Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018

• Raises Approved
• Rotten Friend
• Little Dog
• Shelter Delays
• Code Enforcement
• Bulldog Pinches
• Bookstore Change
• Legal Growers
• Yesterday's Catch
• Brothers Trimm
• 2020 Dems
• Cry Poor
• Acceptable Opinion
• Grammer Returns
• Ripening Quince
• Gavin Rail
• Not Interested
• Housing Homeless
• Meetings Canceled
• Imagine
• Statue Debate
• Bigfoot Babe
• Canillar Opening

OUR $225k BARGAIN BASEMENT CEO

WITH SUPERVISOR/BOARD CHAIR DAN HAMBURG calling Mendocino County CEO Carmel Angelo “a bargain,” and Supervisor John McCowen saying she deserves a raise because she’s been underpaid for years and she’s got great contacts and she almost single-handedly got some money from the State for the post fire disaster over-excavation reimbursement of upwards of 100 burned out home-owners (which should have been caught a lot sooner if they’d listened to Lee Howard when he first pointed out what was happening, and was the absolute minimum she could do under the circumstances), the Board of Supervisors unanimously (Supervisor Carre Brown wasn’t in attendance but she certainly would have voted Yes too) approved CEO Carmel Angelo’s huge automatic pay raises over the next four years in four steps to $225,000 a year plus equivalently generous perks, followed by a comparably giant pension for the rest of her life.

THE RICHEST MOMENT CAME when Ms. Angelo’s own hand-picked subordinate, County Human Resources Director Heidi Dunham (also generously compensated), introduced her boss’s raise saying that her boss’s salary was “out of market,” and thus much too low. As if there was some chance that Ms. Dunham might have said otherwise — like, “My boss, the CEO who would fire me for the slightest deviation from script here, not only does not deserve a raise, but her salary should be lowered because of all the important things she’s failed to do. And now, I’ll just go ahead and resign and give my old pal Alan Flora in Lake County a call to see if he’s got any openings in their personnel department because, like him, you won’t be hearing from me ever again.”

TWO SUPES said they really really wanted to increase the line employees’ salaries and they were working on it really really hard and trying to expedite the process and, boy oh boy, if you people only knew our budget situation, etc… But of course line employees can’t have a raise until the budget situation is fully, fully explored. Never mind that the budget situation never comes up when top officials are up for big raises. (And believe us, the budget has taken a big hit with all these top official raises lately that the County clearly can’t afford.)

TWO OTHER TOP OFFICIAL RAISES were rubberstamped also without any discussion to speak of: the Public Defender and Assistant Ag Commissioner, neither of whom were even openly named as they got their positions generously upgraded for no reason, no explanation at all.

THE WHOLE SHOW was presided over by a Board with two Supervisors who won’t even be around next year to wonder how the budget got so out of whack. It’s typical of this current Board which has shown itself not fiscally irresponsible, but totally tone deaf to how things look to their employees or their constituents, straining to find random observations to justify big raises for themselves and their pals on an almost weekly basis without a single objective reason or specific goal met or exceeded — just versions of “other people I know are making more than me.”

* * *

THERE WAS ONE TINY BRIGHT SPOT regarding Mental Health in the last few days which we will explore in more detail in the next few days. It has to do with one of our favorite old subjects: the crisis van. The subject seems to have finally popped up on someone’s radar screen, although via the back door and you’d need a powerful microscope to see it and they’re not quite calling it that — yet. Nor has anyone even actually proposed it. But with the bar set so low nowadays, even this small step is slightly promising.

(Mark Scaramella)

MY FRIENDS

I must start writing about this abuse I have experienced.  Now is the time.

#Me too, but  this is not a story of sexual abuse.

I was 14 years old.  It was the summer of 1971.  I had just finished middle school and was going to be a freshman in high school in the fall.  I had just bought a 10-speed Schwinn bicycle.  It was the fashion and I had worked to save up most of the money myself.

I cannot remember how, but maybe it was just me riding my bicycle around the old middle school campus when  I ran into the most popular girl in school.  Miraculously, she wanted me to visit her at her house.  Previously she had always ignored me as did most everyone else.  I felt so special!

I think she must have called and asked me over to her house.  I don’t remember if her mom was home at first but I think she was.  My new friend was constantly complaining about her mother.  She said her mom would complain to her if she used the bathroom.  She said her mom was on her case for every little detail.  Nothing could be out of place.  I felt sorry for her.

We were alone in her parent’s house and she proposed we steal her parents’ liquor and smoke their cigarettes.  I thought this girl was cool and I wanted her to like me so I followed her along.  We went through the process of making “suicide” in some jar and slipping it out her back fence so we could later go around the back alley (actually the Catholic school yard) to retrieve it. Afterwards, we went back to her yard to play ping pong and smoke cigs.  I felt quite dizzy.

Days later we were at my house.  She pocketed (stole) a ring from us.  I begged my mom to let her keep it.  I explained to my mom that my new friend needed it more than we did because her mom was so mean to her.

Shortly after that she took me to meet a boy, a little older than us, who was her neighbor, to see if we could score some weed.  Sometime during the visit she stole a ring from him.  He and his parents got angry and told her she had to give it back.  She got quite angry and reluctantly gave it back.

High school started and we hung out quite a bit.  There were a few other girls in the group.  Our thing was mainly just getting by in school while we focused on alcohol, pot, older guys, cigarettes and parties, and not necessarily in any order.

Thank God my parents were very diligent.  Mother kept us busy with plenty of activities, chores and jobs to make money.  I know I gave her lots to worry about.  Had they not exposed me to other important aspects of life I may not have been capable of living through all the risky behavior.

I loved my friends like sisters.  We survived high school.  I moved to San Francisco, at first with a boyfriend I had made in Ukiah, but within a year I got a job and my own place.  My friends visited me regularly as I always had room and a plan for food and entertainment.

As the years went by, the girlfriends would visit and stay with me.  All our lives changed in various ways:  Marriages, children and jobs — but we got together and did the things girlfriends do, like take trips, eat out, and especially “party.”  When we went out my old friend, the popular girl, would often say, “My husband won’t give me any money.”  Then she would proceed to say how these Ukiah people would do bad things to her and lie about her.  She would ask me to promise to tell people she always told the truth.  Then she would say, “I tell my husband you are my best friend and I love you!”  After that I would say, “Oh, don’t worry!  Come on, let’s have a drink on me and forget about it.”

We did “girlfriend trips” and the things women friends did in the 80s and 90s — the Bay to Breakers, Tahoe, but mostly it was me entertaining   at my place.  We had lots of parties and always cooked and poured drinks.  Fun fun fun!  Even the husband came down and stayed once.  These women swore they loved me sooo much and I certainly loved them back — my dear Ukiah friends.

Around 1999, after a year or more of deliberation, my husband convinced me it was a good idea to move into my house in Ukiah.  I had plenty of concerns but at least, I thought, I had really great friends there!

I expected a full blown welcome celebration from my “friends.”  It quickly became clear I was going to get dumped.

This is where the pain begins:  I am not sure of the best way to describe what happened next.  Once it was 100% sure I was moving back, the campaign of coldness and dirty tricks against me began.  It’s hard to believe but the thief girl actually hired a guy on a bicycle to run into my car! No:  I’m not making this up.  Some of my best books and even wedding gifts were stolen.  I was ghosted by the friend of the thief.  The thief’s husband even came up to a window where I was working and pantomimed laughing, holding his stomach and pointing at me -- to say how stupid I was and to have been played -- for 29 years!

Just like any other abuse victim I was ashamed that I had allowed this to happen and was, in fact, somewhat complicit in it.  I knew my old friend was not a good person, but I thought she would change in the face of my perpetual kindness.  I treated her like gold and was just sure she would see the error of her ways.

How naïve am I?

I had to turn 43 years old to understand that bad people exist outside of the movies.

(Name Withheld, Ukiah)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I was on full alert today when this trailer named ‘Ultra-Vi’ stopped out front. But then Skrag sauntered by and said, ‘It’s Ultra-V, Short Round, not Ultra-Vi — stand down. You can go back inside.”

LACK OF HOMELESS SHELTER AFFECTING ENFORCEMENT OF CITY’S CAMPING ORDINANCE

by Justine Frederiksen

There is no homeless shelter currently offering beds in the City of Ukiah, forcing many living on the streets to find alternative ways to escape the rain this week, and forcing the Ukiah Police Department to modify its enforcement of the city’s ordinances prohibiting camping.

Camille Schraeder of Redwood Community Services said Tuesday that “our goal is to open the winter side of the building on Nov. 1, which was the normal plan,” referring to the emergency shelter her organization has been operating at 1045 S. State Street about four months a year.

More than a year ago, RCS was granted a permit to turn the building into a community center that will serve homeless residents during the day, and provide a permanent site for the winter shelter. When asked where people could go in the meantime, Schraeder said she was not certain and would need to consult with members of her staff to find out.

At the most recent meeting of the Ukiah Planning Commission last week, Chairman Mike Whetzel asked why the renovations at 1045 S. State Street were taking so long. “They finally got the sidewalk done after about two months,” said Whetzel. “Did they ever give us a timeframe?”

“The way I understand it is they are still hoping to have the project open and completed by Nov. 1,” said Community Development Director Craig Schlatter. “They’ve run into a couple of what they’ve described as ‘construction delays,’ and I know our team here in the city planning department, and fire and the public works departments, have really been proactive in trying to work with them and address those issues.

“All we have to go on is what they’ve told us, and that is they’d like to be completed by Nov. 1,” Schlatter continued. “What they said (at a meeting with us last week) is that they’re not totally sure if that will be the case, but they’re hoping it will.”

Ukiah Police Capt. Sean Kaeser, recently promoted following the promotion of former Capt. Justin Wyatt to Chief, said Tuesday that the lack of a homeless shelter is affecting how law enforcement officers can address homeless encampments, since his department had been advised by City Attorney David Rapport to not enforce the city’s camping ordinance following a recent ruling of the Ninth District Court, a federal court with jurisdiction over California and other western states.

The ruling in Martin v. the City of Boise found that “the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment precluded the enforcement of a statute prohibiting sleeping outside against homeless individuals with no access to alternative shelter. The panel held that, as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.”

Kaeser said that the recent court ruling applies to Ukiah, and means that UPD officers cannot arrest people for sleeping in certain public spaces. For example, if someone were sleeping on a sidewalk in front of a business downtown, that alone would not necessarily be a citable offense. However, officers can cite people for panhandling or disturbing businesses in other ways.

Also, it is still illegal to sleep on private property, such as in parking lots and other areas not owned by the city, and officers can cite people in those areas for trespassing.

Kaeser said officers can also still cite people for camping in the city’s parks because of city ordinances 1966, which states that, “It shall be unlawful for any person to enter, loiter or remain in or on any city park facility between the hours of 10 p.m. 6 a.m. or at any other time when a city park is not open to the public,” and 1967, which states that, “No persons shall set up tents, shacks, sleeping bags or other shelter in any city park or vehicle parking area for the purpose of overnight camping, nor shall any person leave any of the above or any movable structure or special vehicle to be used, or that could be used for such purpose, including but not limited to, house trailers, camp trailers, camp wagons and other mobile or stationary campers in any city park or the vehicle parking area.”

In an example of officers finding alternate codes homeless encampments may be violating, Kaeser said people found inside in the large Gibson Creek culvert under South Orchard Avenue were cited last week for violating a California Department of Fish and Wildlife code protecting state waters.

On Thursday after posting warnings of their arrival, crews from the city’s Public Works Department cleaned up the creek bed and large culvert tunnel after members of the UPD Special Enforcement Team asked the people inside the tunnel to leave.

“We asked them if the stuff there belonged to them and they said it did, but when they left, they left the stuff behind for us to clean up, so they were cited,” said Kaeser, confirming that the group violated FWC 5652, which states, “It is unlawful to deposit, permit to pass into, or place where it can pass into the waters of the state, or to abandon, dispose of, or throw away, within 150 feet of the high water mark of the waters of the state, any cans, bottles, garbage, motor vehicle or parts thereof, rubbish, litter, refuse, waste, debris, or the viscera or carcass of any dead mammal, or the carcass of any dead bird.”

Kaeser said that the opening of the shelter would not necessarily provide a “viable alternative” to all people sleeping on the streets, however, as many individuals could be precluded from staying at the emergency shelter due to mental health issues or other circumstances.

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

* * *

ms notes: “I’m not entirely sure,” and, “I can’t say for certain,” and, “we’ll get back to you on that,” are Mendolib slang for, “I haven’t got the foggiest idea and you have no business asking.” Also, “other circumstances,” is code for drunk or on drugs.

MENDOCINO’S CODE ENFORCEMENT DIVISION:

IN LATE SEPTEMBER 2018 the Code Enforcement Division received a complaints about cultivation of cannabis without permits at  residential locations in the 4600 and 4400 block of Sunnycrest Drive, Ukiah. Subsequent investigation confirmed that cannabis was being cultivated without a permit in violation of Mendocino County Code Chapter 10A.17. The property owner of the residence in the 4600 block was located on 9/20/18 and removed the 25 mature cannabis plants (approx. 700 square feet of canopy) being cultivated without a permit on the property. The property owner of the residence in the 4400 block was located on 9/27/18 and removed the 25 mature cannabis plants (approx. 700 square feet of canopy) being cultivated without a permit on the property. The Code Enforcement Division receives all Cannabis and General Code Violation complaints in the unincorporated areas of the County. Complaints can be made in person at our offices or by visiting our website at: www.mendocinocounty.org/government/codeenforcement to file an online complaint. Cannabis specific complaints can also be filed by calling the Cannabis Complaint Hotline at: (844) 421-WEED(9333).

* * *

A MENDO READER NOTES:

Mendo’s law is not straightforward.

Qualified patients can grow outdoor 25 plants, 100 square foot canopy, surrounded by a locked 6 foot fence where the fence is

* 100 feet away from your neighbor’s house

* 50 feet away from the adjoining parcels

* 1000 feet from a school, church, park, etc.

The pot also cannot be seen from the road and cannot be smelled.

Your neighbor calls and says they smell your pot or can see if from the road, this article is what happens.

Six plants for adult use can be grown outdoors within 100 square feet of canopy on ten acre or greater parcels if a site plan is submitted to the county.

Mendo issues commercial permits for cannabis on parcels with pre-2017 cultivation by the same owner. New cultivation can only be permitted on land zoned agricultural, upland residential (min 40 acres), and rural residential (min 10 acres).

* * *

15,013 ILLEGAL POT PLANTS REMOVED SINCE JANUARY - ONLY 229 FROM COAST

From Mendocino County Code Enforcement Monday:

"Code Enforcement Activity Statistical Information for 2018 to October 1, 2018. The Code Enforcement Division has received 489 complaints to date in 2018:

***231 complaints were for General Code Violations not related to Cannabis

***258 complaints were for Cannabis issues

***168 Cannabis Complaints were related to 140 locations not in the County Cannabis Permit Program

***90 Cannabis Complaints related to 44 locations were in the County Cannabis Permit Program

***15013 Cannabis Plants in violation of the County Cannabis Cultivation Ordinance were removed by the property owner/violator after Code Enforcement response to complaints (See Spreadsheet Data)

***The Code Enforcement Division has issued 47 Administrative Citations in 2018 - 20 of those citations were related to violations of the County Cannabis Cultivation Ordinance & 27 of those citations were related to General County Code Violations such as non-permitted building and zoning violations

***$42,046 in fines has been collected on these citations and there is approximately $160,000 outstanding to be collected

***The Code Enforcement Division has issued 100 Notices of Violation, primarily for General County Code Violations (to date) in 2018.

The Code Enforcement Division receives all Cannabis and General Code Violation complaints in the unincorporated areas of the County.

Complaints can be made in person at our offices or by visiting our website at:  www.mendocinocounty.org/codeenforcement

to file an online complaint.

Cannabis specific complaints can also be filed by calling the Cannabis Complaint Hotline at: (844) 421-WEED(9333)."

WAKE UP THIRD DISTRICT VOTERS OF MENDOCINO COUNTY!

Editor,

The eyes of the nation are upon you. Don’t think that the powers of corporate interest are not here, for it is and has raised its evil and corrupt head already. I just don’t talk about the Supervisors themselves, but the ones really in control. I don’t need to name names for anyone who is awake knows whom I talk of.

Anyway, in a normal candidate race I’m sure that John Haschak would be fine. Unfortunately, these are not normal times.

We need a Supervisor who cannot be bought and has the wherewithal to stand up and confront the forces that plan to pay off politicians to control the fledgling business of legal cannabis.

That person is John Pinches! Make no mistake, like Britain in the 1930s we need the dogged determination of the bulldog to defend us from the forces that will do us harm!

The Mom and Pop business of marijuana has taken care of this county for a long time and John Pinches has always done his best to protect us.

Make sure you vote and vote for John Pinches! That will be a vote for the Third District, Mendocino County, The State of California and ultimately a vote for our great nation, The United States of America!

Roy Leone, Kwon Jang, 3^rd Degreed Tae Kwon Do Teacher

Willits

NEW UKIAH BOOKSTORE OWNER SAYS HELLO

Hello Book Lovers!! It's Jay Page here, at your favorite bookstore in downtown Ukiah.

Thanks to the very kind and thoughtful Jerry Karp, and his many years of bulding this business, leading up to his retirement, we have an impressive collection of books to offer the community. Thanks to you Jerry, this is possibly the best bookstore ever!!

Now that my dad and I have bought the business, and have been extensively trained by Jerry, we hope to keep the books flowing as smoothly as ever.

We look forward to meeting you and helping you find what you're looking for!!

LEGALIZATION, TWO ON-LINE COMMENTS

[1] The bigger legal grows are worse for the neighborhoods than the illegal ones in the past. Back in the day the illegal growers knew not to piss off their neighbors, to at least pretend to care and try to avoid detection. This new group of “legals” is greedy greedy greedy. They hide behind their “legal” label to pirate away whole neighborhoods. Disrespect is their right by virtue of having a permit. The uglification of our county. Mendocino County has no real enforcement of their ordinance and the “legals” pride themselves in taking advantage of us all. No participation in the community, or true care of the environment. They know more about LLCs and funneling money into banks undetected than they do about farming. Creative book keeping their primary skill. Shameful. The higher they climb the further they fall. Look forward to watching. Greed one of the seven deadly sins.

* * *

[2] Yup! My legal neighbors yell, ride quads up and down, they have grow lights for porch lights so they can work at night, plus the uncovered lights on the hoops, plus the traffic, the big loads, the heavy equipment, the generators, and they tie up dogs at their gardens that bark all night. In the old days we had to be low key, not now. Here is the question; should I “watch their back” or complain to the county? Would that make me a “snitch”?

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 2, 2018

MATTHEW FAUST, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

TRAVIS MOORE, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JONATHON WOLFE, Redwood Valley. Parole violation.

THE GRIM & THE TRIM

by Zack Anderson

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders...

— Carl Sandburg, "Chicago"

 “I think about you. But I don't say it anymore.” 

― Marguerite Duras, "Hiroshima Mon Amour"

Dear Dr. Zack:

What gave rise to the Willits Mafia?

Back in the day agricultural peons began migrating north during harvest season, hanging out on the street corners like casual labor Latinos in San Diego, looking for a day job. Oh, yes, they are often glamorously portrayed as Trimmers. But who was trimming the weed before these hitch-hiking hippies started showing up? It's simple: the old school buddies and cousins, any relation of the growers.

And these guys (and gals) got kind of used to the deal, envious of the profits, maybe, and said no, we want to get paid by the hour, take our time, chat each other up while we worked at the trimming table. This sentiment resulted in a popular license plate frame that read, "Silence is Golden" and down below, "Duct Tape is Silver."

Sounds like they were trying to form a union, or something like that. But with all the vagabonds coming up from the cities, well, those scabs had to be run off, eh?

So, can the mafia connections in Willits be a macrocosm of the unions in Carl Sandberg's Chicago?

Dawn Corleone

Coyote Valley

* * *

Dear Dawn,

Oh the inspiring and fragrant marriage of blood and poetry, the conquered and the divided! The slaughterhouses of wide-shouldered Chitown are a fascinating tale too often neglected in today's non-gender-specific vegan-based snore-core curriculums.

For some background, Daniel Hautzinger of PBS outlet WTTS writes:

"Union Army contracts stimulated Chicago’s nascent packing and slaughtering businesses, and by 1865, the industry had grown enough that centralization within the city began to make sense. On Christmas Day of that year, seven stock yards and nine railroads consolidated operations to open the Union Stock Yards, the 'Wall Street of meatpacking.' These 'Big Three' packers created a lucrative monopoly, with their plants in Chicago, their railroad cars that they leased to the railways, branch plants and cold storage warehouses throughout the Midwest as far as Denver, and packing concerns that used 'everything but the squeal' to create non-meat products. [Eventually this led to] one of the most famous exposés of all time: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. While fictional and sensational, the novel was based on Sinclair’s research in the stock yards, and its stomach-churning details led to the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act. But Sinclair actually sought to support workers’ rights – he famously said that he aimed for the public’s heart but hit its stomach – and conditions at the stock yards were brutal.

Laborers, many of them Lithuanian, Polish, or Irish immigrants who lived in the surrounding slum neighborhoods at exorbitant rents, were paid low wages to work in vile stenches, unbearable heat, and blood and gore that sometimes pooled up to their knees. The jobs were backbreaking and dangerous. As African Americans began coming to Chicago from the South during the Great Migration and took jobs in the stock yards, they faced racism as well as ethnic tension when they were employed as strikebreakers against unionizing employees. After decades of struggle, workers successfully unionized once the New Deal brought about labor protection laws during the Depression.

In the years up until the Depression, from 1893 to 1933, the stock yards processed at least thirteen million livestock a year, reaching as high as eighteen million some years. It took less than twenty-four hours for an animal to go from arrival through being sold, butchered, and shipped off, and the stock yards worked round the clock. Up to 45,000 people were employed there daily. Hundreds of tourists rode the ‘L’ every day to see the facilities, stay at the famous Stock Yard Inn, or eat a prime steak at the Inn’s elegant Sirloin Room."

So when I think of Sandburg's stormy, husky, brawling big-shouldered city, and abattoirs slick with the blood of a thousand lambs, the cunning savages pitted against the wilderness, fierce as dogs with tongues lapping for sweet entrails, I don't necessarily make the Marxist leap to seasonal Mendoland trimmers saving enough for new made-in-China fairy-light jockstraps to wear at Burning Man. But worker exploitation is worker exploitation, and no one likes to witness the process of making sausages, nor contemplate the harsh soul-stealing reality that America is itself a million-footed herd being led to the slaughterhouses in the climate-controlled cages of our railroaded destiny.

On a more pungent note, Willits' pot powerplays remind me of a TV show idea that Nurse Yearsley, my so-called aide-de-camp, has been pitching to the Hollywood perverts and crooks. Called The Brothers Trimm, it reinterprets the famous compendium of Germanic fairytales through the lens of marijuana-infused (pardon the pun) hijinks and winner-smoke-all international diplomacy. For example, the forest in Hansel and Gretel is replaced by Costco, and the children leave 72 pieces of hot dog throughout the cavernous store, hoping to trace their way back to the safety of the quarter-mile-long row of detergents and stain removers. Cinderella's domestic issues and quest for handsome prince love are set in Walmart's Wheel and Tire Department, and evil holographic step-sisters living inside Diane Feinstein's rubber forehead force the poor lass to rotate all tires while simultaneously fending off the feral attentions of traveling Hankook salesmen hoping to explore the local casino scene with a Ukiah babe and her luminous lug nuts. Nurse Yearsley makes kindred noise about commercial tie-ins with the new In-N-Out Burger on North State Street and a less famous bit of Teutonic fluff called "Das Mädchen ohne Hände," aka "The Girl Without Hands," and a secret menu item called the "Flying Dutchman," which is two hamburger patties with melted cheese between them, and nothing else. This is Yearsley's idea of bare-chested Spartan metaphor.

Of course in this perverse pleasure palace, every 55 seconds someone would smoke, swallow or smear a pot product, tincture or ointment in such ludicrous yet realistic quantities that the cowardly Chinese, Russians, French and Canadians, led by a duplicitous Mexico, invade the blissfully ignorant United States on Thanksgiving, as we Americans are too stoned, drunk and/or engorged with meat-streaked gravy bits to stop this profound (yet strategically brilliant) power grab by the planet's envious betas.

This is Yearsley's ploy to make Uncle Sam great again, via a serpentine path through the Black Forest of mind-altering consumerism, which leads to lusts so wolfish and rapacious that eventually In-N-Out's secret menus replace the Ten Commandments as the cornerstone of Western civilization. Soon thereafter the Supreme Court will be jettisoned in favor of a panel of American Idol judges fresh from rehab, and the DNC will start a Go Fund Me page to make this judicious addition to Mt. Rushmore's granite pantheon: Madame Crystal, a non-binary therapist of Eskimo and Zulu heritage who travels only by ride-share Uber, and lives on celery sticks and sugar-free margaritas. In other words, The Brothers Trimm is a cautionary tale, one corporate-sponsored bong rip at a time. Coming soon to a Netflix near you.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The erasure of boundaries, be they distinctions between fact and fantasy, guilt and innocence, male and female,  is underpinned by the struggle for power in the political and economic realm.

Mostly the game is one of distraction and misdirection, creating blooms of smoke where no fire exists, for example, calling people fascist for having the temerity to look after their economic self-interest, or making accusations of authoritarianism or expending countless hours and resources making the case of collusion when the colluders and authoritarians are the ones making the accusations.

But the sins don’t just sit on one side of the aisle. The Republicans, the most sorry-assed gang of pant-shitters ever to disgrace the democratic institutions of the USA, spent the better part of their history selling out the interests of their constituents, telling those people that their Americanism and patriotism was best exemplified by happily acquiescing to their own economic destruction.

Well, these same Republicans couldn’t hold the fort against a show-biz charlatan who spent a career creating failed businesses, who, unlike Democrat and Republican alike, gained power simply by calling attention to what was right under people’s noses. Feeling the prevailing winds, these “principled conservatives” abandoned “principled conservatism” and adopted the guise of economic nationalists.

But, it ain’t over yet. Wait for the billionaires and their lobbyists to convince them to rethink their newfound convictions and opt for the route of more money for the rich and less for everyone else. Haven’t we already seen a massive corporate tax cut? This is just the start. We’ve yet to see the likes of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney rise up yet again in their new roles of “reformers” of entitlements. Yes, less for the poor means the elimination of social security on the grounds of fiscal unsustainability. The coffers are bare folks. Remember that “lock-box”? Ain’t no money there, sorry. No money nowhere, nope, don’t know where it all went.

Countries that print their own money can’t go tits up? Oh yes they can.

TRACY'S BACK!

Tracy Grammer returns to Matheson Performing Arts Center October 12

Tracy Grammer is one of the North Coast’s favorite singer-songwriters. Appearing first in 2001 at Little River Inn with the late Dave Carter, she has performed solo here as recently as 2017 to a sold-out house. Renowned for her springwater-clear alto, deft guitar work, spirited violin playing, and masterful storytelling, Grammer holds the record for the most consecutive appearances at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.  Grammer is currently on tour celebrating the release of LOW TIDE, her first album of original songs. "I've been a writer all my life, but it was never my intention to be a songwriter," she says. "However, the road has curves we can't see at the outset of the journey. At some point along the path, writing songs became the most effective medicine for the pains and unresolved questions of my life. “LOW TIDE is an album of revelations, confessions, and ultimately, healing. I am proud of the writing and utterly thrilled with the sounds. I took risks. I tried new approaches. I told the truth and delivered my multitudes. My eleventh album is the first one that really sounds like me." Co-produced with long-time touring partner Jim Henry, LOW TIDE was released January 19, 2018 on Grammer's own label, Tracy Grammer Music, and is available through Fish Records in the U.K.  On Friday, October 12, 2018 Tracy returns to Matheson Performing Arts Center, Kahto and Ford Streets, in Mendocino, in a solo performance to celebrate the release of her first album of all original songs, Low Tide.  The doors open at 7:00 for this 7:30 concert. Tickets are $20 and are available at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3597014. For information and tickets by check or PayPal contact Pattie at 707-937-1732 or email pattied@mcn.org. This production is in partership with Mendocino High School’s Media Program.

ANYONE LOOKING FOR QUINCE FRUIT?

We have some nice size fruit just ripening at the AV High School Ag Dept school farm.

GAVIN NEWSOM, GAY MARRIAGE, HIGH-SPEED RAIL

In the NY Times profile of Gavin Newsom, the reporter dutifully checks the box on gay marriage:

“Mr. Newsom won widespread attention as mayor of San Francisco — where, among other things, he championed same-sex marriage at a time when it was a contentious issue even in his own party.”

Apparently the Times thought it was not fit to print anything about the context of then-Mayor Newsom's poorly-timed initiative on gay marriage, made in February, 2004, a presidential election year, which surely helped George W. Bush win a second term that November.

The NY Times supports high-speed rail everywhere, so it's not surprising that they don't press our next governor on the issue. This is not about Newsom's past flip-flops on the subject but about what he will do about the project as governor:

“And Mr. Newsom so far has offered often vague responses on some of the biggest issues he would face: global warming, the over-budget high-speed rail train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the state’s volatile tax code…”

"Over budget"? The dumb project has never had anything like a plausible budget or a sensible idea of where the state would get the money to build it.

In the Planning Report interview, Newsom offers this:

“When it started, I was a huge supporter of it. The northern terminus was going to be in my town—the Grand Central Station of the West Coast, the Transbay Terminal. It was going to be 2 hours and 46 minutes to Downtown LA from Downtown San Francisco. It was going to generate $1 billion in surplus with 55 million passengers. A third of the money was going to come from the private sector, a third from the feds, and we’d put up our third—the $9.95 billion bond approved by voters in 2008.”

From the project's 2009 business plan:

State funding: $9 billion from Proposition 1A 

Federal funding: $17‐19 billion 

Local funding: $4‐5 billion 

Private funding: $10‐12 billion 

Total: $45 billion

The official cost is now $77 billion, and even that is wildly optimistic. Keep in mind that the above money is what the HSR Authority supposedly needed just to build the system, not to operate and maintain it if/when it's ever built.

Any taxpayer subsidy to operate/maintain the system is prohibited by 2008's Proposition 1A. The state's voters were promised that the system would be supported by its users, not subsidized by the state's taxpayers to operate and maintain after it's built.

The notion that the federal government was ever going to give California $17-19 billion to build the project is ridiculous. And $4-5 billion from local governments in the state? Ha! What about "private funding"? The reality: private investors insist on making money from their investments, which would mean profit guarantees from the State of California---that would be a cost---before they invested in the project.

More from Newsom in the Planning Report:

“We got the federal money only because three other governors decided to get out of the high-speed rail business: Rick Scott, John Kasich, and Scott Walker. Joe Biden, who was very enthusiastic about high-speed rail, redirected their stimulus money to California. The $3.5 billion those governors gave away is all the federal money we’ve got, and I imagine that’s all we’re going to see for a long time.”

Those governors understood that the federal grants to help their states build high-speed rail systems would still leave the states to pay for construction cost overruns and to operate and maintain the systems after they were built, which could easily amount to billions of dollars.

Newsom provides this ominous final comment on the stupid project:

“But at the same time, I love the vision, and I’m committed to it. I think the only way we can achieve this vision is to get Phase I done and then to enlighten the private sector about the opportunity to help finance subsequent segments. Then we have to imagine a day when we have a more enlightened legislative leadership in Congress and the White House that might support that vision.”

Apparently we're going to have a governor who doesn't know the difference between a vision and a hallucination. There has never been anything "enlightened" about this project. It was dumb from the start, pushed by special interests, like the labor unions, and lies about the cost, ridership, and fares.

See also The high-speed rail project: The shame of the Democratic Party.

(Rob Anderson, Courtesy, District5Diary)

THE CHRONIC HOMELESS cost taxpayers between $30,000 and $50,000 per person per year according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Here is an interesting article how some communities are not only housing the homeless, but it is costing them less than having them on the streets. If you are interested in this problem, please read the entire article. Thanks!

The shockingly simple, surprisingly cost-effective way to end homelessness (motherjones.com)

The results were remarkable. After five years, 88 percent of the clients were still in their apartments, and the cost of caring for them in their own homes was a little less than what it would have cost to take care of them on the street. A subsequent study of 4,679 New York City homeless with severe mental illness found that each cost an average of $40,449 a year in emergency room, shelter, and other expenses to the system, and that getting those individuals in supportive housing saved an average of $16,282. Soon other cities such as Seattle and Portland, Maine, as well as states like Rhode Island and Illinois, ran their own tests with similar results. Denver found that emergency-service costs alone went down 73 percent for people put in Housing First, for a savings of $31,545 per person; detox visits went down 82 percent, for an additional savings of $8,732. By 2003, Housing First had been embraced by the Bush administration.

IF A TREE FALLS....

Board of Supervisors Standing Committee Meetings October 15, 2018 - CANCELED

Community Partners, Colleagues, and Interested Parties: The Board of Supervisors Standing Committee meetings scheduled for October 15, 2018, have been canceled. Please contact the Executive 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, Phone: (707) 463-4441

“I didn’t REALLY mean for you to imagine me drunk!”

A LOOK AT THE BALLOT ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST REMOVING THE MCKINLEY STATUE IN ARCATA

by Ryan Burns

lostcoastoutpost.com/2018/oct/1/lets-take-look-ballot-arguments-and-against-removi/

AT THE EDGEWATER GALLERY

Marta Canillar's Opening on First Friday at Edgewater Gallery

Event:  October First Friday at Edgewater Gallery

Featured Artist:  Marta Alonso Canillar, oil painter extraordinaire

Where:  Edgewater Gallery, 356 N. Main Street, Fort Bragg

When:   Friday, October 5, from 5 - 8pm.

Marta will give a brief presentation about her work at 6pm.  Light refreshments served.

In her own words:

I was born in Spain but have made my home in California since 1990.  As a young girl growing up in the post-Franco period of Spain, during the seventies and eighties, pursuing a career in the arts was not acceptable. My artistic inclinations were put in the background as something I did on occasion, never a priority.    In  2014, I took my first oil painting lessons from Cynda Valle in Willits. Cynda's mentorship has given me the technical knowledge to allow my creativity and confidence to flow unrestrained.    The last three years have been very productive, doing some commissions and selling a few pieces that are now in other parts of the globe.  I started the year 2018 presenting three paintings at the Mendocino Art Center and took Best-in-Show for one of my paintings.  Having received this recognition has given me the right of passage to show my work publicly.    Please feel free to contact me via email at canillar@yahoo.com.