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Posts published in “Essays”

“Use My Name and You’re Dead Meat”

A grim-faced Dominic Affinito, flanked by a pair of attorneys from the Ukiah law offices of Jared Carter, appeared in Fort Bragg’s Ten Mile Court Tuesday morning to answer charges that he’d assaulted Fort Bragg…

DA, Feds Fiddle While Fort Bragg Burns (Part 5)

In September of 1987 the Fort Bragg library was burned to the ground at the corner of Main and Laurel. The arson also destroyed the adjacent Ten Mile Justice Court. Just down the street, the…

Banker Dunham as Metaphor

Banker Norman Clow takes a bit of umbrage at Part I of “Fort Bragg Fires” where the AVA outlined Savings Bank Manager Bill Dunham's predatory acquisition of the Cliff House Restaurant. Dunham arranged a $400,000…

Lying

When I worked for the American Petroleum Institute (the AMA of Big Oil) I was asked to evaluate a “documentary” on the smog in Los Angeles, which opened with a shot of a diorama of…

Who Burned Fort Bragg & Why (Part 4)

Superior Janitorial's distinctive red van was a familiar sight in late night Fort Bragg. Peter Durigan, Superior's owner, went to work about midnight with his wife Irene, formerly Irene Specie. The two Durigans were assisted by a series of young people who helped the couple sweep, mop, scrub, and tidy up businesses as various as several restaurants and bars, both branches of the Savings Bank of Mendocino in Mendocino and Fort Bragg, and even the Pacific Bell Telephone facility in downtown Fort Bragg.

Millennium Fever

A transcript of the KZYX radio show "Two Girls on the World" which aired on February 3, 1999. Clarissa Shaeffer: We have been talking about the Y2K matter. Barbara Lamb: We certainly have. I’ve been…

The City of Fort Bragg is Bankrupt

Reading the City of Fort Bragg’s annual budget package each June for the past seven years has been like trying to divine meaning from goat entrails. Questions about the City's financial status have been asked…

Willy Loman As Arsonist (Part 3)

Vince Sisco began his working life in Stockton where he and other members of his family ran bars and restaurants, most famously in the old Stockton Hotel. He enjoyed a certain success in the business early on and, by 1970 when he arrived in Mendocino County, Sisco was in his early 40's. He soon earned a reputation for deals whose wheels came off.

Fort Bragg Burned In More Ways Than One (Part 2)

Affinito family roots run deep here in Pittsburg, not the east coast steel town, but Pittsburg, California, a sprawling Contra Costa County community where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers combine to become Suisun Bay,…

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