- Floriculture, Boonville Branch
- Cheap Audit
- Look Down, Jerry
- A Flawed Investigation
- San District Settles
- Testing The Waters
- You Can’t Stop It
FLORICULTURE, BOONVILLE BRANCH
Editor,
The beautiful display we all enjoyed in the Floriculture Building at the fair this year, all started with a great idea. Jody Johnson, in charge of maintenance at the fairgrounds, approached Taunia Green and me, Robyn Harper, with a new floor plan for the gardens. Jody started the ball rolling Our creative gardeners took it from there.
We all thank Jody for her inspiration to place gardens in the center of the building and the result was the best show in a long long time. Credit was given to the building managers for the great displays but Jody was the reason it came together. Thank you Jody!!
Robyn Harper
Navarro
CHEAP AUDIT
Editor:
So I just read that Gov. Jerry Brown ordered a performance audit of the state Department of Motor Vehicles at a cost of about $800,000. I believe I can make a suggestion that would save all of us taxpayers a lot of money: Fire whoever is running DMV and hire someone who can run it properly. I will send my bill to the state, guaranteed to be less than $800,000 for the same result.
Raleigh Chaix
Willits
LOOK DOWN, JERRY
Editor,
Governor Jerry Brown has just announced that California is going to launch its own satellite to monitor global warming. He did not say who is going to pay for it. Perhaps he's going to surprise us and pay for it himself to demonstrate his dedication to the environment. Or maybe Dianne Feinstein is going to pick up the tab as a way of "giving back" and saying "thank you" for her many blessings. Then again it could come to us as some new kind of gas tax.
Let's say the satellite goes up. What would happen? If it works it would send back years of data, die, become space junk, and then fall back to Earth. Satellites are just about the most expensive way of getting data there is. Maybe there is some cheaper, down-to-earth way of doing this. Or we could just skip it all together and focus on fixing our roads, dams and bridges instead.
Yours Truly,
Carol Chatham
Ben Lomond
A FLAWED INVESTIGATION
Editor,
The Caltrans Albion River Bridge Geotechnical Investigation…
• is not needed. Nationally known bridge experts say the existing historic bridge is beautifully built, in amazingly good shape, can be repaired and maintained indefinitely and is not designed/was never intended to inform bridge rehabilitation – only replacement.
• will permanently degrade Albion’s scenic resources and visual quality for residents and visitors
will knowingly destroy irreplaceable coastal resources without justification
• will permanently denude the north bluff of trees that serves as a Blue Heron rookery, windbreak, and frame for the views to and from the Albion River
• will permanently disfigure the north and south bluff natural land forms, with gouges and loss of material up to 5 or more feet deep on their faces, and 10+ feet scalped off the north bluff top between Highway 1 and the ocean
• requires helicopter operations that will disturb and disrupt residents, businesses, and everything under the two flight paths between the bridge and Little River Airport helicopter operations will disturb and disrupt campers, hotel guests, boaters, kayakers, hikers, protected avian species and marine mammals, and other high priority coastal resources and uses
• helicopter operations will close Highway 1 at 20-30 minute intervals several times a day over two months – or longer
• is not eligible for Commission hearing as a consolidated permit
• is in County CDP jurisdiction, not Coastal Commission’s, and should be subject to certified LCP
• does not meet CEQA review requirements (needs EIR)
does not meet Coastal Act “need” requirement for public works projects or CEQA “need” requirement to allow mitigation of adverse impacts
• is a “piecemeal” effort – illegal under both CEQA and the Coastal Act -- to lay the foundation (perhaps literally) for construction of a new, and as yet unreviewed or approved, replacement
• application contents do not meet requirements of Commission regulations
• does not have a finite, complete, and accurate project description
• Coastal Act inconsistencies are not remedied by recommended special conditions
• is not supported by recommended findings in the Coastal Commission’s staff report
• does not accurately and fully depict locations of staging and storage areas
• application to Coastal Commission did depict stockpiling areas for soil and downed trees
• will block and otherwise preclude public access and public recreation along and at the mouth of the Albion River for up to two months
• many residents and businesses along projected helicopter flight paths have not been notified
Annemarie Weibel
Albion
SAN DISTRICT SETTLES
To the Editor:
Recently, the Ukiah Daily Journal reported that the four-year old Ukiah Valley Sanitation District lawsuit vs. the City of Ukiah finally settled for $7.5 million.
This sum is misleading. Why? Because the District previously received $9 million as a result of the lawsuit which means $16,000,000; and also because of changes arising out of a new operating agreement. The recovery for District over term of bond more than doubles that figure to $32 million.
Was the lawsuit worth it?
You bet it was!
Thirty-two million dollars is a lot of money, legal costs notwithstanding.
In 2017, I briefly served on the Board of Directors for the Sanitation District. Four years ago, I also proudly served on the grand jury that originally brought forward the report on many of the issues in dispute between the District and the City. Although I am prohibited by law from discussing the grand jury investigation, it is my personal belief that the City's financial abuse of the District was appalling. The District was a $32 million cash cow for the City for a period of almost 30 years.
What motivated the City to steal from the District? The City's own structural deficit. The City of Ukiah cooked the books at the District for many years to cover its own annual structural deficit of $1 million.
The City also played a shell game for many years with the Ukiah Redevelopment Agency -- until it was shut down by the state. And the City continues to play games with many of its enterprise funds.
The City's structural deficit of $1 million a year, every year, is the bottom line cost of too many executive-level and management-level employees getting paid too much. What is the total compensation package of the City Manager? Something like $350,000. The Deputy City Manager gets something like $300,000. Department heads get a ton of money, too.
And every department is stacked with overpaid, underworked managers. For example, exactly what does Ukiah's Conference Center manager do? Gossip mostly. Gossip and badmouthing other city workers, from what I hear just walking by the open door of his office.
I could cite a hundred similar examples of unnecessary positions. In fact, the City of Ukiah seems more like a jobs program for townies than a fully functional city administration.
This is a crazy payroll for a city with a population of only 16,000 people.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
TESTING THE WATERS
Editor,
I find that the women who expressed real animus toward Judge Brett Kavanaugh use their personal experiences and raw ambition to make decisions. I have been called a "breeder" by gay men, I've been castigated more than once by women who are my friends for being a Republican and mostly pro-life except in dire circumstances and I have been improperly touched by men who were in positions of power. When I was a young woman, it was common for men to test the waters for a cooperative connection.
The look on my face most likely scared the hell out of them because no further actions ensued. Have these unpleasant memories and experiences caused me to distrust all men, for me to despise all gay people or destroy friendships? The answer is no.
Arlene Rubens Balin
Sonoma
YOU CAN’T STOP IT
Editor,
I witnessed the sickening, disgusting, rotten, filthy display of hearings as the liberals tried to ruin the good name of Brett Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court judge nominee. It shows you how low and despicable these people are. How can the good people of America put up with humans like this? This is beyond being — well, the good people of this country are going to get fed up with these assholes and the shit is going to hit the fan. The sooner the better so this country can become greater again. MAGA.
The western state wildfires? There's too much vegetation. There are no barriers. Helicopters are too small. They are like bumblebees fighting an elephant. The military needs to be involved with 727s rebuilt to carry the retardant. Have them at several airbases around the states so they can be used as soon as possible for any vulnerable fire areas quickly. Grass grows every year. So does brush. It's a never-ending thing. Every time it rains grass and brush grow up every year and you can't stop it. We should go back to using pesticides and tell the environmentalists to go straight to hell and spray on every side of the highway for at least 50 feet. When you drive from Boonville to Cloverdale, the dry grass is taller than your car. Right down to the pavement. Isn't that disgusting? In Southern California they have built subdivisions right out there in the brush and they cannot defend them. They have to make places to defend from to even fight the fires. They can't walk into the flames and fight fires, you idiots.
PS. To you rotten filthy disgusting corrupt counterfeit lying no class left-wing liberal no goods Democrats: I'll bet you are proud of these people, Mr. Rob Mahon. All you liberals all over the world put together could not come close to matching Brett Kavanaugh's character and integrity.
PPS. To Bruce Patterson: Prineville Oregon. A great place to live. Good country. What happened? Did your mother drop you on your head on the hardwood floor after you were born? Or did you fall off the porch and land on the sidewalk on your pointy little head? You have the gift of gab, buddy. But everything you say came from the place that you use toilet paper on. And I will bet you smeared it a little bit. And this guy Chris Floyd, another lunatic we heard from. Where did you get your brains? At Wal-Mart? I'll bet you got them on sale, you stupid bastard. That's what you sound like. Chill out, commie lib buddy or your mouth might bite your kneecap.
PPPS. Young people today don't know what's going on. 75% of them don't know who the president is. What's going to happen when they get to be 25 or 30 years old? They will look around and they will moan, “I want my mommy! I spent my young life running around being liberal and ruining the United States and being against everything” That’s just the way they are nowadays. It's sickening. Doesn't anybody out there want to make America great again? Where are all the Republicans? Hiding beneath their couches? Afraid of the pussy liberals? What's going on? I have never seen the like of it in my entire life and I've been alive for quite a while. If the people demonstrating against the United States are not happy, trying to make it into a socialist country, then they are probably likely to come up with some other kinds of dirt to throw at our supreme court judge Kavanaugh. Republicans should get behind this president who is trying to make America great again.
God bless Donald Trump
Jerry Philbrick
Comptche
Be First to Comment