Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Sep. 9, 2018

• Gag Order
• Flip First
• Complex Update
• Scorched Landscape
• Pets
• Cannabis Economics
• Little Dog
• Ed Notes
• Elk
• Need Supes
• Yesterday's Catch
• Ill Duce
• Trumpenbunker
• Gender Question
• Socialized Medicine
• Flaming Protest
• PG&E Watch
• Civil Wars
• Hangovers
• Special Water
• Pat Tillman
• Library Events
• Martial Law

CRIMES AGAINST THE PUBLIC

by Rex Gressett

It prohibits growing pot. It prohibits public drunkenness. It makes it mandatory to have spark arresters on your car. It regulates where you can tie your horse up. It makes graffiti a crime. They use it for everything not covered elsewhere. Title 9 of the Fort Bragg Municipal Code, Public Peace, Safety and Morals is the catch-all local law. This afterthought to the Municipal Code provides conveniently ambiguous flexibility to law enforcement. For Mayor Lindy Peters it’s an opportunity to put the lid on and screw it down tight.

Mayor Lindy Peters is pushing a key revision of Title 9 by the insertion of a subsection he is calling “Crimes Against the Public.” In the 150 odd years of Fort Bragg history Mayor Lindy Peters’ legal innovation is the most radical reform of Council meeting protocols ever proposed. If it is successful Lindy Peters will take his place in history.

The proposed modification to the municipal code will have a profound effect. Crimes Against the Public will make it illegal sit on the sidewalk and if the Mayor decides to invoke the law it will be a matter for police enforcement if you clap at a City Council meeting.

But the key provision included at the insistence of the Mayor will make it a violation of city law to mention, refer to, question or discuss the actions or policies of any city employee from the podium in a City Council meeting. That’s the point, the rest is camouflage.

First and foremost Lindy Peters’ “Crimes Against the Public” is a gag order. Any reference to a city employee or any remark about a policy of a city employee will legally constitute a “personal attack.” Former City Manaager Linda Ruffing as a subject of public discussion at Council meetings would have been forbidden. The Public Works Director’s extravagant and dubious sign off on a million dollars of overcharges could not have been discussed or remarked on by the public. The Council will handle it. No worries. Any reference in public meetings, any utterance referencing the powerful administrators at Town Hall would be illegal.

Peters said explicitly that he intends to enforce the gag order vigorously. The Mayor is not joking. At the mere mention of Development Director Marie Jones’s name at the last joint session, I was forcibly removed from the podium.

This revision of the Municipal Code is the magnum opus of Lindy Peters and Will Lee, the two most outspoken advocates of the suppression of unwanted public criticism. Mr. Lee has been hysterical to distance himself from the heat but along with Peters, Will Lee has also been very clear where he stands. “Say what you want about me,” said Will Lee a few months go “I am an elected official, but criticism of the hard workers at city hall is just wrong.”

In the “Crimes Against the Public” ordinance, Peters is running Point; Will Lee is riding shotgun. The Public Safety committee led forcefully last week by Mayor Peters and attended quietly by Councilman Bernie Norvell sent the proposal to the regular City Council at their next meeting. As of Friday, it was not on the agenda. I am told that the City Attorney is drafting the language and no doubt reviewing the United States Constitution in its application to local law.

The change in protocol at City Council meetings after the enactment of the ordinance will be immense and historic. It will also be extremely useful at just the moment that Mayor Peters and the council need it most. Marie Jones is on the move with overdevelopment plans they do not want discussed too closely. It's business as usual.

The greatest fiction in Fort Bragg city government is the pretense that the Council directs the department heads at City Hall. If you buy that I have this bridge down in Albion… The Council reviews and almost always approves the decisions of the City Administration. They can scarcely do otherwise.

The Administration has 60 full time, well paid, professionals at work five days a week. The Fort Bragg City Council is five part-time otherwise employed amateurs. The structure of our local government balances the complex work of the City Administration with a gentle and non-invasive, non-disruptive oversight by the part-time Council. The Fort Bragg City Council is greatly concerned not to interfere with the administration’s perpetual quiet quest for money and deeply afraid of bucking massive, complex state regulations that they do not, and cannot reasonably encompass.

In practical fact, the direction of the city is not determined by the Council in the objectivity of reflective consideration but by the Administration that tells the Council what they can and can't get away with. The imbalance in power is immense. The system works after a fashion providing as the Council stress at every opportunity we are all on the same page. But disastrously the dependency of the Council and their reluctance to rock the boat provides a fertile opportunity for loose cannon administrative preemption of the public agenda. Ruffing was a case in point, Marie Jones and her Local Coastal Plan is another one. When the City Administration is effectively without a check from the City Council good employees will be cautious and careful. We certainly have them. And bad employees, ambitious or corrupt employees, will do what they want. We have them too. In this imbalance, the abuses of power in Fort Bragg have become a local tradition.

The City Council is the electorate’s safeguard and protection. Our elected Council is our only control and restraint on the direction of local government. It’s an impossible task. Even second-guessing the administration is enough to raise the wrath of certain Department Heads. Marie Jones in her mindless pursuit of overdevelopment and her secret deal-making with GP is particularly distinguished by intolerance, arrogance and contempt for the institutions of local government. When Jones got $80,000 from the Coastal Commission to help include the people of the city in zoning the mill site. She brazenly put three versions of the same plan for overdevelopment into a questionnaire and called it a survey. That “survey” has been the Council’s model for GP friendly development ever since.

Across the city outrage and perplexity were the result. The council didn’t utter a peep. Indignant citizens trying in the multiple choice format of non-options to express their astonishment over apparently already determined zoning maps and the frustrated public resistance to the development of 70% of the last great public open space in a municipal jurisdiction in California was all submerged and obscured in the multiple choice format. The sanguine acceptance of the survey as a strong public consensus is a striking example of the City Council’s reluctance to make even obvious criticisms. Marie Jones is out of control. The Council backs her to a man. In the end game of megalomaniacal overdevelopment Mayor Lindy Peters is going a lot further than that.

When Public Works Director Tom Vargas went a half million dollars over budget on the $1 million Cedar street project and then another half million over budget in the $1 million Streets and Alleys Project, the Council glowered and complained but did nothing. Direct intercession in the abuses of almost totally autonomous department heads is unthinkable. Now Tom Vargas has shuffled through desultory successive announcements to the Council that the $8 million city investment in the sewer treatment plant has magically ballooned to $16 million. The City Council blinked and swallowed. What could they do? Lindy Peters is making sure you can't mention any of it at a council meeting.

When people in attendance at Council meetings raise issues pertaining to government incompetence or corruption Lindy Peters feels it acutely. He cannot have people criticizing the Department Heads without stressing the whole system. He thinks it is just better to just put a sock on public discussion.

FLIP THE FIRST

Help Dems Retake Congress By Flipping GOP Districts Blue, At The Caspar Community Center 9/9

Hello. This coming Sunday our local Democratic Club is hosting a postcard writing party from 2 to 4 pm at the Caspar Community Center. Democrats need to flip just 25 of the 435 House districts nationwide to become the majority, and one race our Club has adopted is California's 1st district, up in the north-east corner, which includes Redding, Red Bluff and Chico.

Below is info about Democrat Audrey Denney who is challenging the conservative Republican incumbent. Just an hour or two of your
time will help us Flip-the-First and thereby help flip Congress to a Democratic majority, severely weakening Trump and the GOP.

Please join us this Sunday between 2 and 4 pm at the Caspar Community Center. And please bring a friend and forward this on to your acquaintances. Thank you.

Tom Wodetzki, tw@mcn.org, 937-1113

* * *

Meet Audrey Denney:

North State Advocate

Audrey has never found a place she loves more than the North State. She is running for Congress because she believes that the people of the North State deserve better. They deserve a representative who will respect and listen to them and who will fight for their needs and concerns in Washington D.C. She believes that the job is not about partisan politics, but about bringing people together, and finding a way forward as a community, a region, and a nation. Audrey has proven time and again that she has the passion, the skills, the energy, and the strength of character to do just that.

Audrey spent her childhood on her family'€™s farm and ranch in Central California, growing grapes and hay while raising cattle and horses. Her father was a Vietnam veteran and her mother was a leader in their church parish. Audrey learned to work hard and efficiently before and after school to accomplish all that needed to be done to keep the family business running smoothly through both prosperous and hard times. She developed a strong respect for land and natural resources, which she has carried with her throughout her education and career endeavors.

Agriculturalist

From an early age, Audrey was active in 4-H and other service learning organizations. She was particularly involved in the FFA and served as a California FFA State Officer. She also served on a team of National Beef Ambassadors representing the beef industry around the country. Audrey worked her way through college in the food and beverage industry in service, management, and consultative positions. She earned a bachelor's and a master'€™s degree in Agricultural Education from California State University, Chico. Her master's thesis was recognized with an award as the best education thesis in the California State University system that year.

Educator

Audrey taught agriculture at California State University, Chico for almost six years. She became well-known for her ability to inspire and engage students through her enthusiastic and pragmatic approach to delivering curriculum. She spent a year as a volunteer working with rural youth on agriculture projects in El Salvador, and another year working for a nonprofit doing agricultural education work in West Africa while living in Ghana. Today, Audrey is in her third year as a Senior Learning Designer at Vivayic, designing learning strategy and curriculum for worldwide agricultural companies and nonprofits, like the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and the World Bank. She spends her days architecting learning and development solutions that further business and organizational goals.

Humanitarian

Audrey recently stepped down as the president of the board of Cristosal, an internationally renowned human rights organization based in Central America. She also serves on the mission committee at Bidwell Presbyterian Church in Chico, and coordinated a city-wide service day called "Serve Chico." On the first day of the Oroville Dam spillway disaster, thousands of people were pouring into Chico, and shelters were being put up around town. Audrey rushed to help the effort at her own church and assisted in implementing a system for collecting resources and getting them to the shelters that needed them.

Audrey has a deeply-rooted devotion to service and is passionate about our environment and community. Her work ethic, and professional training enable her to learn quickly, communicate effectively, and to inspire others to action. Audrey's experience working with people of all backgrounds while inspiring change through action and teaching will help her to represent the North State effectively.

AudreyForCongress.com

MENDOCINO COMPLEX UPDATE — SEPTEMBER 8, 2018 (US Forest Service)

Firefighters on the Ranch Fire are working to contain the last section of the fire, patrolling firelines and doing suppression repair. There are 672 miles of fireline that need suppression repair work. To date, suppression repair work has been completed on 390 miles. Fire suppression repair work consists of cutting hazard trees to ensure firefighters are working in safe areas, reducing dirt berms, spreading cut vegetation, and building water bars to minimize soil erosion.

Wildland fires can impact wildlife in and around the fire area. California Department of Fish and Wildlife Biologist Josh Bush comments, “I recently visited a small portion of the burned area in the Upper Lake Ranger District, and while the devastation was evident there were signs of wildlife. Black-tailed jackrabbit, gray fox and gray squirrel were present in the burn and looked healthy. This is very encouraging as small and medium sized mammals typically have little resistance to fire. It is important to note that even in areas of intense fire there are patches of habitat that remain intact and provide refuge for wildlife. Although the initial effects of wildland fires cause some wildlife mortality and injury, the landscape will eventually reshape itself, and wildlife will adapt and recover in time.”

The Mendocino Complex: The Mendocino Complex is being managed by Southern California Interagency Incident Management Team 3. The Ranch Fire is 98 percent contained and the River Fire is 100 percent contained. The Ranch Fire area is closed as described in Forest Order 08-18-15. Gravelly Valley Airport (IQ5) is closed to general aviation due to fire suppression repair and heavy equipment in the area. The temporary flight restriction (TFR) over the fire area has been rescinded. The northern half of the forest is open for outdoor activities. Forest visitors can contact the ranger station nearest their destination for current information.

BETSY CAWN WRITES:

Surveyed the Ranch Fire damage on Thursday (starting with the ignition point off Highway 20, taking the Potter Valley Road up to Pillsbury and Elk Mountain Road back down). Doesn’t look as though the Eel River drainage to the southwest will take much of a hit, but the Middle Creek watershed is pretty much toast.*

According to the Forest Service’s “Burn Area Emergency Response” team, most of the terrain is in the “untreatable” category — slopes too steep to heli-mulch, which is the only large-scale mitigation there is, or a few unforested areas that will be “fine” without assistance.

Heavily torched ridges east of Bartlett Mountain along the New Long Valley / High Valley drainages will send stormwater debris into the Cache Creek drainages (including Spring Valley’s surface water source, Wolf Creek) and the Lower Arm of Clear Lake (via Schindler Creek in Clearlake Oaks). Not to mention the hundreds of miles of exposed soils resulting from fire suppression ferocity.

Even when the fire is officially “out” there will be smoldering corpses of “candlesticks” (trees that were ignited from the top down, driven through the trunk downward into the long-buried root system) until the rains come, if they ever do again. Bleak doesn’t begin to describe the eerie stillness of the deeply scorched crust of the earth, nary a bird in sight, not a whisper of wind or a leaf to flutter it by.

Never mind, it’s HUNTING SEASON, and the insanity of allowing that — in this more-than extremely high risk, fire-prone environment apparently escapes the brilliant thinkers in air conditioned government offices at the California Department of Fish & Wildlife. Whatever wildlife there remains ought to be left to recover in peace, but no — gotta get them antlers, boys.

Heartsick in Upper Lake, yours truly.

*So much for the $800,000 Middle Creek Ridge road repair project conjured up by our former Resource Conservation District a brief number of years ago. Maybe the best we can do, really, is just leave the wilderness alone, and quit trying to “fix it.”

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

Wow, Jasper is a stunner! Jasper’s lots of fun--he's active, interested in everything, and very friendly. Jasper is a 6 year old, neutered, male Husky, weighing in at 56 pounds. Mr. Gorgeous is eligible for the shelter's SENIOR DOG DISCOUNT, and, since he's neutered, he's ready to roll out the door with you right away!

October and November are 2 month old, spayed, female litter mates. Both of these adorable kittens are playful and social. They are available to meet and adopt at Fish out of Water Pet Shop in Willits. If you’re in the Ukiah area, you can meet August and September, sisters of our Pets of the Week, and just as cute!

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah, and adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. To see photos and bios of the shelter's adoptable animals, please visit us online at: www.mendoanimalshelter.com or visit the shelter. Join us the second Saturday of every month for our "Empty the Shelter" pack walk and help us get every dog out for socialization and exercise! For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

CANNABIS WARS

Letter to the Editor,

I moved to Laytonville in 1981, and believe it or not, at that time I knew nothing of the nascent underground industry that the Emerald Triangle would soon become famous for. (Silly me, I moved here for the breathtaking natural beauty of the north coast.) Over my 37 years here, I have witnessed “marijuana” go from a total legal prohibition to legal in California for medical use in 1996 to legal in California for adult recreational use in 2016. While cannabis is now legal in California to use and grow, it is still legally prohibited by the Federal government.

Transitioning from a complete black market to a quasi white market has been a devastating blow to small legacy cannabis farmers here in the Triangle. The reason for this is that small farmers are getting squeezed on both ends: as the pot market is flooded with cheap weed from large legal grow operations that can afford to pay all the consulting fees, permit fees, costs of compliance and taxes that it takes to grow legally, the price of cannabis has dropped so low that small farmers can’t earn a decent living, let alone afford the cost of going legal. Large corporate ag is killing the cottage industry. That’s how capitalism is designed to work.

While Prop. 64 legalized cannabis for adult recreational use everywhere in the state of California, it also gave each county Board of Supervisors tremendous discretion over in county regulation of cannabis cultivation, as long as the local regulations stay within state mandated guidelines.

Here in Mendocino County where small cannabis farmers have been the backbone of our local economy for nearly 40 years, you might expect our Board of Supervisors to be working overtime to help these farmers hang on to their livelihoods and heritage, but sadly, that has not been the case. Led by the sanctimonious John McCowen, our Board has sought to extract its pound of flesh from small cannabis farmers for having grown the devil’s weed illegally for so many years.

Instead of regulating cannabis like every other agricultural crop in the state that is neither taxed nor has to comply with onerous documentation requirements and permits, our Board of Supervisors has seen fit to strangle small cannabis farmers in a tangle of red tape, fees and taxes that only the largest grow operations can possibly comply with.

One thing our Board did get right, (even if only out of spite), was to set a maximum size limit for cannabis gardens of 10,000 square feet for growing plants to maturity (for reference: 10,000 square feet is a little less than one quarter acre or about one-fifth of a football field), and no individual or DBA can get permits to grow more than that. This maximum grow limit should keep large commercial grows out of Mendocino County, but it will not stop other counties in the state from permitting multi-acre cannabis factory farms. To help local small cannabis farmers compete against these large mega-grows, our Board of Supervisors should make it easy for local farmers to join together in co-ops so they can combine their resources for more efficient production, processing and distribution.

As with all commercial agricultural operations in California, cannabis farmers must comply with state environmental regulations regarding water use and timber and rangeland management.

For some small cannabis farmers who grow out in the hills by diverting water directly from streams during the late summer and fall months, this means either you invest in water storage or you get out of the pot growing business altogether. This may sound draconian to small farmers in this situation, but honestly, all I can say to you folks is that you should have invested in water storage years ago when times were good in the pot market. It’s not like you weren’t advised to do so.

There is a lot of flack coming from certain quarters in Mendocino County that the only way to make the legal cannabis market work is for county law enforcement to bust small cannabis farmers who remain out of compliance with the new regulations. To me, if the object is to enable small cannabis farmers to stay in business and contribute to our local economy, then this punitive approach to cannabis regulation is shooting ourselves in the foot. Why should the county spend any law enforcement time or money enforcing poorly drafted regulations that shouldn’t exist in the first place? Black market cannabis sales still bring in millions of dollars to our county that supports local storefront businesses and non-profits and provides jobs for many county residents. If non-compliant cannabis farmers stay within the maximum size limit and are not negatively impacting the environment, then county law enforcement should hold their fire.

Humboldt County, our sister Emerald Triangle county to the north, has declared all out war on non-compliant small cannabis farmers. Their Board of Supervisors directed their Department of Building and Planning to issue abatement notices to any land owner who has an unpermitted greenhouse on their property as identified from satellite imagery. The landowner has ten days to abate this “nuisance” or be fined $10,000 a day until the greenhouse and its contents are removed. Though there are many questions over the legality of this building code enforcement program, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has clearly decided to throw small legacy cannabis farmers under the bus in favor of large scale corporate factory farms.

As long as cannabis prohibition remains in effect at the Federal level, there will be a black market for Emerald Triangle premium quality bud in other states where cannabis is still illegal to use or grow. And as long as this black market exists, small non-compliant legacy cannabis farmers here in the Triangle will grow cannabis to satisfy that demand. Law enforcement will not determine the fate of small legacy cannabis farmers in the Emerald Triangle; that shall be determined by the inscrutable laws of economics.

Jon Spitz

Laytonville

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Hey! I just realized I forgot about Labor Day. So today I’m forming a union. We’re need decent dogfood and a grievance procedure, for starters. I’ll even let Skrag and his cat friends join. Whose with me?”

ED NOTES

RUSTLERS! A rancher, local type, is aware that cattle thieves on horseback have stolen cattle off the back end of his place. The thieves drive the cattle through some fairly heavy forest to a hidden corral several miles away from the pasture's perimeter from where they haul them off at their leisure. Foregoing old time remedies of hanging ropes from stout branches, technology is riding to the rescue. Satellite tracking devices have been implanted in several animals. Soon, it is hoped, when a rustler takes a bite of steak and cracks a tooth on a silicon chip, the next thing he'll be hearing is the sheriff knocking on his door.

NOT ALL THAT long ago two men were caught near Covelo in a Winnebago outfitted as a mobile butcher shop. They'd feed-lure a steer to an area near the road, stun it dead, winch it up and into their shop and cut it up as they drove south to their customer base.

* * *

DRIVING PAST Drake High School the other afternoon as classes let out, my wife gasped then laughed. I looked over where a gaggle of inappropriately-dressed girls giggled their way down the sidewalk, two of them with about half their butt cheeks on full display. I commented that the two most immodest were probably the school's superintendent and the principal, and had to wonder what the parents of these girls could be thinking to allow their daughters go to school looking like teen prostitutes, although I'm not surprised that the schools allow short-shorts and see-through tights. The schools, especially in Marin where parents, teachers and children are all on a first name basis, and the faculty looks like they just walked in off the beach, chucked all standards years ago, from academic to attire.

* * *

AT THE DENTIST in Fairfax, I'm asked to fill out an exhaustive, only-in-Marin pre-drill questionnaire. "Are you happy with your smile?" I don't recall ever seeing it, but people don't scream and run the other way when I turn on the brights, so, yeah, I guess I'm pleased with it.

* * *

ALL I HAVE to do anymore to empty a room is begin a sentence with, "The Bari Bombing Case...." A close relative even told me, "You know, pops, you're getting to be like one of those conspiracy crackpots who walks around with his whole beef stuffed into a cardboard box just waiting to pounce on the polite and the unsuspecting."

ANYWAY, and on the off chance not everyone has fled the room, the infamous California Killer matter was finally wrapped up recently via a heritage/ancestry website where the killer's dna was fed into the dna maw, a couple of close relatives were identified, and the psycho killer nailed when the cops staked him out and got a complete match with his dna.

SOME OF US became optimistic that the "mystery" of Who Bombed Judi Bari could be similarly un-mystery-ed. But, and here we run straight into another mystery. Or gross incompetence. Or pure journalo-cowardice. I suspect both from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

WITHIN DAYS of the two Mendo Earth First!ers — Bari and Cherney — being blown up in downtown Oakland in May of 1990 by a car bomb placed beneath the driver's seat of Judi Bari's Subaru, a letter addressed to reporter Mike Geniella arrived at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. It described the bomb in the detail only the manufacturer or a person close to the manufacturer could have known. The author of this letter to reporter Geniella called himself "The Lord's Avenger" and wrote in a thunderous, faux Old Testament style, a transparent attempt to make himself sound like a Christian fanatic of some kind and, of course, to divert attention away from the Mendo source of the plot. DNA had not yet kicked in as the slam dunk investigative tool it is today.

https://www.theava.com/bari/avenger.html

MIKE GENIELLA, stationed in Ukiah, was the Press Democrat's lead reporter on Northcoast events at the time. Geniella met with Bari on a regular basis and knew all the players on both sides of the timber controversy raging at the time. But rather than assign Geniella to the Bari Bombing and give him the resources he would have needed to nail the event in all its uniquely peculiar particulars, the paper put him on to other matters of much less consequence, and very soon the War on Iraq pushed the Bari event out of the media all together.

(A YEAR LATER, Steve Talbot of PBS came along and, with one full-time investigative assistant, and a mere month's funding, Talbot made a documentary for KQED called "Who Bombed Judi Bari," identifying Bari's ex-husband, Mike Sweeney, as the bomber. Bari herself, before she died in 1997, also identified Sweeney as the bomber to Talbot, a revelation Talbot made public on a subsequent KQED news show.

Talbot (2002):

BASICALLY, what I want to tell you and the world tonight is something that I've kept a secret for ten years, which has been an unsettling and strange experience for a journalist. I reported in the documentary in 1991 here on KQED that the FBI and the Oakland Police Department I felt really had made a rush to judgment on the case against Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. And it's kind of a minor miracle that they have gotten this case, a decade later, into court where they can debate that. But the issue that's still unresolved is, Who actually bombed Judi Bari? And that's not really being discussed in the case in Oakland right now, I'm afraid. What I have to report is that Judi Bari, who I became quite close with — I had first written an article for Mother Jones magazine about her, and then done the documentary here on KQED — we became quite close and about two-thirds of the way through making the documentary she took me aside and confided that she was very fearful of her ex-husband, a man named Michael Sweeney. She said that Sweeney had physically abused her, that he had raped her, and then she went on to say that in 1980 he had firebombed the Santa Rosa airfield. That was a fire that nearly killed a flight instructor who was in the hangar at the time that the blaze went off, caused over $200,000 in damage, 100-200 foot flames, one of the big old World War II hangars was destroyed. Judi Bari told me that Michael Sweeney constructed the bomb that set off that explosion near their house which was next to the Santa Rosa airfield, that she saw him do it, that she asked him not to do it, and he went ahead and did it. She did not know, and I still do not know, who put that bomb in that car. But someone tried to kill her and the secret that she took to her grave was that she thought it might be her ex-husband. I never said that at the time because she was a source. She told me that in confidence. And when the documentary came out she denounced me for even hinting at some of this in the program. And I couldn't defend myself. A lot of people said, Well, why don't you just say what's going on? — people here at KQED. I said, No, I can't do that. Journalists play by certain rules, she was a source, I can't say it. Now, she told this to my private investigator and co-producer on the program, David Helvarg. Also some of her closest friends, part of her legal advisor team, and her political allies came to me at the time and said, We don't know for sure, but we are concerned about this guy Michael Sweeney. It would be negligent not to pursue that investigation.

(Talbot’s full article: https://www.theava.com/bari/talbot.html)

SWEENEY, of course, had thoroughly re-invented himself as Mendocino County's lead trash bureaucrat, a re-invention simplified by mere residence in Mendocino County, where history starts all over again every day and you are whatever you say you are.)

SO THE PRESS DEMOCRAT turns the Avenger Letter over to the FBI as the feds commence an investigation aimed at NOT finding the bomber and, after a few years of NOT investigating, the FBI declared the case closed. "Nobody would talk to us," the G-Men whined, as if police investigations cease because perps and people close to the perps, as in this case, stop talking. In fact, lots of people asked the Hoovers, "How come you aren't looking at the ex-husband here?" But that's where it all ended, a solvable case with zero interest in it except here and among a few writers who include Talbot and Susan Faludi.

THE CASE being closed by the FBI and no interest in it by either the authorities here in Mendo (of course) or Oakland, the FBI returned the Avenger Letter to the Press Democrat. Where it now can't be found. The paper says it "lost it." That's what staffers at the Rose City daily are claiming, and this is a fairly large-scale publication with a newspaper morgue and a full-time librarian to preserve and file everything.

HOW is it possible a document important, nay crucial, to a famous Northcoast event, can be lost, and the people at the paper who lost it, from all accounts, not be frantic to find it?

THE DNA on the stamp and the envelope containing the Lord's Avenger Letter would reveal the person or persons who tried to murder Judi Bari. And it's lost, as is almost all interest in finding out Who Bombed Judi Bari.

(ON THE OFF CHANCE anybody is interested, the whole story, complete with documents, can be found on the AVA's website at www.theava.com/archives/1235.)

COAST ELK

(Photo by Kathy Wylie)

MR. WENDEL WRITES: Re: ‘Who Needs Supervisors?’ We do! But we need new supervisors who will do their job and ensure that county staff does theirs. It has become so bizarre. Watching the current board members sit there silently as the CEO and department heads speaking in their now-common obfuscatory manner is infuriating. Thank you for keeping this problem in the spotlight. It will be a good day for Mendocino County when staff is required to use real numbers and dates and names in their reports as they would in any other organization and when the privatization of our county is discontinued. What has been happening here is similar to what’s happening in the national politics. Where is the outrage?

What happened to Dan Gjerde? He was outspoken and held staff accountable while on the Fort Bragg city council but now he rarely speaks. He could actually be formidable if he would speak out.

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 8, 2018

JEREMY AUMAN, Laytonville. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.

ASHLEY AVALOS, Willits. False ID, failure to appear.

JOHN COOLEY JR., Ukiah. DUI, probation revocation.

CLORISSA DENNISON, Ukiah. Burglary, petty theft.

BHAKTI DILLENBECK, Albion. Public nuisance, probation revocation.

RUSTY EASTER, Fort Bragg. Petty theft, stolen property, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

DEE GINGELL, Caspar. Domestic battery.

JOSIAH HANOVER, Covelo. DUI.

BEAU HARRIS, Fort Bragg. Petty theft, stolen property, burglary tools, controlled substance.

RICHARD HINOJOSA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct, resisting.

LISA HODGES, Ukiah. Suspended license, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

BRANDON LAWSON, Willits. Probation revocation.

JASON MANAS, Newport News, Virginia/Ukiah. Fugitive from justice.

SEAN MOYNAHAN, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CECELIA REEVES, Ukiah. Controlled substance, failure to appear, probation revocation.

FERMIN RODRIGUEZ, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

THE END TIMES, A SCREENPLAY

Editor,

The spirit of Mussolini has alas come through Donald Trump. He has inherited manic depression with a strong top of egomania. Trump appears like the Big Brother in Orwell's 1984, however, his erratic and arrogant actions resemble El Duce. All news and reporting not to Trump’s liking are "fake." El Duce had his dictatorship, his own newspaper and Ezra Pound. Millions followed and cheered.

They both appear as actors and salesmen and are good for business. Many are amused by their "greatness" of vision and rashness of their actions. Now enters ace reporter Bob Woodward with his recent book, Fear, concerning Trump, chaos and terror — revealed. Climate change has warmed up Mother Earth. The polar ice cap has broken. Huge fires, earthquakes, powerful storms, floods, endless wars. If these are not the final days they are a great dress rehearsal.

Captain Fathom

Albion

NO BALLS, BUT GALL

Editor,

Now that we have established that you guys (I assume that all on the editorial board identify as masculine gender) lack the collective cojones to answer, to yourselves, me or your readers, an Animal Husbandry 101 question, I advise you to take good care of your livers, which you will need to produce the copious amounts of gall required to opine on the gender of other human beings.

Milan Hopkins, MD

Upper Lake

ED REPLY: Is the question, doc, how many genders? I'll take a stab at that one: two? Which isn't to deny or judge the neo-gender movement wherein, I understand, there are quite a number of variations — men with vaginas, women with penises (peni?). I'm reminded of a disturbing experience from my early youth, pre-pube when I paid a quarter to see what was advertised on the carnival tent as a "half man, half woman." At age 12 I shouldn't have been admitted, but in them days kids weren't cosetted. So, there I am surrounded by panting adult degenerates when this bedraggled creature comes out and, hiking its skirts, revealed what I recall as a penis-looking piece of flesh drooping over what I supposed, never having seen one, a vagina. There was no one I dared share this odd experience with, although I was tempted to write it up for What I Did On My Summer Vacation when I got back to school. If I had....well, 1950 was not the infinitely elastic country America has since become.

VA HEALTHCARE, SHINING EXAMPLE

Editor,

I'm a Purple Heart Vietnam vet of the US Marine Corps, wounded up on Mudders Ridge near the DMZ. You don't want to know. But because of that I have all free medical benefits through the Veterans Administration at Mather Field in Rancho Cordova outside of Sacramento.

You have heard the horror stories of our national VA facilities and VA treatment, but I'm here to tell you about my experience.

I ride my bike to the light rail station behind the Sacramento Bee on 21st and Q. Today is my appointment with dermatology for a minor touchup. The clinic has mailed and called to remind me of my appointment and to always thank me for my service.

The light rail ride is always a public transportation refresher. This line out to Folsom stops at the social service offices on 29th Street, Social Security offices along Folsom Boulevard and Mather Field for the VA hospital. Quite a weary crowd, riders with bags of cans and riders you know have not paid, most times there’s space for myself and my bike.

The hospital is about a 15 minute bike ride from the light rail with an overpass over the ever streaming Highway 50, the one bicycle above the hurtling traffic somewhat frightening.

To Mather Field (in case you don't know — where World War I planes were assembled with wood from the Sierras) is a military base gone to commercial/industrial park — literally swords into plowshares. It is clean, and ever expanding both physically and with additional services such as the VA.

Dermatology is in a trailer-like building. No bike rack so I lock up to their railing. Check in and sit, a room full of broken and healing vets, Vietnam mostly. I'm next, treated with much respect, young woman doc to service my sun-blotched Scottish flesh, painless.

Won't even have to stop at the pharmacy — they will mail me my prescription and renew it by phone.

In a few weeks I will have an appointment with my general practitioner for a six month checkup. Sort of what socialized medicine would look like.

Knock on wood, I'm in good shape and in good hands from the mental health ward to another colonoscopy, to the emergency room, to a good enough cafeteria too. Why don't we use an enormous chunk of our enormous military budget to ensure that the quality of VA health care for all present and future veterans is a shining example of what our country is capable of. All the rhetoric that puts our "veterans first" needs deeds, less words.

William J. Hughes

Sacramento

PROTEST UP IN FLAMES

Florida Man Accidentally Burns Home Down After Lighting Nike Shoes On Fire In Protest Of Nike’s Colin Kaepernick Ad

NOW PG&E SAYS ITS BROKE?

Editor,

I don’t want PG&E to go bankrupt, but I want PG&E held responsible for its carelessness and lack of maintenance over the past many years. Profitability shouldn’t be a measure of its ability to pay unless strong oversight is given to how it spends.

If PG&E spends lavishly on executive salaries and bonuses, lobbying and public relations, and then claims there’s no money left over for planned operations, it shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. PG&E needs to spend lavishly on catching up with maintenance, vegetation mitigation and infrastructure. It needs to help come up with a viable, sustainable disaster prevention plan — and not just for wildfires.

California’s entire energy structure needs scrutiny and modification. PG&E must be part of the solution, not running around behind disaster after disaster, trying to clean up the mess and paying massive fines. That money could be better spent for clean energy alternatives and disaster prevention. We need a partner, not a victim.

I feel that PG&E has been bankrupting itself by ignoring years of warnings until suddenly a really big bill came due. Oversight of PG&E’s books and management decisions must be real, not perfunctory, and you can bet the ratepayers will be watching. It’s more than our dollars being spent. It’s our lives, homes and future.

Mary M. Johnson

Healdsburg

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Civil War 2, kind of like what is brewing down in Brazil right now. A lot of bloodshed, a major presidential candidate stabbed in the street, and the national museum burnt to the ground.

Some people think none of that could happen here. They might be wrong.

A HANGOVER PEAKS when alcohol that has been poured into the body is finally eliminated from it -- that is, when the blood-alcohol level returns to zero. The toxin is now gone, but the damage it has done is not. By fairly common consent, a hangover will involve some combination of headache, upset stomach, thirst, food aversion, nausea, diarrhea, tremulousness, fatigue, and a general feeling of wretchedness. Scientists haven't yet found all the reasons for this network of woes, but they have proposed various causes.

One is withdrawal, which would bring on the tremors and also sweating. A second factor may be dehydration. Alcohol interferes with the secretion of the hormone that inhibits urination. Hence the heavy traffic to the rest rooms at bars and parties. The resulting dehydration seems to trigger the thirst and lethargy. While that is going on, the alcohol may also be inducing hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which converts into light-headedness and muscle weakness, the feeling that one's bones have turned to jell-o. Meanwhile, the body, to break down the alcohol, is releasing chemicals that may be more toxic than alcohol itself; these would result in nausea and other symptoms. Finally, the alcohol has produced inflammation, which in turn causes the white blood cells to flood the bloodstream with molecules called cytokines.

Apparently cytokines are the source of the aches and pains and lethargy that, when our bodies are attacked by a flu virus -- and likewise, perhaps, by alcohol -- encourage us to stay in bed rather than go to work, thereby freeing up the body's energy for use by the white cells in combatting the invader. In a series of experiments, mice that were given a cytokine inducer underwent dramatic changes. Adult males wouldn't socialize with young males new to their cage. Mothers displayed "impaired nest-building." [...] But hangover symptoms are not just physical; they are cognitive as well. People with hangovers show delayed reaction times and difficulties with attention, concentration, and visual-spatial perception. A group of airplane pilots given simulated flight tests after a night's drinking put in substandard performances. Similarly, automobile drivers, the morning after, get low marks on simulated road tests. Needless to say this is a hazard, and not just for those at the wheel. There are laws against drunk driving, but not against driving with a hangover.

Some words for hangover, like ours, refer prosaically to the cause: the Egyptians say they are "still drunk," the Japanese "two days drunk," the Chinese "drunk overnight." The Swedes get "smacked from behind." But it is in languages that describe the effects rather than the cause that we begin to see real poetic power. Salvadorians wake up "made of rubber," the French with a "wooden mouth" or a "hair ache." The Germans and the Dutch say they have an "inner tomcat," presumably wailing. The Poles, reportedly, experience a "howling of kittens." My favorites are the Danes, who get "carpenters in the forehead."

— Joan Acocella, 2008; from "A Few Too Many"

‘HE WOULD BE THE FIRST TO KNEEL’: PAT TILLMAN EXPLOITED TO ATTACK KAEPERNICK, BIOGRAPHER SAYS

washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/04/he-would-be-first-kneel-pat-tillman-exploited-attack-kaepernick-biographer-says/

LIBRARY EVENTS

Local Author Sarah Reith!

Saturday, September 15th, 3 pm

Join us for a reading with local author, Sarah Reith! Sarah is the author of the brand-new novel A Schedule of Drugs in the Valley of Death.

Sarah Reith was born into a circus family in San Francisco, and ran away to join the army as soon as she turned 18. She was a parachute rigger at the jump school on Fort Benning, Georgia, where one of her incidental duties was “wind dummy,” or jumping out of an airplane ahead of a class of airborne students so the instructors could check the wind conditions. After concluding that life as a dummy lacked intellectual stimulation, she used her GI Bill to earn a BA in creative writing at Mills College for women. She worked as a bike messenger and a barista for some years before going back to school in Germany. She studied for her MA in German literature in the shadow of a medieval castle, burying her nose in little yellow volumes with very dense print and lots of umlauts. She is currently a reporter in Mendocino County, working on her second novel.

About the Book

Isobel Reinhardt is a hot mess. The daughter of a wire-walker turned federal fugitive and a high-end sex worker who likes to call herself a feminist, Isobel has failed decisively at everything she’s put her hand to. So she comes to Mendocino County to grow pot for a woman who knows all her family secrets.

When she narrowly escapes arrest while delivering pot for Alizarin, Isobel does a quick risk assessment and decides it’s time to get a legitimate job. Without a marketable skill set or a well-developed resume, she jumps at the opportunity to be one of two live-in caregivers for a dying German woman.

As death and madness converge in a lonely country house at the end of a long dirt road, Isobel realizes the role of ferocity and beauty in her life.

Light refreshments will be served. For more information – please contact Melissa at the Ukiah Library: 234-2862 or carrm@mendocinocounty.org

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A FEMINIST EPIC by Diane di Prima, LOBA is a visionary epic quest for the reintegration of the feminine, hailed by many as the great female counterpart to Allen Ginsberg's Howl when the first half appeared in 1978. Loba, "she-wolf" in Spanish explores the wilderness at the heart of experience, through the archetype of the wolf goddess, elemental symbol of complete self-acceptance.

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OUT OF THE ASHES: Writing Stories & Poems from the Fires

Writing Workshops with Linda Noel, Michael Riedell, & Theresa Whitehill

If you were affected by the 2017 Mendocino County wildfires, we invite you to tell your story or express your experience in poetry with us in a series of writing workshops presented by three Ukiah Poets Laureate.

Introductory Writing Workshop Informational Meeting & Sign-Up: Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 1:30pm

Writing Workshop Schedule (attend one or more, there is no requirement to attend all three)

- Sunday, August 26, 2018 1:30-3:30pm with Linda Noel

- Sunday, September 9, 2018 1:30-3:30pm with Theresa Whitehill

- Sunday, September 16, 2018 1:30-3:30pm with Michael Riedell

Participants will have the opportunity to share their writings developed at these workshops at events planned for October in participation with Out of the Ashes, a community project organized by local artists, fire survivors, and other individuals who have come together to respond to the wildfires with community arts projects. They will also be invited to contribute their works to the Mendo Fire Storybook if they so choose.

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LEND AN EAR: Individual, Drop-In Workshops on How to Listen & Support Loved Ones in Sharing their Difficult Stories

Meets Tuesday evenings

Offered August 7th – October 30th

5:30 pm- 7 pm

Taught by Jo-Ann Rosen, LMFT

Teens and adults are welcome to attend a workshop on how to listen & support loved ones in sharing their difficult stories. The workshop will be taught by Jo-Ann Rosen, LMFT & be held on Tuesday evenings from 5:30-7 pm from Aug. 7^th – October 30^th. Please feel free to attend one or all workshops, they are not cumulative. Please call 463-4490 to sign up so we can estimate attendance - no personal info needs to be provided.

For more information – please contact Melissa at the Ukiah Library: 234-2862 or carrm@mendocinocounty.org

A CLEAN SWEEP WITH A BIG BROOM

Editor,

We need to clean up America. Get rid of gangs and drug dealers and predators who attack young children. Our cities are full of gangs. Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton -- it doesn't matter — towns with over 1000 people have gangs around somewhere. It's spreading into rural areas. Any town of any size has gangs. Boonville has gangs. Ukiah, Willits, Fort Bragg. ICE should be 20 times bigger. We need martial law in Chicago to clean out that miserable stinking hole of a town. Local law enforcement needs to do more, they don't do much. They do too many things besides fighting crime. County sheriffs cannot do it all. They need help. Every town needs help. We need a military task force to clean out our cities and areas plagued with crime. Get rid of liberal judges and liberal courts. Cleanup death row. Save millions of dollars. Execute them now. That's what there are there for. Why are we paying for feeding them? Millions and millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on them so they can have a good time on death row. They see their girlfriends and prostitutes whenever they want to. They have money. They get money that our counties and local governments should get that could be used to hire a task force to clean up our towns. Especially California where Governor Moonbeam Jerry Brown wastes our money every day! Operation clean sweep all over the United States. Our Attorney General, Mr. Sessions, with President Trump's permission, should create a task force out of the military, with Marines or Army guys or whatever, trained guys, maybe a thousand of them out of our 3,000,000-man army. This task force should go from city to city and clean up the crime! I mean clean up the crime! Every city! We would all be better off!

God bless Donald Trump.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche