuana writer and expert was interviewed by Jane Futcher on KZYX Thursday morning’s “Cannabis Hour.” After running down some “hot” pot topics (most of which are new pot products and trends having nothing to do with Mendocino County), Downs offered a blunt assessment of the future of Mendo’s pot economy:

Futcher: Our situation here in the Emerald triangle and specifically Mendocino County is somewhat dire at the moment. The wholesale price per pound has dropped. The bottom has dropped out. People will take anything from something like $300 a pound for their cannabis and that's going down. At the same time the cost of compliance is extremely expensive. You have said that decades of cannabis prohibition have distorted reality and the best thing for the future of Mendocino County would be if the feds extended prohibition for another 20 years. That kind of caught my ear. What did you mean by that? What is the end of prohibition doing to rural counties like Mendocino and Humboldt?

Downs: Federal cannabis prohibition was the most successful small farmer and small business support program that they have ever come up with. It kept prices high and gardens small. If you became a big guy, a big fish, then you appeared on their radar and they would take you out. Communities in Mendocino County used to tell me that the cost of doing business was that one out of a hundred of your friends would go to jail each year and that was okay because you were going to take care of his family in the meantime. That was just one small facet of this federal small business support program. Now that that is fading and lessening, traditional capitalism and industrial agriculture forces are coming in. People ask me how long is there going to be a black market? And that obviously depends on how long there is federal prohibition. The black market would be over in a year with legal federal cannabis and massive industrial farms in Iowa started growing marijuana there. They could supply the whole country in a year on about 10,000 or 15,000 acres — some farms in Iowa are that big. You could flood the market with cheap THC and put the black market out of business in a year or so if the feds wanted to do that. What will probably happen is something a lot slower. I give the black market another generation to tidy things up and end it. You don't see many old-timers encouraging their kids to go into the same line of work because they know that the future is so uncertain. Prohibition is like a black hole which warps light around it, it's a gravitational effect. So prohibition was warping the market for cannabis. And part of the warp was that it pushed prices really high and it pushed production into remote regions where law enforcement had trouble reaching them. Now different market dynamics are calling for different things. Most agricultural products need to be grown where there is cheap land and water and cheap access to markets and cheap access to capital. And in general the old-fashioned growers in Mendocino County don't excel at those things. It's hard to get labor up there. Land is okay but access to the market is brutal. It's a five hour drive minimum. And access to capital is almost nonexistent. I’ve heard from so many farmers who cannot get a loan and it will be even harder in the future. As the black hole of probation lifts and the warping of the market lifts you'll start to see a more normal agricultural market and it will be very difficult for everyone who is living in that work climate. And that's what’s happening in Mendocino County right now. My heart breaks for those guys because they obviously kept the industry going and built it on their backs. But the way legalization is playing out, they won't get some special carve out from late capitalism. If anything they’ll get accelerated treatment of going from a protected small business environment to full on globalized turbocharged capitalism where people are moving $200 million into play that will completely change the market. What do you do when you've been living on a farm for 20 years and just growing some stuff? A new dawn has arrived. It will be very disruptive. These rural communities in the California that no longer have mining, or logging, or fishing — some of them have cannabis and want to keep it; others are like Calaveras and they want to get rid of it. I'm not sure what the economic base of these regions will be. They need to take some real time and put their heads together and figure out what exactly rural California wants to do with itself. Not everyone can be Yosemite. Tourism cannot drive all these economies. The service economy cannot drive all these economies. They need to start getting creative about what their differentiators are and what the global economy wants to buy from Mendocino County beyond cannabis at $5000 a pound. You have tons of great wilderness and remoteness going for you. It's going to be completely different. These communities will have to adapt or they are going to wither and die. Some people really like that. Lots of people moved out to the middle of nowhere and they like living in a one stop-sign town where there was always parking and they never had to worry about noise and nothing ever changed. That may be great for them, but for the next generation after that it will be devastating to grow up in a community like that that has no dynamism, where you leave in order to prosper.

Futcher: No community, no hospitals, no ambulance, no access to fire departments. The community services in rural California will suffer not just in Mendocino. Rural counties face a tenuous financial future.

Downs: Rural areas need to start thinking about density in certain areas, getting together and creating job hubs and tech hubs. If you want to live off the grid your expectations need to match that in terms of the services you are going to get. But that is really tough because as you get older you need health care, you need access to those public services. But if you live at the top of the hill that's not going to happen. It just doesn't pencil out for the government to get it out there. It will come down to density in core areas in small cities. Remember that the only reason some of these places sprang up was for individuals to grow cannabis on one's own. But the economics of that have clearly changed.

HELP OUT, CALTRANS

To: Howard Dashiell-Director
Mendocino County Department of Transportation
340 Lake Mendocino Drive
Ukiah, Ca 95482-9432

And to: Laurie Berman
District Caltrans Director
P.O. Box 3700
Eureka, Ca 95502

To Whom it may concern

Most years during the rainy winter months Highway 128 between Boonville and the Coast is closed one or more times due to flooding. During these periods, much of the traffic is forced to take the alternate route to the Coast via Flynn Creek Road to Comptche-Ukiah Road. This major increase in traffic volume during the wettest time of the year contributes greatly to the degradation of the road surface. While the Mendocino County Roads Department has posted Flynn Creek Road to limit commercial truck traffic, with no good alternative many heavy vehicles use this route anyway. Since the Highway 128 flooding has been an ongoing problem for generations with no long-term alternative, we realize the reality that this problem will continue in years to come.

We can agree that a safe, reliable alternative to the Coast is important for both visitors and local residents. With decreasing County budgets, road maintenance dollars are increasingly spread thin and Flynn Creek Road certainly reflects that reality. The Comptche community appreciates the occasional pot hole patching but this is not even close to repairing the on-going damage caused by the winter traffic.

Since traffic from State Highway 128 is a major contributor to the damage on these roads, we feel it would be appropriate for Caltrans to chip in to help upgrade the Flynn Creek road surface and keep it as a safe year-round alternative. We have enclosed a list for your review of Comptche area residents who have agreed with this perspective on road maintenance.

Best Regards

Joel & Pamela Holmes

Comptche

MISTRIAL DECLARED in Latimer DUI trial.

UKIAH, Thurs., May 3. -- A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations today to announce that it would be unable to reach a unanimous verdict.  Defendant Jamarhl Rashad Latimer, age 23, of Ukiah, remains charged with driving a motor vehicle under the combined influence of alcohol and marijuana, a misdemeanor. After a mistrial was declared, today's jury split was disclosed as 2 for guilt to 10. After the jurors were thanked and excused, the matter was calendared for a retrial to commence on May 29th. In the intervening weeks, the parties were discuss whether a mutually-agreeable resolution is possible. The prosecutor who presented the People's evidence at trial was Deputy District Attorney Houston Porter. The investigating law enforcement agencies were the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Justice toxicology laboratory. The judge who presided over the three-day trial was the Honorable Keith Faulder.

MISTRIAL DECLARED in Turner/Gandalf trial.

UKIAH, Thurs., May 3. -- A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations today with a mixed bag of results. Defendant Paul Campbell Latimer [we think the DA means Paul Campbell Turner, not Latimer], age 47, of the Bell Springs area of Laytonville (also known as Bear Gandalf Orion Dragonheart), was found guilty of unlawful possession of marijuana for sale, a misdemeanor.

However, the jury also announced it was hung 8 for guilt to 4 for not guilty on whether the defendant had also committed the crime of being a felon in unlawful possession of ammunition, a felony. Because the jury could not unanimously agree on this issue, a mistrial was declared as to that single count. After the jurors were thanked and excused, the case was continued to May 10th for the DA's decision on whether a retrial would be sought on the ammunition count. The prosecutor who presented the People's evidence at trial was Deputy District Attorney Beth Norman. The investigating law enforcement agencies were the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This matter is being heard before Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Cindee Mayfield.

HARE CREEK – CITY OF FORT BRAGG SAYS, "The public comment period for the Hare Creek Center Draft EIR is currently underway. Originally, the deadline to submit comments on the Draft EIR was May 7, 2018. The City will extend the public comment period for the Hare Creek Center Draft EIR until 5:00 p.m. on May 15 22, 2018. [correction from Annemarie Weibel]

Written comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report may be submitted at any time during the comment period to Scott Perkins, Special Projects Manager, City of Fort Bragg, 416 N. Franklin Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437. All comments received during the comment period will be included and responded to in the Final EIR."

MENTAL HEALTH & MEASURE B NEEDS ASSESSMENT on Supes agenda next week.

The following items are on the Agenda regarding mental health and Measure B:

1. 9:15 a.m. Item 5a. Update 1 from the MH Treatment Act Citizen's Oversight Committee, Measure B, to the Board of Supes. Chair Sheriff Allman will be presenting. 30 minutes are alloted.
2. 9:45 a.m. Item 5b. Amendment to the HHSA Lee Kemper contract for the committee's needs assessment. Member CEO Carmel and Chair Sheriff Allman will be presenting. 15 minutes are alloted.

Other items of interest:

3. 10:45 a.m. Item 5c. HHSA will give a presentation on mental health services in Mendocino County to the Board of Supervisors.
4. Item 4q is a Proclamation recognizing May as Mental Health Month in Mendocino County.

Dora Briley
MCSO, Measure B Committee Clerk
707-463-4408

FROM the newly updated Anderson Valley Fire Department Long Range Plan regarding the still pending Exclusive (ambulance) Operating Area (EOA) for inland Mendocino County:

Mendocino County has directed staff to implement an inland Exclusive Operating Area (EOA) to one ambulance service. The intent of this EOA is to fix an ambulance conflict and issues arising from the competing private ambulance providers in the Ukiah area. The county will impose new increased EMS care and transport standards throughout all of inland Mendocino County, including Anderson Valley, and allow a legal monopoly for a single ambulance service to fulfill these higher contract requirements. The assumption is that the awardee of the EOA would gain the profits of the large population areas, along with interfacility transfers, but be responsible to support the remote areas of the county by increasing their level of EMS service.

AVFD will pursue a partnership with the EOA awardee in order to keep EMS services locally based and sustainable over the long term. Increased standards stipulated within the EOA contract will require supplemental funding to be provided in order to meet the higher standards. Funding targets will be primarily to cover staffing costs and overhead costs. A proper funding partnership would significantly assist with the ambulance staffing issues and sustainability.

If additional funding should become necessary, Development Impact Fees would be another potential source of revenue for the Department. Development Impact Fees may be imposed by districts such as ours to offset the cost of providing additional facilities, apparatus, equipment etc. required by new growth in construction. The AV Unified School District recently implemented Development Impact Fees and has been collecting them for several years without challenge. The process requires that the governing body (in our case the CSD) establish a fee that reasonably relates to the cost of providing future services. The California Mitigation Fee Act (1978 Government Code 66000-66025 AB1600) defines the authorization and requirements for implementation. Mitigation fees are charged per square foot of new construction. The AVUSD charges $2.24 per Square foot for residential buildings ($4,480 for a 2,000 sq. ft home) and $0.36 for commercial. These are one-time fees paid during the permit process.”

HOW YOU GOING TO KEEP THEM DOWN ON THE FARM?

Farm-labor management will be the focus of the Cannabis Hour, Thursday, May 17 at 9 a.m. on KZYX. Host Jane Futcher’s guest will be David Buckley of the Mendocino Management Group, a farm-labor contract company. Buckley is also a principal of the Mendocino Clone Company. They’ll talk about how cannabis and other ag businesses can get formerly “under the table” employees legal and insured, submit local and state employment paperwork correctly, and make sure their business is providing a safe working environment. Stream live or listen to an archived version at jukebox.kzyx.org

THE BOONVILLE FARMERS' MARKET will take place Saturday from 9:30-12:00 in the Boonville Hotel parking lot.

Petit Teton will be at market in the Boonville Hotel parking lot from 9:30-noon along with Yorkville Olive Ranch and perhaps Natural Products, the mushroom vendor. We will have our usual large display of processed foods...jams, krauts, soups, pickles, relishes and sauces; meats...pork, beef and squab; and in-season vegetables including baby artichokes, greens of different varieties, and herbs.

The Yorkville Olive Ranch will be at the Boonville Farmers Market on Saturday with the 2016 and 2017 Extra Virgin Olive Oil; Tuscan Field Blend. We will have both the 375 ml and 750 ml bottles. The2016 EVOO won a Gold Medal in the California Olive Oil Council's competition, and the 2017 EVOO won Silver Medals at the California State Fair and the COOC competition. This year we have a Meyer lemon infused Tuscan olive oil for the first time in the 375 ml bottles only.

For those who love olive oil and use a lot of it, you may want to consider buying it in bulk, by the gallon. Buying in bulk really reduces the cost. Since bringing the stainless steel fusti to the market is not feasible, you would need to come by the ranch to pick it up. You should bring your own container, preferably a dark brown or green glass bottle or a stainless steel container or fusti. Call the ranch at 894-0530 to make an appointment. Another possibility is to bring the bottle to the Farmers Market on Saturday and pick up the oil at the Market the next Saturday.

* * *

MAY AT ANDERSON VALLEY COMMUNITY FARM

Contact Farmer Tim Ward with any questions or to sign-up for any of our member programs:

Cell: (831) 332-5131

Email: andersonvalleycommunityfarm@gmail.com

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EXTENDED PLANT SALE Sundays- May 6 and May 13. 10 AM-4 PM.

Come and get some starts. We still have tomatoes, hot peppers, basil, squash, melons, berries, and flowers. The plants are ready to go, come and get ‘em. Haggling is welcome, just help me not have to compost these little babies.

Our Veggie Box Program begins Friday May 10. Sign-up, 4 weeks at a time, for a diverse box of fresh vegetables. $15 or $30 boxes come loaded, and bursting with color and flavor. See the link here to details on our website:

https://andersonvalleycommunityfarm.com/veggie-box-program/

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OPEN HOUSE, BBQ, AND FARM TOURS, SUNDAY MAY 13.

Free farm tours @ 10 AM and 2:30 PM with a focus on soil building and alternative garden preparation methods.

Farm-to-(picnic)Table BBQ lunch, by chef Farmer Tim, featuring AVCF meat, vegetables, eggs, and olive oil. Lunch served from 11:30 A.M.-2 P.M., $ by donation.

Free gift from the farm for all Mothers on their official day of recognition.

This is our favorite season on the farm, it May be at its most beautiful right now in mid-spring: lush green and flowers everywhere, veggie fields planted and getting prepped, and days warm and perfect. Sounds like time for a party. We hope you can make it!

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THIS WEEK AT BLUE MEADOW FARM

Tomato, pepper & eggplant starts

Chamomile, Mint, Thyme, Oregano

3301 Holmes Ranch, Philo

895-2071

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SEEBASS COMMUNITY SOUP NIGHT - FRIDAY 5/4

This months' Friday Community Soup night features a Spring Vegetable and Lamb Meatball Soup! Lamb meatballs are optional, so you pick just lots of veggies, or with meat. $10 for a big bowl and freshly baked bread and butter, and of course, specials on our wines too! Hope to see you to share some fabulous weather and our local goodies!

Goat Fest 2018

Goat Fest 2018, our fourth annual, might have been our most successful yet. We had lots of human kids and their families, lots of good food, lots of vendors at our Farmers’ Market and even a goat kid and a few adult goats. For the human kids we had an early goat mask making workshop and for the human adults there were two great goat care and use workshops, in addition to goat milk cheese making and soap making. And there was goat piñata!

Maybe the most fun part of the event this year was the human goat parade. Led by Captain Rainbow and Donna Pierson-Pugh and accompanied by a very small marching band, we had people and bikes dressed as goats. The judging on the birria competition this year resulted in a VERY close vote. The competitors were Marggie, Lama, Alicia (Alicia’s Tacos) and Lizbby’s. By just a hair, the winner was Alicia!

Gabe Segura did his Senior Project this year by organizing some music for us and selling drinks, fruit cups and desserts to accompany Alicia’s Tacos and John’s Farm Burgers. The proceeds from Gabe’s sales went to the Music Production program at the High School.

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 3, 2018

JOHN BOWMAN, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, domestic battery, probation revocation.

ANA COLLADO-ALVAREZ, Windsor/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KENNETH HALL, Moreno Valley/Ukiah. Unspecified misdemeanor.

DAVID HOGUE, Menlo Park/Ukiah. DUI.

JASON LUSK, Gualala. Probation revocation.

DANIEL NICHOLAS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SAMUEL RUCZAK, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

What is impossible to deny is the astonishing intellectual collapse which has been in train for at least the last fifty-five or sixty years. It has either got markedly worse in the last few years or I am just more sensitive to it. This is affecting what used to be called thinking people and includes, obviously, academia, the media and most of those on social media. I suppose earlier collapses had their intellectual counterpart.

It is a psychological condition involving a huge ‘meta-fantasy’ which we can call political correctness within which an array of different but connected mass fantasies are playing out. There is a permanent level of public hysteria, which blows up into full-blown insanity at regular intervals, damaging all institutions including justice. These fantasies can be easily demonstrated but it is very difficult to persuade people to look at the evidence, of which there are mountains.

VALLEJO POLICE WORKING ON DNA MATCH FOR ZODIAC KILLER

Detectives in Northern California are trying to get a DNA profile on the Zodiac Killer to find him with the family-tree tracing technology investigators used to make a recent arrest in another decades-old case. Vallejo police Detective Terry Poyser tells the Sacramento Bee his agency has submitted two envelopes that contained letters from the Zodiac Killer for DNA analysis.

The recently developed technology was used to arrest Joseph DeAngelo, the alleged Golden State Killer.

Poyser says the department is working with a private lab to try to obtain a full DNA profile from saliva on the envelopes' flaps and stamps. Results are expected in the next few weeks.

The Zodiac Killer killed five people in Northern California in 1968 and 1969. He sent taunting letters and cryptograms to police and newspapers that included astrological symbols. (AP)

WE'VE GOT PLANS!

Planning Commission meeting Agenda for May 17, 2018, is posted on the department website at:

mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/meeting-agendas/planning-commission

Please contact staff with any questions.

Victoria Davis
Commission Services Supervisor
707-234-6664

HIT & RUN, COMEDY EDITION

Dear Mendonesians,

Hit and Run Theater will return to the stage Saturday, May 26, 2018 at 7pm at the Redwood Coast Senior Center at the Fort Bragg Middle School, 490 N. Harold St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437. This show will benefit the Senior Center and will kick off Hit & Run’s Summer season, which will include an Improv Workshop series from Wednesday, May 30 through Wednesday, June 20, and culminate in shows at the Matheson Performing Arts Center on Friday & Saturday, July 6 & 7.

The Senior Center Benefit will be Hit and Run’s first show at the Senior Center. Scheduled for Saturday evening, May 26 at 7pm the show will be fully improvised with all skits and songs based on audience suggestions. For this evening, Hit and Run Theater will include Jill Jahelka, Ken Krauss, Doug Nunn, Kathy O’Grady, Christine Samas, and Steve Weingarten. We look forward to a lively evening to benefit the Senior Center. For further information please call the Senior Center 964-0443.

Thanks very much and hope you can make it.

Doug Nunn