Mendocino County Today: Friday, Oct. 19, 2018

• Hospital Diagnosis
• Davi Celebration
• PV Project
• Closing Sale
• Brown Act
• Little Dog
• Budget Reply
• Meet Haschak
• Haschak Endorsement
• Cassette Surgery
• Firefighting Jorge
• Local Food
• Yesterday's Catch
• Internetted
• Suburb Nightmares
• Totally Paranoid
• Improv Show
• POTUS Stooping
• Firefighting Strategy
• Beer Tasting
• YasBan

DR. GLUSKER’S FINAL DIAGNOSIS

Dear Editor:

As I near the end of my term on the MCDH Board of Directors, I would like to outline the principal problems I see at the Mendocino Coast District Hospital, and possible solutions.

First, attention has not been given to how medical care has changed over the last 30 years. What kind of quality care can be provided locally and what kinds of problems need to be sent to a secondary or tertiary center? Specialist care that was provided here twenty years ago is not feasible anymore because standards of care now need infrastructure and resources that require larger centers. Our hospital and clinics need to focus on quality primary care with referral networks for specialized care. This needs to be incorporated into planning. This has not been addressed at MCDH.

Second, the administration at MCDH contracts with two companies, EMCARE and RPG, to provide care in the emergency room and in the hospital. These companies provide transient doctors. There has been a clear pattern of continued borderline to poor quality of care, which the administration has failed to address in any effective way. The result is the public seeks care elsewhere whenever possible. The trust that patients had in the quality of hospital care, the bedrock of its economic survival, is gone. The administration has not effected any solution to this critical problem.

Third, the present Board has not addressed these issues, passively accepting the administration’s direction. The Board has lacked independent, critical thinking and neglected to address these problems.

It is my hope that a new board with Jessica Grinberg, Karen Arnold and John Redding might bring about critical evaluation of these problems and effective change.

Peter Glusker, MD-PhD

Fort Bragg

THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS continues to act as if there’s plenty of money sitting around for very abstract purposes. They give themselves raises without regard to budget considerations, the CEO thinks there’s $500k-$600k per year sitting around to spend on her own Mendo-run Emergency Services Agency (more on that coming up), Sheriff’s overtime is grossly underbudgeted and nobody knows how much that’ll end up costing, Mendo was recently denied federal reimbursements for the 2018 fire emergency response (being appealed, but…?)

AND NOW THEY’VE BEGUN an endless arrangement with four other suckers, er “Participating Agencies” to, in the words of Supervisor John McCowen, “move forward” on submitting a bid to purchase the Potter Valley Project from PG&E. “This is not by any means the total cost as we move forward to pursue this,” admitted McCowen, “but it will accomplish a significant task and we will have all the information related to operation of the project to evaluate potential acquisition strategies. … It’s a small amount [$20k out of a total of $100k] given the importance that the project continues to supply water to Mendocino County.”

SUPERVISOR CARRE BROWN justified the outside lawyer expense by saying that there’s a “quick turnaround” (an initial submittal of some kind has a three month deadline, but nobody knows what the hurry is) although neither Brown nor the agenda item proposing the expenditure said exactly what has to be completed in three months — the law firm’s work? A formal bid? An expression of interest? A special pleading to be allowed to bid? Not mentioned.

TUESDAY’S AUTHORIZATION is for Mendo’s one-fifth share of the $100k to be paid to a Sacramento law firm called “Downey Brand” which specializes in soaking their customers for water related legal fees, er, “natural resource litigation.” Also contributing $20k each will (supposedly) be the Redwood Valley water district, the Russian River Flood Control District and the City of Ukiah, along with the Inland Water and Power Commission (an umbrella organization made up of the other four).

MIND YOU, this is just to obtain what McCowen said was “all the information related to operation of the project to evaluate potential acquisition strategies.” And if you think that’s anywhere near what it will end up costing just to prepare a bid to PG&E, I’ve got a water project I’d like to sell you.

THERE’S CLEARLY NO GUARANTEE that Mendo will be successful in bidding for this project — the twenty grand is just a small portion of the down payment just to find out what PG&E is selling, what condition it may be in, what’s its worth, etc. This is just the opening of a lengthy process.

WHO WILL PAY for the inevitable next phase — in for 20 dimes, in for 20 million dollars? Will the other (less-well-funded) agencies be able to keep coming up with the additional legal fees that are sure to follow? Will Mendo have to pay a bigger share of the next round of costs? Who will decide if the work is adequate and whether to proceed, Water & Power Commission? Mendo? PG&E?

THERE’S ALSO NO DISCUSSION of what would happen if Mendo didn’t end up with ownership of the project. Could Mendo ever really lose their rights to the diverted water that Potter Valley grape growers so desperately need? Not likely. Although Humboldt County is interested in the project, would they really be able to scale back Mendo’s draw on the project water? Or would there be the usual back-room negotiations on how much gets diverted to Potter Valley and beyond?

THE IMPRESSION WE GET is that there’s a lot of paranoia about even the slightest disturbance in the current – very favorable – arrangements for Potter Valley’s cheap water. So much so that Supervisor Carre Brown has convinced her go-along-get-along colleagues that it’s worth Mendo taxpayers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive lawyers to pursue an open ended ill-defined project purchase that could easily be one giant waste of money by the time it’s over — if it’s ever over.

PS. AND MS. BROWN’S “QUICK TURNAROUND” problem? PG&E announced their decision to sell the project back in May. Mendo has known about their intention to bid on the project since back then, probably earlier. Why couldn’t they have begun the process with their own eight County Counsel lawyers back then and avoided this huge outside expense?

(Mark Scaramella)

FISH ROCK FARM GIRLS in Boonville is closing. Great prices! Next week is our final week! Open 11-5 Thursday - Monday. 707-684-9739. We may be open longer hours and other days, call first!

14111 Hwy 128, Boonville

Furniture 50% off

Vintage Clothes & Accessories 50% off

Most all antiques and collectibles 30% off.

Take a drive to Boonville and score some great deals!

THE BROWN ACT REQUIRES SILENCE?

TO: Tabatha Miller, Fort Bragg City Manager

10/17/18

Dear Ms. Miller,

I noticed the following apparent bit of boilerplate in the upcoming City Council Agenda:

"BROWN ACT REQUIREMENTS: Pursuant to the Brown Act, the Council cannot discuss issues or take action on any requests during this comment period."

I thought I was fairly familiar with the Brown Act and I know about the prohibition concerning taking action on items not on the agenda (excepting urgency and emergency items if voted on by a super-marjority with explanation).

But I was not aware that the Brown Act prohibited the elected body from "discussing issues" or "any requests" during the comment period.

Also, there's no mention in this overly broad statement that urgent or emergency items can be voted onto the agenda.

Can you provide me with the specific California Government Code citation that this "requirement" comes from?

Also, if this is a genuine requirement, what happens if a board member somehow does discuss an issue or any request during the comment period?

Can I file a Brown Act complaint? And then does the Board have to correct the discussion?

Does this mean that all those discussions I've had with the public and the Board and the rest of my Budget Committee at the local Community Services District Board and Committee meetings were Brown Act violations?

Seems like this item should be rephrased or clarified.

Thanks/with respect.

Mark Scaramella/Anderson Valley Advertiser, Boonville CA 95415

* * *

Ms. Miller Replied Thursday:

Mr. Scaramella,

Thank you for your email.

The statement you referenced is based on California Government Code section 54954.2. More specifically, 54954.2(a)(3) provides that "No action or discussion shall be undertaken on any item not appearing on the posted agenda..."

However, I would agree with you that the brief sentence on our City Council Agenda template does not take into account the exceptions set forth in that section of the Brown Act (54954.2(b) as you pointed out), the option for staff or Councilmembers to briefly respond to public comments or questions, or that City Council certainly can discuss CONSENT CALENDAR & CLOSED SESSION ITEMS which are included in the posted agenda.

Respectfully,

Tabatha Miller

City Manager, City of Fort Bragg

(707) 961-2829

TMiller@FortBragg.com

* * *

Dear Ms. Miller,

Thanks. I'll look forward to the clarification. My purpose in writing was to make sure that Councilmembers know that they can do things like, ask the commenter to put their request/comment in writing, ask staff to reply to comments or requests if called for, and put items on future agendas if necessary -- not just sit by quietly. The tone of the item makes it sound like the Brown Act protects the Council, when its original intent was to make sure public actions are done in public. I assume and hope that your Council is aware of these options and exercises them as needed. Again, thanks very much for your reply.

Mark Scaramella/Anderson Valley Advertiser, Boonville CA

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Had to borrow two bucks for the billion dollar Mega Million drawing, and believe me if I hit that baby no more igloo for this little dog!”

(REPOST)

BUDGET INFO/STATUS REQUEST

October 17, 2018

Dear CEO Angelo and Supervisors,

In the last few months, several significant budget issues have arisen and have been discussed to some extent in various Board meetings. But most of those discussions produced more questions than answers. Since they were originally raised there has been very little follow-up or reporting on the following problematic issues:

Juvenile budget deficit: The food program has been streamlined, but the amount saved does not seem enough to bring their budget into alignment.

Sheriff’s Department Overtime. After first cutting the budget to $300k even though last year’s allocation was about $1.6 million, the CEO and staff promised to follow the budget closely and report monthly. But there has been only one “report” since then which said that after only a couple of months, 45% of the budget had been expended, much of that for disaster/fire response. We understand that due to increased recruiting, Sheriff’s Office OT has increased on top of that initial spurt associated with the Ranch and River fire responses.

Property values and assessments are down due to the 2017 fires and, reportedly, because cannabis growers are having financial difficulties.

The cannabis program has several new staffers both in admin and in code enforcement, but the permit program appears to have stalled. Yet the size of the cannabis program budget deficit for 2017/18 has not been reported or estimated.

Cannabis sales, both legal and illegal seem to be way down due to the drop in prices and difficulties getting permits for transportation and sale. This would have a negative impact on overall sales tax revenues which have so far not been estimated or reported.

Many top officials and the Supervisors have received significant pay raises but at no time was the current or out-year budget impact of these raises publicized nor has the cumulative amount been reported or the extent to which the budget in the CEO, Supervisors or Department Head Bargaining Unit has been exceeded.

Accordingly, since no one else seems interested in these looming budget challenges which have already been noted but not addressed in any board meeting, I hereby request an update on the budget status of the following:

Sheriff’s Overtime: Budget and actual to date plus projections for end of Fiscal Year on June 30.

Cannabis program (including code enforcement) budget and actual, plus projections for end of Fiscal Year on June 30.

Juvenile Hall: Budget and actual to date plus projections for end of Fiscal Year on June 30.

Sales tax revenues: budget and actual so far plus projections for end of Fiscal Year on June 30.

Property tax revenues: Budget and actual to date plus projections for end of Fiscal Year on June 30.

Pay raise budget impact for Supervisors, CEO and CEO staff, and Department heads in calendar 2018, Plus Budget and actual to date and projections for end of Fiscal Year on June 30. And for this item, budget projections for next fiscal year (July 2019-June 2020.

Since these subjects have already been raised by the Board or the CEO in recent months, there should be no objection to at least providing the budget status. However, if no response is forthcoming in the next two weeks, I will reformat this request as an official California Public Records Act request if necessary. Given that all of these items are matters of ongoing concern to the County and its officials, such action should not be required.

Further, I would hope that the CEO’s office would report on these (and other departments) items on a monthly basis as promised in the CEO report of August 21, 2018 under Budget Report.

Thank you.

Mark Scaramella, Boonville

895-3016

* * *

CEO ANGELO REPLIED THURSDAY:

“Thank you for your email. A budget report to the Board is scheduled for November 13th. However, I will be happy to answer your questions. You will get a written response within the 10 day PRA timeline. Please let me know if that is satisfactory for you.”

* * *

We replied affirmatively. (Mark Scaramella)

NEIGHBORHOOD WALK AND TALK

Every Saturday until election day we’re getting out in the Willits Community to meet our neighbors and share John's vision for Mendocino County and the 3rd District. Join John, Janice, and an outstanding team of volunteers for training and a quick bite to eat at Brickhouse Coffee (3 S Main St, Willits) at 9:30 am. Afterward, we'll head out in teams of 2 for door-to-door canvassing. This is a BIG election in a small district and every vote counts. Can you help us make sure our friends and neighbors make their voices heard? Contact Paul Kaplan at 707-318-9331 or Paul.Kaplan@seiu1021.org for more information.

Donate (https://haschakforsupervisor.org/donate/)

Endorse (https://haschakforsupervisor.org/endorse/)

Volunteer (https://haschakforsupervisor.org/volunteer/)

Posted by Elect John Haschak Supervisor 2018, FPPC #1400083. 19200 Shafer Ranch Road, Willits, CA 95490. 707-513-6166.

HASCHAK FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS

Editor,

I strongly support John Haschak for 3rd District Supervisor for the following reasons:

John Haschak promotes smart environmental choices. Pinches’ stance on the environment is checkered. Pinches defended the Board of Supervisor’s decision to not require an Environmental Review of the Grist Creek Asphalt Plant Project on Outlet Creek. This resulted in a disaster causing many residents to suffer adverse health conditions because of toxic air pollution emitted by the asphalt plant. As a consequence, the County paid hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars in attorney’s fees to defend their hasty and impulsive action and for the plaintiff’s attorneys.

Pinches is a proponent of pumping water from the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork Eel River. His plan is mere fantasy involving non-existent pumps, pipes, easements, and reservoirs to store the water. Kind of like Pinches’ “back of the barroom napkin” cannabis reform proposal. In contrast, John Haschak has an inclusive 12-point plan including elimination of the County’s Track and Trace program, and non-cooperation of the County with any federal attempt to prosecute legal growers. John Haschak wants small farmers to thrive.

Pinches showed his allegiance to corporate timber companies when he endorsed the practice of “hack and squirt,” an industrial practice which has made our forests into grave fire hazards. He also said that County Counsel should not have allowed Measure V (the Mendocino County citizen initiative) to ban herbicide use in our forests to be put on the ballot. John Haschak said the people have the right to protect themselves from the potential threat from wildfire that these standing dead poisoned trees pose.

Pinches says that he saved the County from bankruptcy. This was accomplished when as supervisor, the County cut the salaries of all workers by 10%. When the supervisors raised their own salaries by 40% he did not criticize it. John Haschak has been extremely vocal about these egregious pay increases by County Administration. He has pledged not to accept the pay increase until County workers’ salaries are restored.

John Haschak has the proud support of unions and over 200 small donors because he stands for working people who have been mistreated by the County. It is time for the elites of this County to recognize that poor County worker morale, attrition and chronically inadequate staffing levels will continue unless County workers’ salaries are fully restored, including cost of living increases.

The 3rd District needs a solid energetic supervisor who will work hard, and nobody works harder than John Haschak. He is diligent in his analysis of problems. He listens to people.He is constantly working on solutions. He thinks out of the box. His work as the teacher’s union president taught him the value of collaboration and follow-through.

Pinches takes credit for many projects that he was not responsible for or even conceived. They occurred during his term of office but that’s about all. His claims are about as solid as his pledge to not run for supervisor again when Gov. Brown was seeking a replacement for Tom Woodhouse.

Three terms is more than enough for any supervisor. The people of the 3rd District thank him and now ask him to graciously retire. We need fresh ideas and vision to turn this County around. John Haschak represents the future for the 3rd District and Mendocino County.

If you are tired of business-as-usual vote for John Haschak for 3rd District Supervisor.

Marc Komer, Willits

JORGE MEDINA, AV High 2018 graduate, had never been interested in fire or emergency services but he was moved by the presentation that AV Fire Department and CalFire did at AV High School last year. He came to training and wasn't hooked right away — he stuck with it and got interested in engines, hazard mitigation, and teamwork.

On his first call as a firefighter he realized that he enjoyed the rush of the urgency and the hard work. He likes serving the community and the adrenaline: "It's tiring but it feels good afterward." (AF Fire Department Facebook page)

LOCAL FOOD

Oktoberfest Dinner at the Live Oak Building in downtown Boonville Saturday Oct 20th Happy hour at 5:

German Bratwurst, warm German potato salad, purple sour Kraut,

Mixed green salad with blue cheese and nuts

Desert

One complimentary beverage

all to benefit the Anderson Valley Senior Center

* * *

Friday, October 19th - Lizbby's Special Local Lunch:

Green Enchiladas, veggie or chicken

Veggie Soup

Ensalada

Gowan's Oak Tree Apple Cider

Friday, October 19th - Yorkville Market Special Local Dinner:

We'll be serving local zucchini rellenos with homemade (local) salsas.

We also have the Dirt Roosters, a band from the coast coming out. Music and food start at 5:30 and dinner at 6ish.

* * *

Wednesday, October 24th - Mosswood Local Lunch Special every Wednesday this month...

* * *

This Week at Blue Meadow Farm

Silver Queen Corn finally decided to ripen!

Corn, Heirloom, Roma & Early Girl Tomatoes

Corno di Toro, Gypsy, Bell, Pimiento Sweet Peppers

Padrons, Poblanos, Jalapenos, Serranos, Anaheim Chilis

Zucchini, Patty Pan & Zapallitos, Cucumbers

Apples, Pumpkins & Buttercup Squash,

Strawberries, Kale, Garlic, Quince

Zinnias

SAVE THE DATE!

Our Annual Gleaning Party will be Saturday October 27

(rain date Sunday)

Blue Meadow Farm, 3301 Holmes Ranch Rd, Philo 707-895-2071

* * *

AVHS Quince for Sale

The AVHS Ag Dept has quince for sale. They are ripening quickly. The quince are $2 per pound. Contact Beth Swehla at 895-2514 or bswehla@avpanthers.org

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 18, 2018

DARRELL CARADINE, Fort Bragg. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

ABIGAIL DIAZ, San Rafael/Laytonville. Pot cultivation and illegal water diversion.

ELIAS DIAZ, San Rafael/Laytonville. Pot cultivation and illegal water diversion.

JOSHUA FREEMAN, Potter Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

LUIZ GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOSHUA HURD, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

WILLIAM MATTHEWS, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MISTY NICKERSON, Laytonville. Disorderly conduct-under influence, false ID, probation revocation.

DALE TUCKER, Antioch/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOHN WITVOET, San Rafael/Leggett. DUI.

DUSTIN WOOD, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

You bring up some excellent points, especially the role of the internet in turning what would otherwise be localized outbreaks of insanity into nation-wide or continent-wide or world-wide conflagrations. To pick a ludicrous example, guys like Michael Avenatti would have been on the National Enquirer’s front page forty years ago and there he would have stayed. But we’ve redefined what’s news that’s fit to hear and read and the internet was instrumental in that.

I guess what someone would consider “insane” nowadays depends in part on ideology, or IOW, what political ethnicity they belong to. Railing against the economic demolition of fly-over America is taken in “progressive” circles as code for racist wall-building by fascists and extremists or, in the best case, blind lunacy in opposing all that is great and good. The “progressive” preoccupation with gender identity and gender fluidity strikes a lot of people in other political tribes as an illness requiring mandatory confinement.

Maybe it was blind luck in coming up with tranny washrooms as a burning issue but it did serve to divert national attention from dire problems affecting tens of millions. But for my money this was a distraction whether it was dreamt up ie “manufactured”, as you put it, by a cabal of cynical pols or just the Goddess Fortune working her mysterious ways. There’s more important problems that need to be dealt with that affect far more people.

BLACK-EYED KIDS & OTHER NIGHTMARES FROM THE SUBURBS

by Brian Plattt & Brynn Roth

counterpunch.org/2018/10/18/black-eyed-kids-and-other-nightmares-from-the-suburbs/

HIT AND RUN THEATER SHOW ON NOVEMBER 16 & 17

Dear Mendocino Folks,

First notice of next month’s Hit & Run Theater Improv Comedy Show on November 16 & 17!

Hit and Run Theater brings forward another weekend of improv comedy shows on Friday and Saturday, November 16 & 17 at 7:30pm at the Matheson Performing Arts Center at Mendocino High School, 45096 Cahto St., Mendocino, CA 95460. The show will include Jill Jahelka, Ken Krauss, Doug Nunn, Kathy O’Grady, Christine Samas, Dan Sullivan, and Steve Weingarten. The team will return to the boards for this weekend of comic scenes and songs — all based on audience suggestions. Backing them up will be famed San Francisco keyboard star, Joshua Raoul Brody of Bay Area Theatresports. General Admission tickets will be $18, with a special admission price of $12 for Seniors over 65 and kids under 18. To reserve tickets or for more information, please call Doug Nunn at 937-0360 or write dnunn@mcn.org or on Facebook.

Thanks very much!

Doug Nunn

A POPULAR BUT CYNICAL VIEW of modern firefighting strategies is that the government puts fires out by throwing money on them until it starts to rain.

—Sebastian Junger, “Fire”

BREWMASTERS & BEER TASTING 4PM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21

Love beer? Then you won't want to miss this opportunity to learn about modern beer making from two local aficionados. Stephen Duerr, co-founder of Fort Bragg’s Overtime Brewing, and award-winning beer maker Drew Jackson will share their love of beer Sunday, October 21, from 4-5 p.m. at the Kelley House Museum. You will see a demonstration of a magnetic stirplate. You'll also have the chance to taste the new Frolic Ale - Scottish Wee Heavy, custom crafted by Drew’s Brews. The beer won the Blue Ribbon three weeks ago at the 2018 Sonoma Harvest Fair in the “Malty Irish and British Beers” category. Yeast sediment from the 1996 Frolic Shipwreck Ale, created by the now defunct Mendocino Brewing Company, was included in the making of this beer. Admission to Sunday Afternoon With the Brewmasters is $5 for museum members, $7 for the public and includes the beer tasting. Doors open at 3:30 p.m.. For more information, call 707-937-5791.

kelleyhousemuseum.org/beeruntappd.com/b/drew-s-brews-frolic-ale/2828011

Kelley House" <info@kelleyhousemuseum.org>

THE YASMIN BAN

Friends:

KZYX/Z has silenced my voice from their (our) airwaves at this crucial time, right before an election of momentous importance and significance! I, as a founding member, original programmer, 29 year financial supporter, and almost 50 year resident of Mendocino County, consider this CENSORSHIP of great magnitude. Is this really what a Public, Community Radio Station does when the Program Director, Alice Woelfle does not like you? (me). This is a personal feud between Alice and myself, which could have been peacefully and privately mediated and resolved. Instead, she decided to cut me off at the knees, right before the election and the last day to register to VOTE, because she knows that Voting, Voting Rights and Civil Rights are my passion and my life. She has silenced my voice from the airwaves right before this election.

This is truly cruel and unusual punishment. My telephone is totally banned (blocked) from being able to call any phone numbers at kzyx/z and has been for 2 weeks, so that I cannot call The Discussion and inform folks about my information about The Ballot, The Vote, Voting Rights, Voter Suppression, and Voter Registration and this critical upcoming Election!

If you agree that a "Community, Listener Supported, Public" Radio Station should not ban me (or anyone) from calling their talk shows, their Comment Line, or any of their phone numbers (especially the on-air line and The Discussion), then please contact them and say so. Jeffrey Parker, General Manager: gm@kzyx.org; 895-2324 and Alice Woelfle, Program Director, pd@kzyx.org, 895-2324.

I hope you will please support me in this Freedom Of Speech and Censorship issue. If you want more details about my 29 year Herstory at kzyx/z, and anything else, please phone me at 707-884-4703, let it ring 5 times. i do not live with a computer, and my computer access is very limited, especially now, while I am out in the streets doing Voter Registration almost daily.

If kzyx/z and its Mission Statement is to serve the Community and ALL of its listeners and members, why do they have my phone number totally BLOCKED right before this important election, when I am trying to share my knowledge and enthusiasm for Voting with our listeners? Please ask KZYX/Z to UN-BAN and UNBLOCK MY PHONE IMMEDIATELY!!

Thanks to All.

Peace, Love and Justice,

DJ SISTER YASMIN

884-4703

ED NOTE: Yasmin was initially given the heave ho by KZYX many years ago for being so relentlessly rude and generally obnoxious even the relentlessly rude and generally obnoxious people then dominant at our local audio club could not work with her. (The current management is a step forward in the Miss Manners Department, but they enforce the station's legacy blacklist, which includes Yasmin and a number of other inexplicably non-personed locals. I've dealt with this combustible bundle of grievances for years, even hosted her so she could attend Boonville's annual Rastafarian event without renting weekend space. I think she's a wonderfully comic figure but certainly understand why other people would find her less amusing. She was a civilized house guest, even bringing me a thank you gift. Somewhere, way back, Yaz was instructed in the basics of civility, as we all were, but abandoned by many of us during the Summer of Love Liberation. I've found over the years of dealing with her that Yaz, like an errant child, and like many, unhappy crazed people, needs strict behavior parameters enforced by frequent time-outs. As it happens, I've just placed Yazzzle in our time-out room this very week after her calls berating me for a sin against her I allegedly committed in another publication. She went off at length on that one, whatever it was, but she's been calling again, I guess, because she remains persona non grata at KZYX, where she's been banned for years and, in desperation, has again turned to me. "Bruce you alcoholic drunk lying bastard" — a typical salutation. Yaz wants to publicize the most recent chapter in her endless beef with Mendo Public Radio. If I were Miss Alice, the station's program manager, I'd say, "Yasmin, you've got three minutes once a week on open lines. That's it." But however Miss Alice chooses to deal with the Anchor Bay Typhoon, Miss Alice has our sympathy.

* * *

THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES — KZYX COMES APART

Longstreet fired, Rubin quits, Simon teeters on the purple public radio brink

by Bruce Anderson (July 29, 1998)

“Well,” I heard a male voice behind me say, “looks like the passive-aggressives are out in force tonight,” as we arrived at the Philo headquarters of KZYX, Mendocino County’s more or less public radio station to lobby for reinstatement of Sister Yasmin, the station’s long-time reggae DJ. KZYX has always inspired more than its share of cynicism and mirth. It takes itself very, very seriously for very, very little reason.

We assumed the meeting was going to be a pleading session for Yaz, a person whose unique mix of intensity and ribald good humor Mendocino County’s stuffy airwaves need more of. Yasmin’s eclectic troops were present as were the flat-affect corporados, miscellaneous Clintonoids and LA retirees who have dominated KZYX since its mercenary beginnings some nine years ago. KZYX was never really new, but the hill gentry that funded it was. These weren’t hippies; these were people whose notion of alternative public radio was music and the bland daily assurances of NPR. Passion about local issues was fine so long as it wasn’t piped into their hilltop hideaways and so long as they weren’t paying for it.

Opposed to the new money bags to whom public radio is simply one more suburban amenity, we find a rear guard of odd people with real roots here, the people who have made their homes on the Northcoast, raised their children here, who tossed convention and the suburbs over the side to live in a new way. The two sides have fought over KZYX since its founding by a hustler who later billed the community mightily for his time in establishing public radio in Mendocino County. Sean Donovan packed his founding board of directors with the intellectually halt and lame who have dominated KZYX ever since.

And here we are nearly a decade later arguing over another chapter in the same public radio book. It could be a very interesting book in the right hands. For all their outward desire for appropriateness, the cramped little tract house off highway 128 near Philo has seen a whole lot of unique encounters, ranging from joyless sexual to viperous interpersonal. It’s not great radio but KZYX is the motherlode of gossip.

Tonight’s meeting begins with station manager Bruce Longstreet posed in the lotus position just above his board of directors like some kind of yuppie Buddha. The nine-person board is short two — at the end of the evening Karen Ottoboni is appointed to the vacancy created by Anne Kessler of Point Arena. Longstreet himself will be fired. Sister Yasmin, at one a.m., five hours after the meeting begins, is tabled and almost forgotten as the heads of her tormenters roll out onto Highway 128. No one outside the clique running KZYX is aware a replacement is being considered for the departed Kessler. No one outside the station is aware that even inside the clique the blood has begun to flow. It’s very Kremlin, or gremlin, since it isn’t about much of anything beyond tiny bits of meaningless turf.

Twenty or so people speak up for or against Yasmin, most in favor of her reinstatement. Trustee Doug Moody looks like he’s being jabbed with pins as Yaz people lobby for her. Old Hippie Mendo seems to appall him. Moody’s the new Mendo wave, a magic money character from deep Outtahere who doesn’t get it, which is why he was easily elected to the board by the station’s self-selecting membership. Moody donates a lot of time and money to the station in return for which he gets to play muzak-like jazz.

Sister Yasmin, the famous Jewish rastafarian, was suddenly fired right in the middle of what she thought was a grievance procedure. Her execution was carried out in typical KZYX style — an impersonal note in her mailbox, a terse long distance call not to bother coming in to do her show. She’d been with the station since its inception, defended it, fought for it, raised lots of money for it, was entirely devoted to it. But she was outspoken, and she never did fit in too well at those wine sip fundraisers and, to the young and old wheezes who call the tune at the station, Yaz represented everything wild and unpredictable they’d hunkered down in the ‘burbs all their money making years to avoid so they could spend their golden years looking out over the redwoods and the sea, Chopin and Terri Gross on the radio.

Longstreet opens the meeting by asking that Jimmy Humble resign from the board of trustees. What’s this? Most of us thought we were here to argue Yaz. Something else is going on. Longstreet goes on about how Humble has been disloyal to the station by signing off on a Green Party letter in support of Yasmin. Humble, seemingly caught unaware, humbly declines to die, er, resign. The next morning, we learn that Longstreet has been fired. The board won’t renew his contract when it’s up at the end of August. Steve Rubin, the station’s music director, says he’ll take lots of time off at the end of this broadcasting quarter. The person many believe is responsible for much of the turmoil at the station, Theresa Simon, isn’t present, but the rumor floating out of the management bunker says she will soon go too. Lots of people say she’s the brains behind Longstreet and Rubin. Like many “liberal” institutions, the males on the premises tend to be small, stupid and docile; the women big, strong and smart.

Ross Murray, 80, a show biz guy from LA who hosts a monthly talk show on “senior” issues as seen from the Clintonoid perspective, gets up several times to bellow for management’s “right” to do whatever it likes. “Who does the hiring and who does the firing?” Murray yells to the forty or so people gathered around the trustees in the semi-enclosed, storage space where meetings are held. “Is it Bruce? Is it me? Is it the Green Party? If you can’t fire someone people will be insulted on the air and there will be no recourse.”

The Board chair, a coast attorney named Jim Jackson, always Mr. Cool, responds in the artificially calm tones of a Prozac case, and with a literalness Murray’s over-heated, rhetorical blast doesn’t deserve. “The board hires and fires the station manager, the station manager hires and fires everyone else.”

“Then what are we doing here?” Murray demands.

Els Cooperrider, a programmer at the station and a local environmental activist, begins her defense of Yaz by suggesting a Volunteer Programmers Bill of Rights. Cooperrider complains that Longstreet had barged in on an off-site programmers’ meeting she’d just come from at Lauren’s Restaurant in downtown Boonville even though he’s management. “He did not like that volunteers were meeting to discuss a bill of rights,” she says, adding that the diminutive Longstreet had also been “confrontational.”

Longstreet, apparently aware that he was about to be offed, has become noticeably more frantic in his interpersonal relationships, but the noose isn’t quite secure around his neck.

“Was I confrontational?” he asks in the voice of a man denying one of the New Age’s major sins. “Was I demanding? I thought as a programmer I should be at the meeting,” Longstreet concludes his denial of what seems to have struck Cooperrider and the other programmers huddled at Lauren’s as the equivalent of an armed frontal assault.

Cooperrider, brushing Longstreet back into his tense lotus posture, continued with her defense of Yasmin, reading her combined defense and indictment. “She received no fair hearing prior to firing. There’s no formal system of complaints about programmers at KZYX Programmer meetings should be run by programmers, not staff or management. The programmer rep on the board should act as an advocate for programmers. There should be fair and equal treatment of all programmers, and programmers should be free to choose content within agreed-to boundaries. Sister Yasmin was not treated fairly. She was not consulted prior to her re-scheduling and then her firing. All she received was a termination notice in her box. There was no full grievance hearing. The board’s programmer’s rep, Colleen Bassett, stood in judgment of Yaz, not as her representative. Music Director Steve Rubin insulted me several times during Yaz’s grievance hearing. And no one present objected to Mr. Rubin’s behavior. Staff and management condone this kind of hostile and contentious environment.”

The board looked on like a small herd of mildly quizzical ruminants.

The meeting went on. Jim Jackson, a Mendocino lawyer and KZYX’s lead hatchet man, gestured at one speaker after another to get up and speak, as if he were genuinely interested in sorting out this Yaz thing.

Marco McClean tells the story of his run through KZYX’s gauntlet of little hatchets nine years ago. “I was the first programmer fired by management back in the late 80s. It had nothing to do with my on-air work. The grievance procedure then just as bad as now. Sean Donovan fired me on the phone, ‘Marco, I thought I’d call you and save you a long drive.’ I was refused entrance to the next programmers meeting, ‘You’ll make trouble, you’re not a programmer anymore.’ Donovan called the police to take me away. Beth Bosk told him he couldn’t do that. Nothing was resolved. There was supposed to be a grievance procedure in place after that. But then Mr. Longstreet opens this meeting by accusing Humble of disseminating bad information about the station and demands his resignation from the board? Listen to Els. A grievance procedure is no good if the person in power doesn’t like someone, no matter what kind of procedure you have. Nothing has changed, McClean summed up.

“I drove here from Covelo,” Ann Benson said. “I used to live on the Coast. People are confused and this is unnecessary. People are getting disgusted with the way things are going at the station. Get an arbitrator with no prior relationship to any of the parties, then publicize what happened. Otherwise KZYX will slip in the public’s view. There are very bad feelings about the station out there.” There are indeed.

Morgan Baynham introduced himself as “just a listener” and went on to say that “KZYX is better than KMUD and KHSU. The station is going along fine. The board should not be involved if a programmer is wronged. Why doesn’t Sister Yasmin think about what she did wrong? This sells newspapers for Bruce because he loves the controversy. Let’s not get caught up in that. Do your job. Raise the money.”

Sell papers for Bruce. Oh yes. KZYX’s radio personalities can make me millions! Pure charisma, these people! Green! Vogel! Muchowski! Tyssling! Moody! O’Brien!

Steve Derwinski, appearing with black mop-dreads dangling from beneath his South Seas hat in what some people might interpret as a rather dramatically un-PC imitation of a black rasta dude, advised the board to “give Yaz her job back. But,” Derwinski counseled the impassive trustees, “all programmers, including Yaz, should take mandatory vacations after two or two and a half years (ten radio quarters). Marco’s right, nothing’s changed in nine years. But the attitude which most programmers have, and which Yasmin exemplifies, is: ‘This is my show, my time slot, I’m the God of this slot.’ Most programmers have the same show year after year. Put mandatory vacations in the by-laws. You can come back after six months. You can always find good new programmers in this community.”

“The board,” began Tom Neece in what turned out to be a very amusing presentation heavy on the satire, “should distance themselves from divisiveness. They should bland everything down to please the station’s donors and management. And get rid of people who are uppity and female.”

Ross Murray rose to belt out a few more high-decibel, disjointed remarks. “I took a vacation. Bruce Longstreet and Theresa have done a helluva job at the station. They’re not the heavies. Yes, Yaz is a pain in the ass. We went head to head when I was on my Monday slot. I offered to mediate, but pulled out after the item in the paper making a fucking mountain out of what should have been a goddammed mole hill.”

“The board should eat some shit,” Rob Anderson suggested, snapping the board to attention. First Murray’s fucking molehills, now a big poop pie in the face. God, the insults Nice People endure.

“Put Yaz back in her regular time slot and carry on from where we were before this whole thing started,” Anderson continued. “Not all programmers are equal. Yaz is one of your stars. You need her. Put her back on in the slot she wants.” The board sat back. Eat shit to you too, buddy.

Carroll Pratt, a Republican retiree who brought America the laugh track and who has invested thousands of dollars in KZYX, achieving the deference only money can buy from people who worship it, tottered in to stick another knife in Sister Yasmin. “I have a problem with Els’ bill of rights. It sounds like a Green Party meeting thing,” Pratt declared, the Greens being one of many contemporary terrors Pratt wants to keep out of his Reaganite dream station, KZYX. “Yaz is a great talent but she would have been fired six years ago for the things she has done. Yaz took more staff time than any other programmer. She called me names.” You, Mr. Laugh Track? What impertinence! “Yaz has been a problem. I applaud Bruce Longstreet for having the guts to fire her.”

Bring up the visual of Yaz as VC sapper. Longstreet, bayonet clenched between his teeth, crawls through the perimeter wire to take her on, mano y bureaucrat-o.

In the most surprising presentation on the evening, Bruce Haldane, pretty good with the little hatchets himself behind the scenes where local libs like to do their blood work, made it clearer than clear that all was not well at KZYX. The prob is a lot bigger than Yaz and her reggae show. Haldane and his wife/lady friend/land partner/ Annie Esposito, or “Ma and Pa Kettle,” as some people refer to the couple’s Smithsonian-quality hippie-gnome look, came to KZYX from (surprise!) KPFA.

“The public,” Haldane said, “has been taken out of public radio with the new proposed committees including a ‘programming committee’ The Staff Access show was timed to minimize input on Yaz’s dismissal. There was no mention of Yaz’s departure in Radio Waves’ “Comings and Goings.” That’s wrong. There was a comment that we shouldn’t be airing our dirty linen in public. Well, we shouldn’t have dirty linen. If we do, it’s the responsibility of management to deal with it. But “not in public”? This is public radio. The membership has just as much right to know as anybody else. They keep us going by supporting underwriters, or paying taxes or by subscribing. This is their business. We’re a community institution. If something is bad it should be dealt with in the open too. I’m sorry.”

Haldane read from KZYX’s Programmer’s Handbook: “A programmer should receive reasonable warning before termination.” That didn’t happen. Termination happened after Yasmin’s grievance was filed. That looks bad. Also the handbook contradictorily says that programmers can be terminated at will by staff. But programmers have to give notice to staff. I have a problem with programmers being offed without notice, except in egregious conditions, drunk on the air, or something.”

Haldane was on a roll.

“Yaz was told her show wasn’t ‘eclectic” enough.’ Yet Mary Aigner is supposed to have an ‘eclectic’ show, but it’s not eclectic, it’s a Grateful Dead show. Some other things, yes, but not eclectic. Most of music shows are not ‘eclectic.’ Can you imagine Walter Green playing Beethoven, then Chuck Berry? That’s absurd. That’s the push toward sounding like KWNE. All different kinds of music to please everybody in an hour? That doesn’t make sense. Mendocino County Public Broadcasting’s policy is that we do not shrink from public controversy. Yet, we have heard that decisions were made because somebody didn’t want to see something in the AVA.”

Haldane has shrunk from public controversy so many times over the years that he’s a foot shorter than when he breezed in from Berkeley. If he shrinks any more he’ll be looking for work as a door stop.

A Ms. Martinelli, identifying herself as a resident of Point Arena and Bodega Bay, kicked off her remarks by emphasizing territoriality before she veered off into the solipsistic incoherence of the New Age. “KZYX is my station. Some things I wrote were blame and shame. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. But there were no bridges bombed, no babies killed. Yaz was fired for no real reason. Arbitration, mediation. Do it. This reminds me of a family that has fallen apart. I want to be proud of this alternative station. Alternative energy. You have lost the sense of what’s important. We’re a loose association of human beings. I didn’t read the AVA article. (A wonderfully candid and funny interview with Yaz that seems to have traumatized Yaz’s more sensitive supporters, Martinelli especially, who began her letter with, “I haven’t read it but blah blah blah.” But shut the fuck up, why not, until you have read it?) “I made an effort to write letters. It’s hard to handle things that are out in public. They become so huge, how do you get them back in the box? Please try to follow procedures in the future.”

Gotcha, kiddo. Om, and may all your paths be strewn with purple piss ants.

Mary Walsh recalled that she had “collaborated with Sister Yasmin on many programs. I’m a big fan of that kind of programming. Her program was summarily given over to someone else after nine years of service. No thank you. No nothing. Let’s talk about what we need to do to handle these kinds of situations. There is an issue here. It’s them vs. us, and none of us wants it like that. She’s had a show on a commercial station and hasn’t been fired. If we have to change five hours a week, let’s do it. It’s true that KZYX is in trouble. What about all those people who were booted out before? It’s terrible. We should negotiate this and work together. We want a common solution.”

It went on. And on.

The only trustee who spoke up for Yaz was Guy Rowe of Boonville. He said he thought it was “immoral and illegal” to have fired Yaz while her mediation was under way. It was that, and unfair and cruel too, but KZYX has never been known for its keen ethical sense.

Yaz herself was restrained. She spoke to the obvious violations of the station’s own procedures by the station’s furtive, frightened little managers in their panic to get rid of her.

As the smoke clears, it’s obvious that lots of people inside KZYX are unhappy. The issue isn’t Yaz, it’s bad management. What Longstreet has done or not done to contribute to the prevailing internal misery is not known, but he also seems to have become a victim of the twit-tumult. KZYX’s on-site critics complain constantly about Steve Rubin, another LA refugee hill muffin and the station’s music director, and they complain even more about Theresa Simon the Brit green card program director. Longstreet, the director-director, seems the least guilty.

But what’s it all about? Nothing really. Hours of music we’ve all heard many times before, NPR propaganda and a few local egomaniacs who get to talk on the air.

Trustee Guy Rowe said Monday that the board was looking for a new director, someone with “people skills.” Longstreet, who is said to have lamented to a friend that by taking the job long-distance from a radio sinecure he’d enjoyed back east he’d “stepped into a station run by pot heads and idiots,” will stay on the job until his contract runs out at the end of August. The board has made no statement on the Yaz affair and apparently doesn’t intend to make one. Yaz is twisting in the summer winds, contrite but determined as the radio house around her falls down.