Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018

• Office Turnover
• Complex Update
• Council Resists
• Sewage Mess
• Little Dog
• Trashed Lake
• November Candidates
• Legalization
• B Meeting
• KraZYX
• Yesterday's Catch
• Healthcare Funding
• Final Revolution
• Trained Rat
• Morally Bankrupt
• Tax Exempt
• Farmer Marketing
• Recording
• Hot Seawater
• Stop Fascists
• NCO Picnic
• County Vacancies
• Air Quality

MATT FINNIGAN, local Public Attorneys Union counsel, may be contacted for a comment on the case of Chelsie Abramson (she met with him today). Ms. Abramson was fired by Assistant Public Defender Christiane "Chris" Hipps on Friday last and, alas, Ms. Hibbs was fired herself on Monday. The shadowy entities that fired Ms. Hipps turn out to be the County's Personnel Office, these days called Human Resources, which has a rather Soylent Green-ish ring to it but we're probably a decade away from full surplus-human-to-fast-food conversion mode. The smart and capable Shannon Cox is now in charge of the Public Defender’s office. She's currently a Deputy County Counsel lawyer, and with not only a work-history as a career-long prosecutor, she's the spouse of a former local cop, currently an investigator for the District Attorney in Lake County. The turmoil in the PD's office is positively bracing, but we expect Ms. Cox to quickly restore order. (Bruce McEwen)

CALFIRE'S MENDOCINO COMPLEX FIRE UPDATE (Thursday 7am)

RIVER FIRE: 48,920 acres, 100% containment

RANCH FIRE: 317,117 acres, 69% containment

"The Ranch Fire continued to burn actively overnight with creeping and backing behavior in steep terrain. The fire continues to remain active in the Mendocino National Forest as well as threaten communities that reside north of the fire perimeter. Crews continued to construct control lines, tying together preexisting containment barriers, especially north of the Snow Mountain Wilderness. Crews continued structure preparation and defense in the communities threatened by the Ranch Fire. Today’s operations will focus on the northwest and northeast edges of the Ranch Fire, while continuing to prepare for controlled firing operations to improve containment lines as conditions allow. The south side of the fire has had no significant events and suppression repair crews are continuing with work in those areas. The southern area remains in patrol status. The River Fire had no movement. Suppression repair along with patrol will continue on the River Fire."

cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/admin8327985/cdf/images/incidentfile2175_4026.pdf

THE COST OF DOING THE RIGHT THING

by Rex Gressett

It was about power and incumbency, and it was about municipal bankruptcy. The City Council met in regular session Monday night and gloriously stole their own show, but there was more to it than met the eye.

Town Hall was packed, not the standing-room-only that often distinguishes our small, vibrant democracy, but there was a respectable turnout. In little Fort Bragg, a city of 7,000 residents, Council meetings are routinely attended by crowds far exceeding the who-cares-let-it-happen emptiness one ordinarily observes in the meetings of the County Board of Supervisors representing 80,000 constituents.

Monday night’s meeting drew a large audience attending for various reasons, among them being that it’s the last regular spot for the indigent to get a meal in the city. They had collided with city regulations and the city closed its doors to the hungry. (More on that later.) Some folks came to object to that.

The city was officially cutting our badly overworked police force by a single officer (we have 8 when they are fully staffed). The police lieutenant quit outright and two more former Fort Bragg officers have quietly migrated over the hill in recent months looking for a better gig.

But the headliner on the Monday night agenda was the city's next grudging step toward, perhaps, capitulation to The California Voting Rights Act as misapplied to Fort Bragg. That item was fundamental and apocalyptic but no one at the meeting was there for that. The impending termination of at-large elections has certainly angered the city, but since the CVRA is so hard to get one's head around, no one knows quite what to say. For sure no one in the folding chairs was expecting any stunning announcements.

Districting the city under the provisions of the CVRA allows voters to vote for one, not five city councilmen, every other election. Effectively, it crushes traditional Fort Bragg democracy. It is a bad law, a stinking law, resented and resisted by dozens of local governments across the state. It purports to address the racial injustice of vote dilution. Minorities (in our case our respected and beloved Hispanic community) are presumed to have special interests specific to race.

The CVRA postulates that those special interests are submerged (diluted) in the agendas of white majorities. That might be true in some places but in Fort Bragg, with its highly integrated deeply unified population, the presumption is patently offensive.

The new Latino candidate for the council, Ruben Alcala, told the City council Monday night he knew of zero support in the Hispanic community for districting. Mr. Alcala was expressing a city-wide consensus that crosses all ideological lines. There is literally no support for districting and no way out of it. That’s true across the state. But opportunistic attorneys riding the CVRA to personal fortune have crushed every city and every school board that has taken the fight to court.

Prior to the meeting Monday night, the City Council had only discussed dodging the bullet. The safe harbor provision of the CVRA immediately cuts the city into districts but saves the city from catastrophic costs of complex litigation that in CVRA lawsuits routinely run into millions. Extortion in the Safe Harbor is limited to $35,000 dollars.

It looked like the city was headed for that safe harbor when, wham out of the clear blue sky Monday night, the Mayor took the microphone to dramatically announce that the council was rescinding the Safe Harbor resolution and going to court to fight districting!

The council, to everyone's shock and awe, was standing up to Jacob Patterson, the lawyer threatening to sue the city, and his faceless cowardly committee. There was repressed cheering when they made the announcement (since public clapping is forbidden).

But courage can be costly.

Palmdale, California fought districting and paid out $4.5 million in court costs, the Madera Unified school district paid $1.2 million. The city of Modesto got hammered for $3.5 million. The Hanford school district got off easy with $110k payout. Anaheim paid $2 million. Santa Barbara got away with paying a mere $600k by caving in quickly. So did Santa Clara, paying $600k.

The Fort Bragg City Council has indicated its firm intention to fight not cave so we can't expect those nominal figures. That’s just a sample of the list of cities that have gone down in defeat and humiliation. They all paid ruinous financial penalties and they all got court imposed districting anyway.

The record of futile resistance is not 99% it is 100%.

In some cases, the courts tossed the elected representatives. The court has redrawn districting lines and commanded cities and school boards to pay and conform. Local government in California has been sacrificed on the altar of districting.

Fort Bragg has a skimpy $200k legal reserve trimmed from $300k a few months ago when they juggled the books to balance the budget. The capricious CVRA guarantees that everybody's attorneys' fees, the cost of expert demographers, and anything else they can think of is paid by the city to the attorney who sues them even if the assailed municipality gets down on their knees and settles. Normally if you lose you have to pay the other guy’s attorney fees. If you settle everybody pays their own lawyers. But the disreputable CVRA bestows lopsided power on the plaintiff and loads the dice outrageously against the defendant.

Ever since Saint Jacob [Patterson] of the Legal Process arrived in Fort Bragg, the legal pressure on the city has been unrelenting, ominous and implicitly apocalyptic. Attorney Patterson, otherwise unemployed, has the city over the proverbial barrel and has left the Fort Bragg City Council with no palatable choices.

Patterson, backed by a committee that won’t identify itself, won't justify his assertions of racism. Nobody has made a compelling argument or any argument at all about the reasonability of the reform perhaps because districting as a reform is not reasonable. The committee that allegedly hired Patterson won't confess their identities.

It’s been a rough ride for the City administration as well as the Council. The City administration has been besieged by Patterson with public information request forms and hammered with inconsiderate demands for meetings and outright harassment. Our exemplary and elegant City Clerk, a paragon of administrative efficiency and courtesy has been formally charged by the Pattersons (Patterson and his Mommy) with racism for making one mildly ironic, vastly not racist remark on social media.

The Monday night meeting left zero doubt the Council has taken all this harassment personally. One after another they stepped up to excoriate Mr. Patterson. Will Lee was notably pointed in his critique. Dave Turner was witty and succinct, calling it a solution in search of a problem.

And that settled it. Fort Bragg is joining the ranks of the hundreds of other local governments that have gone to court. Every one of them has plunged their constituencies into huge legal costs. Monday night Fort Bragg also took the leap.

WHAT A ROYAL MESS

by Mark Scaramella

On Monday, August 13, two members of the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District Board and some of their staff, met with a gaggle of officials from the City of Ukiah, including Ukiah’s mayor Kevin Doble and Councilman Doug Crane plus several of Ukiah’s financial and technical people.

It was one of the weirdest public meetings we have ever seen, and we’ve seen a few.

The agenda was a simple: “Review, discussion and recommendation: FY 2018-2019 Budget.” There was no agenda packet. No public handouts. No overhead or summary presentation. The audio quality from the on-line video was bad. There was lots of confused and seemingly random flipping through pages by people trying to decipher or decode what was in front of them. No one made specific reference to what budget items were being discussed. There did not seem to be any objective or point to the meeting other than some vague idea of a balanced budget. There were several mentions of out-years, implying that more was being discussed than the 2018-2019 budget. And that was just at the surface.

But larger questions went mentioned.

For one thing, even though the Sanitation District is a separate entity which is supposed to administer the sewer connections for Ukiah Valley residents who are not within the Ukiah City limits, the Ukiah City budget staff prepared the District’s budget!

According to the District’s background info on line: “Per the Participation Agreement, the City is responsible for developing a Proposed Budget for the combined operations of the sewer system. The Proposed Budget must receive approval from the UVSD Board of Directors and the City Council. The City is also responsible for managing the budget; it is the paying and receiving agent for all District operation and maintenance funds.”

If the District has no role in the preparation, management or accounting of the budget or the books, why does it even exist as a separate entity?

The Godzilla in the room — the years-long multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by the District against the City of Ukiah for what the District alleges where overcharges by the City to the District which continues to cost millions of dollars in attorney fees and shows no sign of resolution — never came up.

There was no mention of escalating attorney costs during the entire hour and twenty minutes of rambling, pointless discussion. Nobody seemed to be in charge of the meeting, although the school-marmish Ms. Theresa McNerlin, chair of the Sanitation District board, sometimes acted like she wanted to be.

So here you have the target of a huge lawsuit preparing the complicated budget for the agency that is suing them!

What could possibly go wrong?

Since there was no budget packet issued to the public we have no idea what the District’s budget is, and particularly no idea how much the City put in the District’s budget for attorney fees. The latest budget available on line is from two years ago. It shows a mere $200k for legal fees — which can’t be right, unless somehow the lawsuit’s attorney fees are hidden elsewhere in a separate budget.

At one point a frustrated Ms. McNerlin noted that the District’s budget apparently went from $400k last year to $1.7 million this year, adding: “What service are we providing that costs double?!” she asked, as if the whole thing was a surprise to her. Nobody answered the question. But there are lots of possibilities. The District was paying something like a ridiculous $140 an hour plus generous travel expenses for their previous general manager; they’ve got a new one now who may be slightly more affordable. They also have some other staff and consultants running up bills seemingly at will. And then there are those endless legal fees for the lawsuit, of course.

Ms. McNerlin’s major problems with the budget the City gave her were in three areas: “We don’t want to pay for city hall,” she declared, later mentioning something about a city hall lobby upgrade, but without any specific reference to a project or cost. (Ukiah city management spares no expense on itself and its premises while the rest of the town looks like hell, other than Ukiah’s Westside where the titans of local government themselves live.) She also objected to the amount of time the District was being charged for city engineering. “How am I supposed to know what part of his time goes to the District?” McNerlin rightly demanded, albeit tardy by who knows how many years. “How do you figure that out?” McNerlin also had a problem with how the City calculated the District’s portion of the LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Council) fee.

Toward the end of the meeting UVSD trustee Ernie Wipf remarked, “I think this ought to be one system, not two systems.”

McNerlin snapped, “We’ve tried that. It cannot be done.”

Wipf replied, “Why can’t the city annex the district?”

McNerlin cut Wipf off with, “We have to finish this budget first.”

City Councilman Crane noted, “You have an imbalance of Siamese twins [i.e., the small district and the much larger City to which it is attached at the…]. Either one head goes away or you can stay as twins.”

They sort of agreed to work to try to arrange a joint meeting between the Ukiah City Council and the Sanitation District Board in the vague future (along with all the high paid technical, administrative, financial and legal staffers).

Mr. Wipf, who was elected to the Sanitation District Board last November, asked about a joint meeting he had heard about two years ago and why nothing happened since then.

Ukiah Mayor Kevin Doble replied, “Do you want the honest answer”?

Wipf said, “Yeah.”

Doble replied, “Probably lawyers.”

Yet nobody in the room dared mention the lawyers in any other context. It was surreal.

No motions were made, nobody suggested any recommendations for the District Board or the City Council. No one offered any kind of answer to McNerlin’s three questions, although there was a long and ultimately irrelevant discussion of how to allocate certain overhead and management costs by percentage. The fact that such issues are even up for discussion shows how silly and convoluted the entire Siamese Twins arrangement is.

Off hand, it appears that the City staffers can just tell all the ratepayers, in the City or outside, what they want and the ratepayers have to pay it. It’s quite obvious that neither the elected District Board nor the Elected City Council have any real control over anything and that staffers and lawyers are just milking the entire sewer system for whatever they can get out of it.

At the end of the meeting Mr. Crane summed up the three “action items” that he said needed to be provided to the District board: the LAFCO fee calculation, city engineering cost allocations and how much of those upgrades to the city’s lobby the District should pick up.

It took almost 80 minutes for that.

(Ukiah City Water & Sewer Director Sean White (L) expressed his opinion of the discussion toward the end of the meeting as Ukiah’s Finance Director Dan Buffalo tried again to consider a response to one of Ms. McNerlin’s points.)

No time frame was offered for when the three "action items" would be dealt with.

Meanwhile, the District's budget remains as the City prepared it.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “On the subject of birds, crows annoy me the most, but hummingbirds? Mean little bastards! Crows just talk, but the hummers attack!”

A READER COMMENTS on the sorry state of Lake Mendocino: "Even without the uptick in vandalism, the place is a trash heap. Broken glass everywhere along the shore and parking lots - garbage thrown everywhere, dog poo all over. It is disgusting. It is embarrassing to take out of town friends there. It could be a lot better, but it's not. Seems like folks just don't care. Sad!"

DRAFT CANDIDATE LIST FOR NOVEMBER ELECTION

County Elections Clerk Katrina Bartolomie writes: “This has been posted to our website. It is a draft list, we will review it in the morning. I will post a final version on our website and will email you a final version. Thank you for being patient.”

HIGHLIGHTS:

Fort Bragg City Council (for 3 seats): Lindy Peters (only incumbent), Ruben Alcala (Retail Manager), Tess Albin-Smith (Forester/Musician/Bookkeeper), Dana Jess (General Contractor/Employer), Bobby Burns (Handyman/Appliance Repair), Jessica Morsell-Haye (Business Owner/Mom), Mary Rose Kaczorowski (no occupation listed but known to people on the coast as “Redwood Mary”).

Ukiah City Council (for 3 seats): Jim Brown (incumbent), Maureen Mulheren (incumbent), Chon Travis (Musician/Entrepreneur), Edward Haynes (Veterinarian), Matt Froneberger (no occupation listed).

Willits City Council (for 2 seats): Larry Stranske (incumbent), Greta Kanne (Small Business Owner), Jeremy Hershman (Teaching Assistant)

Coast Hospital (for 3 long-term seats): Kevin Miller (Opthalmologist), John Redding (Chief Executive Officer), Jade Tippett (Retired Educator), Amy Beth McColley (Nurse/Compliance Officer),

Coast Hospital (for 1 short-term seat): Karen Arnold (Human Resources Manager), Rex Gressett (Writer).

County School Board (for 3 seats): Donald Cruser (incumbent), Mary Misseldine (incumbent), Tarney Sheldon (Credentialed Teacher). (Replacing a seat formerly held by Camille Schraeder who is not re-running.)

And one of the people running for the Mendocino College Board, Mr. Larry Lang, lists his occupation as “Wine Host.”

CANDIDATE LIST Nov 2018 DRAFT 81518

LEGALIZATION, an on-line comment:

Well, a bunch of fools voted for a scam “legalization” that gave our #1 economic engine away to corporations. This resulted in our county receiving somewhere around $420 million LESS each year and more as the years proceed. Nobody has enough money to make it. The reality is just starting to hit home. Depression, anxiety, stresses are rising and people are getting desperate. People are unable to pay debts and now they will never be able to pay these debts. Because of a hyper-inflated greenrush running unchecked for over a decade we attracted many drug-addicted, alcoholic and mentally unstable people to our community. Now they have no way of sustaining their habits. I’m surprised it’s not worse than it is. But I am pretty sure we are only seeing the beginning. It will get much worse. Many people think their permits will save them. But the writing is on the wall and very few will survive. The permitted farms will be crushed and sold for dimes on the dollar in the next few grueling years. Expect domestic violence rates to rise, broken families and lots of thievery, assaults, murders and vigilante action in response. Congratulations go out to the proponents of “legalization” for wanting our community to be “safe” and “legitimate” by becoming “compliant” and therefore “real farmers.”

CHANGE IN MEETING DATE FOR MEASURE B COMMITTEE

Please note that the August 22 meeting of the MH Treatment Act Citizens Oversight Committee has been changed to August 29. Time and place remain the same: 1-3:00 PM Conference Room C at the Mendocino County Admin Center, 501 Low Gap Rd. Ukiah. The date change is to allow for the Lee Kemper and Associates Needs Assessment Report to be presented to the committee.

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

FOR GAWD'S SAKE ALICE!

To: Program director, KZYX

Subject: When, Alice?

Alice, when are you going to schedule my excellent, proven, relevant, local community radio show on KZYX?

Here's the recording of my show from last week. It's my 1062nd six-to-eight-hour weekly Memo of the Air show (293rd for KNYO, 147th for KMEC):

https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0293

I did that live from my wife Juanita's apartment, at the typing table next to the bed. You can tell when I'm doing the show from there, because I talk softer to not bother the neighbors. This coming Friday I'll be in Fort Bragg for the show, all night, as usual, with the door wide open for anyone in the world to wander in without an appointment, and no call-sabotage-delay on the live phone, should you want to call about this. 707-962-3022 any time after 9pm, Friday the 17th. If there'll be swears, please call after 10pm. We can talk for an hour if that's how long it takes. If somebody comes in from the bar next door, or from any place else, you can talk to them too. I'll put aside what I've brought to read and continue when you're done.

I applied to put Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio on KZYX in late Feb./early March of 2012 and I'm still waiting. That comes to 347 weeks I've been waiting, and the whole time I've been waiting I've been on other local stations, doing better radio than anyone you know, and I work harder and longer at preparing for and really doing radio than anyone you know, and I get along great with everyone at every radio station involved. The manager of KNYO is Bob Young. The manager of KMEC is Ed Nieves. (Copying this to them, so you have their personal email addresses, as you have mine.)

While I'm on the subject, think about this: your job and the so-called manager's job at KZYX should be merged; you should manage KZYX, and Jeffery should be given the boot. He knows nothing about radio. He's never built a transmitter, much less a whole radio station. He's never built a recording studio full of equipment from parts and circuit diagrams. He's never written, produced, directed and staged live radio drama. He's never taught radio production or music production or live sound reinforcement. He's never taught school. He's never operated any kind of true public-access system either on teevee or radio or in magazines and newspapers. He's never done even an hour of real radio. And he doesn't know any more about radio now than he did when they hired him to run a radio station. In the latest technical debacle at KZYX, it never occurred to him to plug the phone system into the generator with an extension cord and a line conditioner, leaving KZYX with no phones for days (!). He suit-and-smile fakes it and collects his checks. He sucks out of the station just for himself five times the entire yearly operating budget of KNYO. Think of how much more he's being paid than you're being paid. That should be galling to you.

(For that matter, it should be galling to all the local airpeople at KZYX. They're being paid nothing at all, and they're the ones doing radio, such as it is, and Jeffery is not.)

Take anyone at KZYX and compare their radio resume with mine: Here's how I got my music show on KMFB in 1983: I called the program director on the phone and was on the air that weekend. Here's how I got Memo of the Air on KMFB in 1997: I called the manager, Bob Woelfel, who was a fan of my countywide newspaper, and I asked him what I had to do to put my paper Memo on the air. He told me how much continuing underwriting to bring in, I made a few calls and wandered around Fort Bragg and rounded it all up in an afternoon, and I was on the air that Friday, was paid for my airtime and for maintenance I did at the station, and for building and installing things the station needed, out of a cut of the underwriting my show brought in, and that relationship lasted for 15 years till KMFB changed hands in late 2011. For a few years we used a broadcast mixing board I designed and built. (The manager said, "We need a mixing board that does this, this and this," and I collected the parts and fabricated a case and built and installed it.) I built the shelves and maintained computers and satellite systems and fixed the plumbing and the telephone system and so on, and when things broke they'd call me and I'd get up at all hours and drive there and fix it. I got Jerry Fraley involved there. The people who own KUNK are still using stuff I wired up in KMFB's transmitter shack twenty years ago and they probably don't even know it, it's that reliable. I made a whole pop-up Exploratorium-style science museum for the Whale School in the late 1980s, complete with Tesla coils, puzzles, X-Y lasers, pendulum, electric catapult, giant child-operated tyrannosaur marionette, etc. I put up a fully automatic call-in low-power radio station of my own invention in 1985 in Mendocino, ran it for a month to show how easy and harmless and wonderful, and paid the fine. I ran a public-access variety act teevee show for years in Fort Bragg and turned no-one away. I put schoolkids' plays on the radio as far south as Cupertino, through a phone network. Rocket events. Theater shows. Sound effects and sound environments for three theater companies, electromechanical musical instruments, microphones and amplifiers, theramins both capacitance- and light-controlled, and more. And all of this dazzling activity was and is done on a fricking shoestring. In 35 years I have never missed a radio airdate by even a minute.

Alice, why, with $600,000 (!) to spend every year, with three transmitters on three frequencies totaling less than a dollar per hour to keep on the air, does KZYX have to be so dumb nearly all of the time, when you're not only in a position to remedy this, but you are in the position to remedy this and have been for years now? You're the one with the authority. You're the program director.

I've heard you talk a few times; you seem like you might be trying to be a stand-up person on certain issues. Stand up on this issue. Think of it as an unconscionably delinquent repair ticket (it's been on the books for over six-and-a-half years); quit overlooking it and make the repair. It's easy. Dump a few shows from a thousand miles away, push a couple of shows this way or that, edit the schedule, and put your I.T. person on setting your automation to grab my stream. Currently I stream live, wherever I happen to be doing my show from, to KNYO-LP in Fort Bragg and KMEC-LP in Ukiah every Friday night from 9pm to almost 5am. It would take you twenty minutes, tops, to set up the entire deal. An exciting, fun project for you. If there are technical aspects you're shaky on, let me know and I'll connect you to someone who can help.

Memo of the Air is real community radio in real time with the door open to the street, not fibbing for fundraising purposes about being community radio. Wouldn't it be nice to be the one who made that improvement at KZYX?

I'll tell you what galls me: when I turn on KZYX just at random, usually at night when I’m driving, more likely than not it's some recorded show, music or talk, from Boston or New York or Colorado; last night it was automation-played reruns (!) interspersed with a man's warbly-smarmy recorded sales-voice declaring that KZYX is community radio. It's just not and really never has been. Pull the lever and make it be. It's right in front of you.

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

* * *

DEREK WRITES: Nice comedy piece Marco... maybe Bruce will print it in the AVA, ha, ha, ha.

Of course, what you wish for can never happen in the "real world" because KraZYX is still co-opted by the same outside subversive behind the scenes interlocutors that have been there at least 15 years now.

Alice is doing the best that she can, considering the pressure she must be under from the people who really run KZYX beyond the impotent Board.

I tried for years, yes, years, to get the KZYX Board to stop breaking the MCPB by-laws and the Law, to no avail and all I ever got back was tacit and some direct, threats of losing my shows there.

Now, KMFB, that was a wonderful radio station to work at. I remember when you built the new mixer board at the Prairie Way studio, it was a compact work of engineering art that did the job well and much better than the old board with the badly scratchy pots, I hated it when the music would drop out during my show and I'd have to touch the pot to make it come back, sometimes.

Yes, KZYX is missing out on Memo of the Air, it would bring money to them, unfortunately, they are afraid of Free Speech, deathly afraid, and those behind the scenes don't want it at all, they much prefer socially trendy, therefore benign, canned programming, sad, truly sad, that the public’s airwaves have been so co-opted by agents who don't even live in Mendocino County.

Keep the heat on 'em, Marco!

* * *

BETH BOSK COMMENTS: Okay. This has gone on far too long. Marco: I suggest you open up a GO FUND ME account so that KZYX/Z members who have to re-up this Fall, have a place to ESCROW their MEMBERSHIP money UNTIL you are restored to a late night-till pre-dawn spot on KZYX. Hoardes of folks who have halted their money flow to the usurpers of the original spirit of the station, would also PLEDGE on your GO FUND ME site so the station could see how much money is no longer available to them. ALL OR NOTHING, Marco. You're given a spot for MEMO ON THE AIR or all the money pledged to your GO FUND ME site is returned. It becomes evident in a lawsuit against the station: the squelching of a local talent and causing grievous harm both to you and the nocturnal beings prevented from receiving the benefits of your late night-to pre-dawn soothing.

* * *

ED NOTE: Paying KZYX programmers is a terrible idea, and a quick way to further bankrupt the station. Some of the stuff I've heard I should be paid for the time I listened. But who besides Marco has even asked to be paid? These people seem to enjoy being on the air, and a whole bunch of them have been on the air since the old shuckster, Travelin' Sean Donovan scammed the "community" into paying him for creating Mendo Kinda Public Radio. I think it's sadistic of generations of management to keep you off the air and don't understand why you're still banned except, I suppose, you're viewed as a sort of male version of Sister Fog Belt. You seem manageable to me, but I have a high tolerance for difficult people. I've seen Alice W. in action exactly once at the most recent board meeting. I thought she was quite impressive, especially in the context of the enterprise where the performance bar has always been set low, often subterraneanly low. I'm surprised someone as smart and as articulate as she is managed to get hired. Maybe she would put you on as a trial run at the Verge Hours, late at night when only the insomniacs and tweekers are awake. (Hell, that's half the population of the county right there!) There's no plausible reason for keeping you off the air, but since Donovan the watchword at the station has always been pure chickenbleep, a tradition well established thirty years down the line. One look at the castrati functioning as trustees and, well, I doubt any of them are likely to ever out-dare Prufrock. But all this said, you are certainly entitled to an explanation for your continued non-person status. If you don't get one I'll volunteer to accompany you in an occupation of Parker's office, ala the time the Lunatic Brigade, under the direction of Commandante Bari, took control of the place, with only poor old Gordy Black boldly trying to hold off the mob.

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 15, 2018

ELECTRA BEARD, Mendocino. Domestic abuse, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, criminal threats.

RANDALL GENSAW, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CHRIS GUERRERO, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

NICHOLAS HALVORSEN, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

BRANDON HANSON, Ukiah. Unspecified charges.

JONATHAN HOPPNER, Willits. Parole violation.

ANGIE JOAQUIN, Covelo. Probation revocation.

SCOTT MAINGI, Ukiah. Suspended license, probation revocation.

ROQUE MINCITAR, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

RONALD NORWOOD, Gualala. Reckless driving, evasion, failure to appear.

TONY PAUL, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

JOHN STAHL*, Leggett. Parole violation.

JORDAN STINSON, Lucerne. Noblesville, Indiana/Ukiah. Fugitive from justice.

*Background: https://www.theava.com/archives/23642

WHY NOT?

Editor:

A letter writer said 85% of health insurance comes as an employment benefit. If this is correct, then we should be able to fund 85 percent of Medicare for All by taxing the employers.

Costs for insuring employees is 100 percent tax deductible, so the IRS has records of how much each employer has paid for insurance coverage. Divide that by the number of employees covered under that health plan, and you have a cost per employee. Require each employer to pay a “head tax” to help fund Medicare for All, based on prior coverage, perhaps averaged for several years. More employees, more tax. Fewer employees, less tax.

This would cost employers no more than they currently pay for private insurance, but they would no longer be required to arrange coverage for their employees. And they would no longer be able to decide what coverage their employees get. No more issues about contraception, no more U.S. Supreme Court cases about coverage. All Americans would receive the same coverage, in private with their own doctors.

There is no reason to give employers a windfall when Medicare for All takes effect. And if Medicare for All can be more efficient than the patchwork system we now have, the head tax might just cover more than 85 percent.

Barbara Vaughan

Santa Rosa

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

As a psych major in college, I trained a white rat to stand on a tuna fish can with a hole in its center, pick up a marble from the cage floor and drop it in the hole at center of can. It did this for a few intermittent pellets of food. That essentially is how an economic system works. If I thought a brown rat would do a better job, I would use it. If the threat of replacing the white rat with another worked, I would use it. All I wanted was its performance, and I was no slouch about it. Not only did the rat have to pick up the marble, but I expected it to stand up straight with marble in hand before dropping it. My rat was so well trained that my professor chose it to demonstrate how it was done (my pellets.) The economic system will never collapse, it will re-adjust. If I push the rat beyond endurance and it can no longer perform, I will have to change tactics. Ultimately, what I seek is the rat’s energy for my own nefarious reasons. Admonitory: I took the little white rat home at the end of semester and fed it liberally without expectations. The rat became so vicious that I had to turn it loose at the town dump.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ torches CNN’s Chris Cuomo for slamming Progressive-Agenda

She would have none of it. She did not allow Cuomo to define the narrative. She turned the tables on him, and it was clear he had no comeback as he ended the interview.

https://twitter.com/EgbertoWillies/status/1027587160491401216

BISON LADY ASSAULTS LUNATIC FLAUTIST

by Spec Macquayde

A fan whirs in the window sill. The sky is overcast in this river valley surrounded by the limestone Hoosier hills. It's a Sunday afternoon, temperatures in the mid 80's, Fahrenheit. The dogs are stretched out on the hardwood floor. Tracy is taking a nap in my bedroom after the Bloody Mary we made with fresh tomatoes and jalepenos, somewhat of a weekly tradition. Driftwood Organics, as our corporate farm is legally known, takes Sundays off.

Yesterday I woke up and glanced out the window, noticing daylight. "What time is it?" I asked Tracy, who had washed dishes at Blonde's Pizza in Brownstown until nearly midnight and was now hiding her head under a blanket. She keeps her smart phone handy in case one of her kids or sisters sends an urgent text.

"6:32."

"Shit. I gotta go. You might as well sleep in. I'm just selling watermelons. Don't need no help."

Our back yard consists of beach sand thanks to the scratching and wallowing habits of about a hundred hens and ten cocks. It's a great place to take a leak. Glancing to the maple trees near the road, I noticed that "Pops" was already parked out there in his Envoy, guarding the fort. Thanks to two decades of crank and heroin along with harrowing commutes to dehumanizing factory jobs in distant manufacturing towns, the hills and hollers are chuck full of desperate thieves. None of my neighbors leave their homesteads unguarded for more than an hour.

One of the rules at the Bloomington Farmers' market is that vendors have to be the actual growers. Another rule is that vendors show up by 7:30, although the gates don't close until 7:45.

The silver Ford Ranger with a red driver's door is dented on every panel, but the bed was loaded with watermelons, so I had to take the curves carefully up 446, trying to make time on the straightaways. At the Walnut and 3rd stoplight I glanced at the phone. 7:44. Nothing to do but turn left, bounce over the median, and pray that the gates were still open. Otherwise I was going to be lugging a truckload of melons to my new spot next to the managers' booth.

Miraculously, the blockade was not in place yet at 7:47 when I turned left, glad that both the side mirrors had already been knocked off. Customers were already congregated in the aisles of one of the largest farmers' markets in what is still known to some as the United States. They gracefully made way for the beat-up Ranger. At the managers' stand I had to pull around past some Amish who had peaches, melons, and organic cheese on their tables, then back up to some hippies with free range pork and heirloom tomatoes before doing the five points and squeezing into the new spot they designated for Driftwood Organics.

Originally I had signed up for E-19, clear on the other side of the lot. The first Saturday that we had sugar snap peas and high tunnel cucumbers, Tracy drove her truck and we listened to Waylon Jennings the whole way up 446. We forgot to bring a table, so we just displayed the peas and cukes on her tailgate and sat in chairs both sides of it. This Amish kid across the aisle was selling strawberries. The hippies to our right had radishes and beets. To our left was a woman selling Bison meat.

I purchased a quart of strawberries from the Amish kid, for breakfast.

"These are good," said Tracy. "It's not easy to pick them just right. When I used to grow them I had all these old ladies try to tell me how to pick them and I said don't tell me, just go pick them. Show me how it's done."

"Excuse me, but the two of you are encroaching on my space with your conversation," said the Bison lady to our left.

I glanced across the tailgate at Tracy, who is 46 years old, raised three kids and sent them off to college. She is probably the most civilized woman who has ever showed interest in me. I knew she was probably thinking the same thing, or at least similarly. Tracy had planted about half an acre of strawberries when her kids were young, as a way to make money while staying home while her husband worked. She knew about strawberries. Our conversation had been about strawberries. We were not out of line.

The next Saturday I showed up alone with cucumbers, early green beans, green onions, and a banjo. Nobody else had green beans, so I was busy most of the market and didn't get a chance to pluck many strings. The bison lady didn't complain, and in an odd moment turned to me and blurted, "I don't know why people give Trump such a hard time about Mexicans."

The next Saturday I was in a bad mood because Tracy had gotten mad for good reasons the night before. I had left her sleeping on an angry mattress. The green beans weren't selling too fast, and there was nothing interesting about our cucumbers except we had the Silver Slicer variety, with white skin. I strummed through most of my tunes without actually singing the words. At the end of the market the manager stopped by to say that somebody had complained about me playing the banjo, although she herself didn't think that I had been playing offensively. She had walked past several times, she said, and it seemed I wasn't playing too loud.

"I was just using my fingertips, not my nails," I said that day.

The next Saturday I didn't bring my banjo, but instead this redneck girl from my son's class, Heidi, who'd been working on and off at the farm. We also had Blacktail Mountain watermelons, Divergent cantaloupe, sweet corn, and yellow wax beans which turned out to be a hit up there because nobody else had them for the three bean salad. Since Heidi was working the stand I walked out to the parking lot and lit a joint, sat on the curb.

A street guy with some kind of entourage approached. He sported a court jester hat with the five points sprawling like tree branches, played a flute, wore shoes that stuck out about two feet in front of his toes, and reminded me of people I used to see every day in Ukiah. He was the leader of some cast from Edgar Allen Poe's darkest fiction, asking for spare change.

I pulled out a twenty. "I got a stand at the market. Sellin’ melons. Maybe you guys can play music there, in the shade of our canopy. Help draw customers in."

"Sure! Sure!" they said.

"You'll find me there." Back at the stand I took a seat in the shade and poured a beer into the ice from the cup I had traded a watermelon for. Heidi dealt with the customers. She was hungover from a night on the town with some local boys.

The lunatic flautist arrived, started playing a Jethro Tull tune.

The bison lady told him to can it.

"Freedom of speech," he sang.

I was sitting at the table sipping beer, talking to customers when out the corner of my eyes I witnessed the bison lady abandon her station and knee the lunatic flautist in the shoulder, knocking him off the chair Heidi had abandoned, her sensing trouble.

Heidi hid out under a shade tree nearby, another eye witness.

"Wicked Witch of the West!" screamed the lunatic flautist, picking his carcass up from the asphalt. "Wicked Witch of the West!"

I was thinking that this is more like the East.

"I'm telling the Market Manager!" screamed the Bison lady.

"Go on, tell her!" hollered the crazy guy. "Tell her you assaulted me! Wicked Witch of the West!"

All I could concentrate on was the beer in my cup, waiting for the inevitable.

"What's going on?" asked the market manager, minutes later. She is tall and slender, with natural sandy hair down past her shoulder blades, and was not smiling this time. "Do I need to get the police?"

"Wicked Witch of the West!" screamed the lunatic flautist. He pulled a couple of Catholic nun puppets out of his duffel bag and inserted his hands into them, then had the nuns attempt to play his flute with their agape mouths.

"I don't know," I said. "This crazy guy started playing his flute, and the bison lady attacked him. I'm an innocent bystander. That's all I know!"

"I TOLD him to stop playing!"

"You assaulted me!"

I just shrugged. "All I know about is watermelons, and I'm about sold out. Probably good time to go home."

At the Tuesday market in Bloomington (Indiana) the next week the managers held a conference with me, and it was suggested that Driftwood Organics relocate to a new spot, next to the manager’s shed. The spot has worked well, as it is shaded by the solar panels on the pavilion roofs. Yesterday morning all I sold was watermelons, except for a straw hat full of okra that some people from India bought for five bucks, and the women who run the market checked in with me about once every hour or so. They wondered how I was doing, if the new spot was working out better.

"You're like the kid in class who has to sit next to the teacher," said Tracy when I told her about the new spot. "So she can keep an eye on you."

“O.K., before we begin, is everyone recording?”

SEAWATER OFF SAN DIEGO hits an 'extraordinary' record breaking 81.3 degrees Fahrenheit as scientists warn sealife is 'in peril'

Scientists earlier recorded all-time high seawater temperatures since daily measurements began in 1916

Between 1982 and 2016, the number of 'marine heat waves' roughly doubled

Seawater off San Diego has hit a record 81.3 degrees Farenheit.

The shocking temperature is the highest all-time high seawater temperature in California since daily measurements began in 1916.

It comes as new research warns that 'marine heat waves' have doubled since 1982 - and are going to become even more common.

'Just like we have heat waves on land, we also have heat waves in the ocean,' said Art Miller of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Between 1982 and 2016, the number of 'marine heat waves' roughly doubled, and likely will become more common and intense as the planet warms, a study released Wednesday found.

Prolonged periods of extreme heat in the oceans can damage kelp forests and coral reefs, and harm fish and other marine life.

'This trend will only further accelerate with global warming,' said Thomas Frolicher, a climate scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, who led the research.

His team defined marine heat waves as extreme events in which sea-surface temperatures exceeded the 99th percentile of measurements for a given location.

Because oceans both absorb and release heat more slowly than air, most marine heat waves last for at least several days - and some for several weeks, said Frolicher.

'We knew that average temperatures were rising.

'What we haven't focused on before is that the rise in the average comes at you in clumps of very hot days - a shock of several days or weeks of very high temperatures,' said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist who was not involved in the study.

Many sea critters have evolved to survive within a fairly narrow band of temperatures compared to creatures on land, and even incremental warming can be disruptive.

Some free-swimming sea animals like bat rays or lobsters may shift their routines.

But stationary organisms like coral reefs and kelp forests 'are in real peril,' said Michael Burrows, an ecologist at the Scottish Marine Institute, who was not part of the research.

In 2016 and 2017, persistent high ocean temperatures off eastern Australia killed off as much as half of the shallow water corals of the Great Barrier Reef - with significant consequences for other creatures dependent upon the reef.

'One in every four fish in the ocean lives in or around coral reefs,' said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland.

'So much of the ocean's biodiversity depends upon a fairly small amount of the ocean floor.'

(Dailymail.com)

NCO TO CELEBRATE 50 YEARS OF COMMUNITY ACTION WITH PICNIC AT TODD GROVE PARK IN UKIAH

Any person who has been touched by NCO is encouraged to attend this free, summertime celebration

August 15, 2018 — Join North Coast Opportunities, Inc. (NCO) and staff, along with Senator McGuire, NCO clients, community supporters, local officials, and the broader community for an open-air picnic in honor of 50 years of community action. The family friendly, class reunion style celebration will be held on August 25^th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at Todd Grove Park in Ukiah. Everyone is welcome to attend and enjoy a variety of activities and giveaways. The first 100 people to register online will earn one free pool pass to the Ukiah Municipal Swimming Pool.

A range of free family activities will be available. Local DJ Lucas Boek will be spinning tunes for a day of entertainment. A bounce house, sack races, face painting, bubble machine, tug-of-war, ring toss, and more, will entertain the whole family. Join Jessica’s Costume Character Party and meet Harry Potter, Where’s Waldo, Alice in Wonderland and Jessie from Toy Story. Jannah Minnix from the Ukiah Children’s Library will delight young readers with a special story time. NCO’s History Walk will showcase 50 years of community action through programs and services, and guests will have a unique opportunity to explore how NCO has impacted Lake, Mendocino, and neighboring counties.

Highlighted programs will include: Community Wellness (Caring Kitchen, Lake County Community Action, Walk and Bike Mendocino, etc.) Disaster Response, Head Start, Leadership Mendocino, Redwood Caregiver Resources Center, Rural Communities Childcare, and Volunteer Network (Foster Grandparents, VITA, etc.).

Those who complete the History Walk will be eligible to spin the NCO Prize Wheel, which boasts a range of prizes. Win a gift certificate to Black Oak Coffee Roasters, Chipotle, Grocery Outlet, In-and-Out Burger, Oco Time Restaurant, Regal Cinemas, the Skunk Train, Slam Dunk Pizza, Standford Inn/Catch-a-Canoe & Bicycles, Thurston Auto Plaza, Ukiah Players Theater, Ukiah Valley Athletic Club, and Willits Furniture. Other prizes will include hand painted bowls courtesy of Jan Hoyman, cookbooks, flashlights from Rod Shoes, organic produce from the Mendo Lake Food Hub, NCO vinyl bags, and Ukiah Municpal pool passes courtesy of Redwood Credit Union and Realty World/Selzer Realty.

Local artist Tim Poma will lead an interactive mural painting project. Past and present clients, staff, NCO Board members, community members, and NCO supporters are invited to put their hands in the paint! Attendees are encouraged to paint on the mural, leaving a visual representation of community connections, together creating a mosaic to symbolize our communities. The mural will be later displayed at the NCO office for all to enjoy.

Bring your own picnic, blanket, and chairs. Lounge in the sun or by the pool. Purchase food from Pilon Kitchen, the City of 10,000 Buddhas, or buy a sandwich from Schat’s Bakery.

NCO is the Community Action Agency that serves Lake and Mendocino Counties, as well as parts of Humboldt, Sonoma, Del Norte, and Solano Counties. NCO was established in 1968 as part of President Johnson's War on Poverty, with the mission of assisting low-income and disadvantaged people to become self-reliant. NCO reacts to community needs, including disaster response, and has been called to action to serve in the aftermath of the recent wildfires. NCO’s goal is to have healthy, vibrant, compassionate, and strong communities.

For more information about the 50^th Anniversary Celebration, including a full list of activities and prizes, and to register for a chance to win one free pool pass, visit www.ncoinc.org or call 707-467-3200.

THEY REALLY DON'T WANT YOUR INPUT, BUT IF YOU'RE FEELING LONELY…

Re: Boards and Commissions Vacancies

The list of vacancies, due to term expirations and/or resignations, for County Boards and Commissions has been updated. A list of all new and existing vacancies is available on the County Website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/board-of-supervisors/boards-and-commissions.

The attached document contains a list of the vacancies that are new.

Please contact the Clerk of the Board office at (707) 463-4441  if you have any questions regarding this message.

Thank you.

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and Executive Office

501 Low Gap Road, Room 1010

tel: (707) 463-4441

Vacancy Notice

Appointments Web

AIR QUALITY ADVISORIES FOR MENDOCINO COUNTY

August 14, 2018 3:00 PM: The smoke and haze from the local River and Ranch Fires as well as regional fires to our north are currently impacting selected areas of eastern Mendocino and all of Lake Counties. Currently air monitors show particulate matter concentrations in the “Moderate” to “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” range for most of the County. Inland communities and surrounding areas may experience episodes of “Unhealthy” air quality. These include Hopland, Ukiah, Calpella, Redwood Valley, Potter Valley, Willits, and Covelo.

306 East Gobbi Street

Ukiah, California 95482

(707) 463-4354 Fax: 463-5707

www.mendoair.org

Mendocino County Air Quality Management District

Based on forecast of building high pressure and strong overnight and morning inversions, smoke impacts are expected to be held near the ground during these times. Once the daily inversion breaks up, afternoon west northwesterly winds are expected to disperse smoke impacts west of the fire. Please see the accompanying Public Health Advisory for recommendations of personal protection for sensitive groups, as well as, everyone during “Unhealthy”, or more severe, air quality conditions.

Mendocino County Air Quality Management District continuously monitors the air quality, reporting particulate matter and ozone concentrations hourly to our website: www.mendoair.org. In the sidebar on the right of our webpage (scroll down if using a mobile device), under “Air Quality for Mendocino”--Click Here for current conditions, forecast, and email alerts. For additional information, click on an air quality index range, or the colored tabs below the map.

For more air quality information visit: https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&mapcenter=0&cityid=535

To sign up for air quality notifications visit: http://www.enviroflash.info/signup.cfm

When the Mendocino Air Quality Management District advises that the air quality is“unhealthy” or “hazardous:”

A primary concern is that ‘high-risk groups” --people over 65, under 12, pregnant women, and those people with pre-existing lung disease (such as asthma, bronchitis, COPD) or heart problems-- are at particular risk from breathing this air and should take extra precautions. Leave the smoky area, if possible, or at least stay indoors and limit physical activity.

• People with pre-existing illnesses should carefully adhere to their medical treatment plans and maintain at least a five-day supply of prescribed medications.
• Clearly, everyone is a risk when the air quality is in the “unhealthy” or “hazardous” range. If it is not possible to leave the area where smoke is present, recommendations are to limit outdoor activity and unnecessary physical exertion.
• Smoke from wildfires contains chemicals, gases, and fine particles that can harm health. The greatest hazard comes from breathing fine particles, which can reduce lung function, worsen asthma and other existing heart and lung conditions, and cause coughing, wheezing and difficulty breathing.
• Wearing a protective mask may offer some protection. N-95 masks can reduce contact with some of the harmful particulate matter, but they also increase the work of breathing and they don’t keep the smoke out, so they are not terribly effective as a general protective measure. It is much better to avoid the smoky air, if possible.

o N95 masks are very useful during the cleanup phase when the ash is a big issue.

o If you would like N95 masks, they can be obtained for free at the libraries, the senior centers, and the shelters.

o If you have trouble locating masks and you would like them, contact us at Public Health.

o Dust masks (different from N95) are not protective and really should not be used.

• If you have air conditioning, turn it to interior recirculation or turn off and use fans. This prevents the intake of the outside, smoky air. Avoid vacuuming (which stirs up the dust) or increasing smoke in the house (for example burning candles or incense, or smoking cigarettes).
• There are no indications that any permanent problems such as cancer will develop due to short term exposure to smoke such as this. Since the air problems currently are almost exclusively from woodsmoke, there are no real industrial contaminants that might lead to other long-term problems.
• If you, or someone with you, begins to experience significant symptoms, such as dizziness, shortness of breath, or chest discomfort, get them out of the smoke and have them rest. If symptoms continue, seek medical attention.
• Getting enough rest and drinking plenty of fluids may be helpful.