“There are only two emotions in Wall Street: fear and greed.” — William Le Fevre

In search of good chicken for our once-a-week intake of animal flesh, I saunter into our magnifico Mendocino Market across the street from Mendocino’s blessed post office, my basket laden with the latest edition of the admirable Anderson Valley Advertiser, and I find the lovely little market and deli in the midst of a calm before the inevitable lunchtime arrival of legions of tempestuous teenagers and loquacious locals and inscrutable turistas.

Jeff, the jocular and unflappable co-master of Mendocino’s finest sandwich shop, has a few moments to wait on me, and as he rings up my purchase of four superb legs and thighs, he shares the following story.

“So yesterday, this guy comes in and I know he’s somebody famous, an actor, I’m sure. I’ve seen him on television. Has to be him, but I can’t think of his name. And then he uses a credit card to pay and his name comes up: Timothy Geithner.”

“Wow,” I effuse. “ Former Secretary of the Treasury, master criminal, and most definitely an actor.”

“I know,” says Jeff, smiling. “Amazing.”

“What did he buy?” I ask, guessing Timothy purchased a few bottles of expensive organic wine.

“Couple of chicken salad sandwiches,” says Jeff, nodding. “On a road trip.”

“Wow,” I say, “Timothy Geithner. God of the one percent. Stood right here and handed you his credit card.”

“Yeah,” says Jeff, chuckling, “we’ve got this Recession Special I was going to tell him about, but I decided not to.”

“Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence — those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.”  — Aldous Huxley

Thinking about Timothy Geithner buying sandwiches in our very own Mendocino Market, I try to imagine being so powerful and important that the President of the Unites States would appoint me Secretary of Anything, but my imagination fails me. However, I do have a vivid fantasy of shopping at Corners and bumping into Timothy Geithner in front of the broccoli and saying to him, “How could you? Have you no conscience?”

And that fantasy and the questions I asked therein, remind me of Obama’s recent appointment of billionaire Penny Pritzker to be Secretary of Commerce, which reminds me of my encounter with Penny’s father, Donald, at a fundraiser in Atherton, California just a few months before he died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine while playing tennis at a Hyatt Hotel in Honolulu, the Hyatt Hotel chain being one of several corporations owned by the Pritzker family, Donald the CEO.

Believe it or not, I met Donald Pritzker at the very same gathering where I met Daniel Ellsberg. What sort of gathering was this? And what was I doing there? I’ll tell you. The year was 1972 (Penny would have been thirteen at the time) and Daniel Ellsberg had recently become very famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and thereby seriously messing with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and the ruthless rulers running the Vietnam War. I happened to be friends with a guy, a zealous anti-war activist, who had convinced his mother, a minor Pritzker, to host a private fundraising soiree for Daniel Ellsberg, who needed funds for his ongoing legal travails and anti-war activities. When I heard about the soiree, I begged my friend’s mother to let me attend so I could listen to the great hero, and she said, “I’ll need kitchen help.”

So I donned white shirt and bow tie and black slacks and showed up at the snazzy Atherton digs at the appointed hour, at which point it was decided I would ply the crowd with champagne and hors d’oeuvres before Ellsberg spoke and then manage the groaning tables of food and carve the roast beef after Ellsberg spoke. And while he spoke, I could listen from the kitchen with the swinging door propped open a few inches.

There were about twenty people in attendance on that sunny afternoon, the females outnumbering the males two to one, everyone in attendance fabulously wealthy. The women were dressed elegantly, the men wore suits and ties, and the accents of these loud-talking folk were predominantly Chicago from whence the Pritzker clan sprang, though many of them had relocated to California. I remember being struck by how handsome and strong all the women were, and how nondescript the men, and whether it was true or not, I concluded that this clan of Jewish siblings and cousins was a powerful matriarchy, the men mere sperm donors.

I also remember being keenly aware that I was serving people who were used to being served and that I was invisible to them because I was a servant. I had met a few super wealthy people in my life, and it was my impression that extremely wealthy people were void of humor, but I had never before been in the company of so many wealthy and resoundingly humorless people. Or so it seemed.

After the preliminary wining and dining, everyone took a seat in the large living room and Daniel Ellsberg rose to speak. I positioned myself at the kitchen door where I had a view of the daring whistleblower, and just as Ellsberg began, a short bullish man rose from his living room seat and came charging into the kitchen.

“Phone,” he barked at me. “I need a phone.”

This was Donald Pritzker, red-faced and pissed off, and this was 1972, long before the advent of cell phones. So I directed him to the phone on the kitchen wall from which he proceeded to make call after call, buying and selling, cursing and commanding, threatening and cajoling — running his empire — while in the other room Daniel Ellsberg spoke about the ongoing atrocities being committed by our rulers and our armed forces in Vietnam. What a disconcerting dichotomy!

Despite the proximity of Donald’s torrent of vitriol, I managed to focus on what Ellsberg was saying, and I realized he was speaking to his audience as if they had never heard of Vietnam and knew nothing about the war that had been going on for almost a decade, which may have been largely true. These were not people troubled by distant wars. Indeed, they were prime beneficiaries of a most successful imperialism and a booming economy.

Halfway through Ellsberg’s talk, Donald Pritzker snapped his fingers at me and said, “Coffee. I need coffee. With sugar.”

I prepared his coffee and set it on the counter next to him as he growled into the phone, “You tell that sonofabitch he’d better come through or…”

He was purple with rage, the veins in his neck swollen, his knuckles white as he clenched the phone in a death grip — not a happy person.

I returned to my post at the kitchen door just as Ellsberg finished his talk and asked, “Are there any questions?”

No one said a word. Not one of the handsome women and non-descript men raised a hand, and Ellsberg stood there for a short infinity, looking very sad and tired. Finally, the hostess, the mother of my friend who had arranged for me to be present at this strange soiree, leapt to her feet and cried, “Eat, eat, eat!” and the Prtizkers rose to begin their feasting.

“There is only one way to endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.” — Alan Paton

I think of Timothy Geithner and his wife driving south on Highway One, enjoying their excellent chicken salad sandwiches from the Mendocino Market and superb lattes from the GoodLife Cafe, just, you know, having fun being far from the madding crowd, enjoying the view of the shining pacific and the passing fields rife with mustard flowers and the cerulean sky dotted with puffy white clouds. For just a little while, a rare little while, Timothy and his wife forget all about the millions of less fortunate people who are, in essence, paying for Timothy’s fun. Yes, for just a little while, Timothy might be anybody.

Todd Walton’s web site is UnderTheTableBooks.com.

As Spring merges into summer, our gaze turns to our lawns, and we are tempted to envision green carpets and lawnmowers… and poisons. Craneflies, those delicate beauties we call “mosquito hawks,” because they look like giant mosquitoes, even though their only purpose and desire, not unlike other unnamed creatures, is to mate and lay eggs, have arrived. Craneflies neither bite us nor eat mosquitoes. So why do we reach for Raid® or the swatter, instead of marvel at the gossamer wings and the delicate body lightly dancing around? 

Aside from their fly-ness, the other reason people kill Craneflies is because their eggs hatch into voracious maggots whose thick skins have earned them the nickname leatherjacket. Leatherjackets eat the roots of grasses and other plants, and so are blamed, wrongly, for lawn scourges. However, extensive surveys demonstrate that even unhealthy lawns tolerate leatherjacket infestations of up to 10-25 maggots per square foot, a concentration rarely found in the Pacific Northwest.

The lawns get help 

Those bald-faced yellow jackets that build those magnificent paper nests in trees, under eaves, on cliffs and in shrubs (not the inground yellow jackets) seek out craneflies hiding in the grass, decapitate and dismember them, and transport their bodies back to their nests. Think of it as Yellow Jackets vs Leather Jackets. Birds like starlings, beetles, and beneficial roundworms like Steinerema, dine on the fat, juicy leatherjackets.

Insecticide ads scream flies! and attack them with prohibition-era cartoon G-insects (see refs), but never talk about the benefits to the soil from burrowing critters that feed not just on your grasses and plants, but on a variety of floral roots, aerating and fertilizing the soil.

In those Washington State EPA surveys of leatherjackets and lawns, analysts concluded that the real cost to consumers was the millions spent on insecticides, not only pointlessly with respect to their lawn problems, but also with respect to… chemical trespass!

Sadly, homeowners are tempted by advertisers to kill craneflies with various insecticides like Raid®. RAID® and similar products, contain pyrethrins, advertised as safe derivatives of Chrysanthemum flowers. However, pyrethrins are in fact neurotoxins that can also affect the endocrine and reproductive system of animals including humans, may cause cancer, and are highly toxic to fish, aquatic invertebrates and bees. Because they bind to soil they can migrate into our river, and if not exposed to sunlight or moisture, can persist from 60-150 days.

Healthy lawns and gardens rarely require any chemical pesticides or insecticides, which poison non-target organisms that normally nourish our pollinators, like bees, butterflies, ladybugs, and a host of other critters which feed on insect pests,and some of whose larvae feed on leatherjackets and other root-eating grubs.

For example, green lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea) larvae are generalist predators, and attack eggs and soft-bodied insects such as aphids, spider mites, whiteflies and thrips among others. Adults feed on nectar, pollen and honeydew. When provided with these, the lacewing adults will live longer and lay more eggs (Rincon-Vitova Insectaries 2005).

Regrettably, adult lacewings exposed to a familiar poison, imidacloprid®, a neo-nicitinoid (see Ortho Tree & Shrub Insect Control® below), were poisoned when ingesting plant nectar and pollen from dosed plants. Here’s why.

Neo-Nicotinoids

The neo-nicotinoids comprise another class of poisons that should never be used. These chemicals, derived from nicotine, disrupt the nervous system of all living things. They are systemic poisons, meaning they “…spread through a plant’s vascular system and remain active for extended periods of time, accumulate from year to year, especially in perennial plants.”

A review of the neo-nicotinoids by The Xerces Society cited extremely high non-agricultural imidacloprid levels in rhododendron blossoms six months and in cherry trees more than one year after dosing. Similar levels have been found in maples, apple and eucalyptus trees.

The American Bird Conservancy released the following warning: “The environmental persistence of the neo-nicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates (e.g., leatherbacks, earthworms) raise environmental concerns that go well beyond bees…”

These chemicals are so dangerous that the European Union has just banned them because of their effects on pollinators, over the threats of the chemical-ag industry, which claimed, without irony, that banning these pollinator-killers will reduce crop yields. (They meant profits).

“For homeowner use products, for backyard plants, the amount of neo-nicotinoids used is like 40 times greater than anything allowable in agricultural systems,” said entomologist James Frazier of Penn State University, prompting one expert to caution: “I don’t think anybody should be using these things in their backyards.”

Check the label and pass up anything with imidacloprid, acetamiprid, dinotedfuran, clothianidin, thiacloprid, or thiamethoxam in the ingredients. Flea poisons in Advantage® and Frontline® are also neo-nicotinoids (fleas have become resistant to these — they are better at beating the nicotine addiction than we are). Knowing all of this, it is irrational and dangerous to spray trees and shrubs with commonly marketed products like Ortho Tree & Shrub Insect Control®, which contains 2.5% imidacloprid, and “inert ingredients” which can also be toxic.

Store-bought insecticides like Orange Guard®, which are advertised as safe and natural, are mostly “inert ingredients” and expensive, so here is a truly safe and cheap home-made recipe that is effective against many garden pests, including aphids:

Mash a head of garlic with one teaspoon of cayenne pepper and dissolve in a quart of water with one tablespoon of Dr. Bonner’s liquid soap. Refrigerated, it lasts for three weeks and costs little. Safer® brand products are also generally safe and reliable.

Helpful references:

RAID® commercial.

http://www.pesticide.org/

http://www.entomology.umn.edu/cues/non-target/ladybeetle.html

http://www.xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/

William C. Woodward

Continued from last week’s AVA, the 1937 hearing at which the House Ways & Means Committee considered marijuana prohibition. 

* * *

NARRATOR: Act Three, “The Grilling of Doctor Woodward.” Tuesday, May 4.

DOUGHTON: The Committee will be in order. The meeting this morning is for the purpose of continuing hearings on House Resolution 6385. When we adjourned last week, Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Counsel of the American Medical Association, was here and ready to testify. Dr. Woodward, if you come forward and give your name and address and the capacity in which you appear, we shall be glad to hear you at this time.

WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my name is Dr. William C. Woodward, representing the American Medical Association. The address is 535 North Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois.

NARRATOR: William Woodward was both a medical doctor and the longtime general counsel for the AMA. Bear in mind that the AMA in 1937 was Republican-dominated and its members were generally opposed to Roosevelt and the New Deal.

DOUGHTON: Thank you, Dr. Woodward.

WOODWARD: It is with great regret that I find myself in opposition to any measure that is proposed by the government (Vinson and McCormack look at each other as if expecting trouble) and particularly in opposition to any measure that has been proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury for the purpose of suppressing traffic in narcotics.

I cooperated with Hamilton Wright in drafting the Harrison Narcotics Act. I have been more or less in touch with the narcotic situation since that time. During the past two years I have visited the Bureau of Narcotics probably 10 times or more. Unfortunately, I had no knowledge that such a bill as this was proposed until after it had been introduced.

Before proceeding further, I would like to call your attention to a matter in the record wherein the American Medical Association is apparently quoted as being in favor of legislation of this character. On page 6 of the hearings before this committee we find the following: “In an editorial on this subject appearing in its editorial columns of April 10, 1937, the Washington Herald quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association in part as follows: “the problem of greatest menace in the United States seem to be the rise in the use of Indian hemp (marijuana) with inadequate control laws.” I have here a copy of the editorial referred to, and clearly the quotation from that editorial and from the Journal of the American Medical Association do not correctly represent the views of the association. The Herald is not discussing marijuana alone, but is discussing the narcotic invasion of America.

That editorial was in the nature of a review of the report on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs in the United States of America for 1935, published by the Bureau of Narcotics of the Treasury Department.

NARRATOR: In other words, Anslinger had sent out a report implying that the AMA supported marijuana prohibition, and the Washington Herald quoted Anslinger’s report as if it were factual.

WOODWARD: The quotation has reference to the seeming situation that results from the statement of the Commissioner of Narcotics and not from any evidence that is in possession of the American Medical Association.

Gentlemen, there is nothing in the medicinal use of cannabis that has any relation to cannabis addiction. I use the word “cannabis” in preference to the word “marijuana,” because “cannabis” is the correct word for describing the plant and its products. The term “marijuana” is a mongrel word that has crept into this country over the Mexican border and has no general meaning, except as it relates to the use of cannabis preparations for smoking. It is not recognized in medicine, and hardly recognized even in the Treasury Department.

It was the use of the term “marijuana” rather then the use of the term “cannabis” or the use of the term “Indian Hemp” that was responsible, as you realized, probably, a day or two ago, for the failure of the dealers of Indian hempseed to connect up this bill with their business until rather late in the day. So, I shall use the word “cannabis, and I should certainly suggest that if any legislation is enacted, the term used be “cannabis,” and not the mongrel word “marijuana.”

I say the medicinal use of cannabis had nothing to do with cannabis — or marijuana — addiction. In all that you have heard here thus far, no mention has been made of any excessive use of the drug by any doctor, or its excessive distribution by any pharmacist. And yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of the country, and I say very heavily, most heavily, possibly of all, on the farmers of the country. The medicinal use of cannabis, as you have been told, has decreased enormously. It is very seldom used.

COOPER: How is that?

WOODWARD: The medicinal use has greatly decreased. That is partially because of the uncertainty of the effects of the drug. That uncertainty has heretofore been attributed to variations in the potency of the preparations as coming from particular plants. The variations in the potency of the drug as coming from particular plants undoubtedly depends on variations in the ingredients of which the resin of the plant is made up.

To say, however, as has been proposed here, that the use of the drug should be prevented by a prohibitive tax, loses sight of the fact that future investigation may show that there are substantial medical uses.

NARRATOR: Sure enough, future investigators have identified the active components in the resin and now cannabis plants with standardized contents and potency.

WOODWARD: That there are medical uses for cannabis is admitted in a report that has, I think, been quoted here before, by a hospital pharmacist in Tunis, Dr. Bouquet.

NARRATOR: The man Anslinger kept calling the world’s greatest expert.

WOODWARD: This pharmacist, Dr. Bouquet, asks (reading): “Do any preparations of Indian hemp exist possessing a therapeutic value such that nothing else can take their place for medical purposes?” His answer is no. He submits qualifications, however. Quote: “Indian hemp is employed in various preparations for internal use as a sedative and antispasmodic. It does not seem to give better results than belladonna, except in a few cases of dyspepsia accompanied by painful symptoms.” End quote.

NARRATOR: To a real doctor “a few cases” is not insignificant. And if dyspepsia means “nausea,” no drug would provide faster, more effective relief than cannabis.

WOODWARD: The number of the exceptions and the character of the cases in which cannabis gives these superior results are not stated. He adds, quote, “At my request, experiments were made for several months in 1912 with different preparations of Cannabis, without the addition of other synergetic substances. The conclusion reached was that in a few rare cases Indian hemp gives good results, but that in general it is not superior to other medicaments which can be used in therapeutics for treatment of the same afflictions.”

NARRATOR: A typo in the Congressional Record makes this read “for treatment of the same affections.”

WOODWARD: He still admits that there are exceptions in which cannabis cannot apparently be successfully substituted for. A third example. He cites the thesis of F. Pascal (Toulouse, 1934) which quote “seems to show that Indian hemp has remarkable properties in revealing the subconscious: hence it can be used for psychological, psychoanalytical, and psychotherapeutic research, though only to a very limited extent.” (looking up from the document he’d been quoting) These are the present uses recognized.

LEWIS: Are there any substitutes for that latter psychological use?

WOODWARD: I know of none. That use, by the way, was recognized by John Stuart Mill in his work on psychology, where he referred to the ability of Cannabis or Indian hemp to revive old memories — and psychoanalysis depends on revivivification of hidden memories.

That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for their statements. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marijuana addiction. We are told that the use of marijuana causes crime. Yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marijuana habit. An informal inquiry shows that the bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.

You have been told that school children are great users of marijuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit among children. Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it. Inquiry into the Office of Education — and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit — indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.

Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. That Bureau has control of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence. Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marijuana or cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.

But we must admit that there is a slight addiction, with possibly — and probably, I will admit — a tendency toward an increase. So that we have to raise the question at the present time as to the adequacy or inadequacy of our present machinery and our present laws to meet the situation.

You have been told that every state has a marijuana or cannabis law of some kind. My own inquiry indicated that there are two states that had not; but at least 46 states have laws of their own, and the District of Columbia, contrary to what has been told you, has a law that has been in force since 1906 that limits the sale of Cannabis, its derivatives and its preparations to pharmacists and persons who are authorized assistants to pharmacists. And there must be either a prescription from an authorized physician, or there must be due inquiry and a proper record made so as to assure the proper use of the drug. No one, whether a pharmacist or not, under this law, has any right to sell any preparation of cannabis indica to any person under 18 years of age except on the written order of an adult.

More interesting possibly is the Federal law relating to the matter. You have been told, I believe, that there is no federal law. The federal law is a very direct and a very positive law and I shall be glad to quote what seems to me the basic principle of it: “The Secretary of the Treasury shall cooperate with the several States in the suppression of the abuse of narcotics drugs in their respective jurisdictions.”

VINSON: To what statute are you referring?

WOODWARD: The statute of June 14, 1930, which created the present Bureau of Narcotics. If there is at the present time any weakness in our state laws relating to cannabis — or marijuana — a fair share of the blame, if not all of it, rests on the Secretary of the Treasury and his assistants who have had this duty imposed upon them for six and more years. That there has been no coordinated effort to bring into effect, in the several states, really effective laws on this subject, I think I can safely assert. And after all, that is the essential place, the states, for laws of this character.

NARRATOR: In other words, Anslinger and the federal Bureau of Narcotics were already authorized to help state officials implement anti-marijuana laws. Another thing the feds could do, Woodward suggested, was develop programs warning students about the dangers of drug abuse. Woodward then re-read the definition of “producer” in the bill under consideration, and ridiculed the impracticality of a nationwide crackdown.

WOODWARD: You can realize the difficulty that the federal government would have in covering the entire United States by an inspection force such as would be necessary to locate the growth of marijuana, even in considerable quantities. Marijuana grows wild along railroad tracks, along highways, on land belonging to the states, on immense farms and ranches, forest land and places of that sort — places to which, by the way, the federal government, I believe, has no inherent right of entry.

The federal government could never determine where this plant was growing. It could never undertake to prosecute, and if it did prosecute it would meet with the same difficulty that it met in prosecuting under the National Prohibition Act; the inadequacy of the courts and the inadequacy of prosecuting attorneys, and I may say, the inadequacy of jails.

NARRATOR: So prophetic it’s pathetic.

WOODWARD: The trouble is that we are looking on narcotic addiction solely as a vice. It is a vice, but like all vices, it is based on human nature. The use of narcotics represents an effort on the part of the individual to adjust himself to some difficult situation in his life. He will take one thing to stimulate him and another to quiet him. His will is weakened in proportion as he relies on drugs of that sort. And until we develop young men and young women who are able to suffer a little and exercise a certain amount of control, even though it may be inconvenient and unpleasant to do so, we are going to have a considerable amount of addiction to narcotics and addiction to other drugs.

Marfa, Texas, of all places. Three hours southwest out of El Paso, Texas, of all places.

Los Angeles, Paso Robles, Cholame, CA, Fairmount, IN, Manhattan, NY. Some of the James Dean sites I set my sights and my feet on.

Marfa, Texas, where they filmed Dean’s ‘Giant.’ Of all places, ‘Giant’ was filmed there. A must if James Dean is to be made more whole.

Welcome to Harney County. Photo courtesy Ken Lund.

“Fill ‘er with regular, please.” I said to the attendant as I handed over my plastic. “Fine weather, ain’t it?”

“Shore is,” he affirmed, glancing up at the cloudless cobalt sky and smiling. He swiped my credit card and handed it back in one motion. Looking to be right about my age (63), sandy-colored, sun-burnt, stocky and dressed like a cowboy, he proceeded to fill ‘er up as I went and grabbed a squeegee out of the nearest bucket.

“I’ll wash your windshield,” he offered.

“That’s alright. I could use some exercise.”

After peeking inside the car at Trisha, Abel and Jeff, the fellah looked at me and asked, “So where ya’ll headed?”

“Down to Malheur Lake. We’re out to maybe see some coots.”

He laughed. “Coots we’ve got. Ducks, geese, swans, cranes — you name it. Why just a couple of hours ago a big flock of pelicans flew over the highway here heading for downtown.”

With the Big Sandy Desert flatlands to the west, the Ochoco Mountains (Oh-Chee-Coz) and the sky-scraping Strawberries to the north, the rolling sagebrush Stinkwaters to the east and tall, glaciated, snowbound, 50-mile-long Steens Mountain to the south, Burns, Oregon, is an oasis in the Cold Desert. It’s a place of gathering winds and waters in a region where there’s plenty of the one and usually not a drop of the other. Although Burns is the seat of the great County of Harney (9th largest in the US, by golly), and a fuel stop on US Hwy. 395 (the western leg of the Pan American/Al-Can highway), Burns is just a cow town about as close as you can get to the middle of nowhere.

Ye Old Mendocino County

One hundred thirty-two years ago a Little Lake coroner’s jury reached a finding that my great grandfather’s horse had justifiably shot and killed Benjamin Frost on the trail between Mendocino and Willits. A judge sat at the inquest, but it was a jury who brought in the verdict. Those jurors may have suspected that my then 11-year-old great uncle actually did the shooting and reached their verdict to protect him. The bottom line amounted to: the Robertsons (my great grandfather and great uncle) were law-abiding, hard-working folk, the Frosts were more or less the opposite. If a Frost was shot dead in the presence of two Robertsons, the Little Lake jury possessed enough common sense to recognize which party was in the wrong. Having a rearing horse to pin things on made the jury’s decision all the easier. The jury’s verdict was an indirect statement to the lawless Frost clan: If one of your ilk gets shot down, so much the better, and to further the message we are going to say that he was shot by a horse and the equine’s actions were justifiable.

JESSICA CEJA is a student at Anderson Valley High School where the school’s Junior Prom was held last Saturday night.  Jessica, a gregarious girl popular with her classmates, had previously bought a single ticket to the dance for $15, but when she arrived at the door of the gym where the Prom was held, Andrew Settlemire, a teacher at the school told Jessica she couldn’t come in because she was not dressed “appropriately.” It is true that some kids were togged out in tuxes and formal dresses, but it is also true that some weren’t. Boonville is Boonville, not the Marin Town and Country Club. Jessica was dressed as she always dresses, in a baggy sweatshirt and trousers. Formal dress is expensive, and Jessica wears what she can afford. Barred by the resolute Settlemire, Jessica asked for her money back which, after some back and forth with Settlemire, was finally returned to Jessica by Superintendent JR Collins. It wasn’t the money so much as it was the humiliation. To be turned away at the door of a Junior Prom isn’t an easy rejection for a teenager, but that’s what happened to Jessica.

HAMBURG CLAIMS DAMAGES FROM THE COUNTY

Dan Hamburg’s Claim Against Mendocino County

[Attorney Barry Vogel's Letterhead]

May 28, 2013

To: Thomas Parker, Mendocino County Counsel

Re: Claim Against Mendocino County. Failure to issue a death certificate and burial permit for Carrie J. Hamburg, aka Carol Jean Hamberg who died on March 5, 2013.

Dear Mr. Parker,

I represent Daniel E. Hamburg, the widower of Carol Jean Hamburg, aka Carol Jean Hamburg who died on March 5, 2013, and the executor of her estate filed as Mendocino County Superior Court Case SC UK CVPB 13260080.

Based on the continuing refusal and failure of Mendocino County to issue a burial permit for and a death certificate certifying the fact that Carrie J. Hamburg, aka Carol Jean Hamburg, is deceased and buried, this claim is hereby made pursuant to government code Section 910. The fact that she is buried on private real property does not negate the fact that she is deceased. A death certificate and burial permit should therefore be issued. The present amount of this claim exceeds $10,000 for the legal fees incurred to date by the claimant. The amount of this claim will continue to accrue until resolution and may result in an unlimited civil action. All correspondence regarding this matter is to be sent to me at the above address.

Yours very truly, Barry Vogel, Esq.

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NINE YEARS AGO I sold my house in Boonville. It was home and office. These days the paper is produced in downtown Boonville at our luxurious office high atop the Farrer Building. Monday afternoon, David Spain, one half of the gracious couple who bought our place on Anderson Valley Way, where they are probably still performing exorcisms to expunge the bad vibes they inherited, called to say “a strange thing has happened.”

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SOON, JESSIE SPAIN appeared in our downtown office with a robust, two-foot marijuana plant and a handwritten note. The plant and the note had been left in the Spains’ driveway. It said:

“Hey, Bruce: Please accept this potent, blooming marijuana plant as a gift from a fan of the old school of combative journalism, but a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. It has the potential to inseminate every outdoor female marijuana plant within the radius of ten miles, at least, depending upon the prevailing winds. I encourage you to grow it in your garden. Properly nourished and cared for, cannabis can become a perennial. In West Virginia there are stands of it that are 14-18 feet high, some stalks being over twenty inches in diameter. If the local dopester/gangsta/hats-on-backwards crowd flatten your tires, or threaten to cut your beloved male marijuana plant down, whining that you are ‘ruining’ their crops by turning their sensemilla (sic) into seed-bushes, you can fight back and inform your readers that you are doing the locals a favor — seeded weed is better for you if you put it in a blender and eat it than if you smoke it! Besides, scads of these 215-ers are — let’s tell it like it is — lazy lotus eaters who should get real jobs. Hemp liberation will not be accomplished until the Eel and the Navarro and the Russian River banks are covered with hemp. GROW IT! Signed Anonymous.”

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RAILROADIES at Board of Supervisors Today; Board Opts for Richard Marks Over RR Favorite Dan Hauser

by Hank Sims (Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 this afternoon to appoint Humboldt Bay Harbor District Commissioner Richard Marks as one of its two representatives on the board the North Coast Railroad Authority. Supervisors Sundberg, Bass and Lovelace voted for Marks; Supervisors Bohn and Fennell voted for former State Assemblyman Dan Hauser, who wrote the legislation that created the beleaguered state-owned rail line back in the late 1980s.

It was a close vote, and a somewhat contentious one. The train believers showed out at the meeting to carry the banner for Hauser, who is a true believer in the train. Marks’ railroad faith was questionable, given that he serves on the Harbor District, which has not embraced the iron horse’s glorious return to the shores of Humboldt Bay with sufficient zeal. Hauser, they argued, had the Sacramento connections required to breathe life into the moribund and line-wrecked train, which hasn’t made a trip to Humboldt County in 15 years.

The liberal/lefty contingency, meanwhile, came to sing the praises of Marks, as did his fellow Harbor District Commissioners. They saluted his support of trail projects and his realism in relation to train issues.

Board Chair Ryan Sundberg cast the last and deciding vote on the issue. Saying that he had a hard time making up his mind — and, in fact, had not yet made up his mind — he equivocated for several moments as he had the floor, eventually deciding on Marks on the argument that the NCRA and the Harbor District needed closer ties.

Humboldt County’s other representative on the NCRA is Supervisor Estelle Fennell. She and Bohn, who joined her in supporting Hauser, expressed admiration and liking for Marks, and signaled that they would not be too disappointed if the vote went his way.

Arcata City Councilmember Alex Stillman was recently appointed to the board to represent city governments along the railroad’s right-of-way.

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RURAL AMERICA IS DYING OUT as a combination of young people leaving their home towns to work in the city and a fall in birth rates has forced the population to plummet, official data shows. While the rural population has risen and fallen along with the economy before, the rate it has fallen between 2010 to 2012 has accelerated, the US Census Bureau figures show. And, for the first time, the number of babies born in these communities has not been enough to balance the number of people moving away. John Cromartie, a geographer with the US Department of Agriculture’s Resource and Rural Economics Division, told the Financial Times the exodus of younger residents had left many rural areas with a population “aging in place.” As people in their 20s and 30s left to start families in urban areas, the birth rates of rural America has declined significantly. It is not clear if the decline is permanent, but much of rural America — which makes up 15% of the population across 72% of the country’s land area — faces significant population decline. It has been nearly 100 years since those living in rural America, defined as open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents, outnumbered those in urban areas. As young adults move away, and populations decline, there is less demand for businesses and teachers, which reduces available services and, in turn, deters families from moving back. Rural communities are not the only areas dying out. Researchers noted that “exurban areas” which had seen an increase for decades on the outskirts of cities, have also started to decline for the first time. Although the decline was small, it appears considerable after 2004 to 2006, when these areas grew by about 500,000. Urban areas and cities are seen as offering better opportunities to young families. Not all rural areas are suffering however. North Dakota, which is experiencing an oil boom, and other states with access to energy sources, have had a growth in population. The mid-west, and parts of the industrial northeast have had the biggest population decline, which could impact the economy as well as the politics of those states. With their appeal to urban voters it is a trend that is benefiting the Democrats. It is also easier to organize and encourage people to go out and vote in urban parts of the US. At the end of last year Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned America’s 51 million farmers, ranchers and rural residents that they were in danger of losing their voice in Washington. “Rural America, with a shrinking population, is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we better recognize that, and we had better begin to reverse it,” he said. More than 80% of lawmakers do not represent rural areas, according to USA Today. Mr. Vilsack added that despite a strong agricultural economy poverty rates remained 17% higher than in metropolitan areas. “You are competing against the world now and opportunities everywhere. Young people have all of these opportunities,” he warned the rural groups. Communities supplying renewable fuel sources, such as Storm Lake, Iowa, are seeing growth, however. The effect the population shift has on politics is increased further as the decline of white rural voters is relative to the growing minority, such as Hispanics. This shift has led to political issues such as immigration reform being pushed. Mr. Cromartie said further analysis was needed, but previous studies suggested rural America was aging faster than the rest of the nation. In 2009 data for the first half of the decade showed, for example, those aged 65 and over accounted for 15% of the rural population, but 12% of the population nationally. (Courtesy, the Daily Mail of London)

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JEFF COSTELLO WRITES: Hillary — seriously? My friends in Portland lived in Morocco for some time. While they were there, H. Clinton came for some kind of “diplomatic mission.” They brought in two jumbo jets, one for her and one for her vehicles. They did not trust Moroccan limos, apparently. While she was in the country, her security apparatus was so huge and overbearing that most of the country was shut down, paralyzed during the entire visit. Everyone was pissed off, even my otherwise PC friend who was trapped in a US consulate, not allowed to leave. Oh why oh why do they hate us?

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CAN’T WE JUST SHOOT THIS GUY?

Maciel

On June 4, 2013 at about 9:30am Deputies from the Mendocino County Sherriff’s Office were detailed to the Round Valley Preschool regarding a child abuse investigation. Deputies arrived along with workers from Child Protective Services and contacted a 5-year-old child. This child had distinct bruising on her face in the shape of a hand and fingers. When asked what had happened the child advised that her father, Gulmaro Maciel, 35, of Covelo, had become angry with her and had hit her in the face. Deputies contacted the child’s mother regarding the incident. Deputies learned from the mother that the child had been asked to get her father a soda the previous day. The father became angry after the child delivered the wrong type of soda and began slapping the child across the face several times. Deputies also learned Maciel had also physically assaulted the mother on the same day because of relationship disagreements. Deputies established probable case for an arrest and attempted to locate Maciel. Deputies located Maciel and arrested him for Child abuse, and Domestic Violence battery. Maciel was booked into the Mendocino County Jail on the listed charges and was to be held on $50,000 bail. (Sheriff’s Department Press Release)

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“LET’S GET AMAZING”

Seeking Subsidized Housing

Warm spiritual greetings, Please know that the Harrison House in Berkeley, CA staff have said that I need to move on from there, and get myself subsidized housing. The staff informed me yesterday that I have no further need of them, and that at 63 years of age, willing to pay 1/3 of my income ($359 monthly social security retirement), and having an exemplary spiritual life with lots of good karma, there ought to be no problem in my finding a suitable place to live and set it up for productive creative writing. I need a writer’s pad! I wish to leave Harrison House as soon as possible, and will be happy to immediately move into a short term arrangement, while continuing to seek out a suitable longer term rental. If you wish to be part of the continuing creative spiritual adventure, please leave a telephone message for me at (510) 525- 4469, and my caseworker there is Tonette Woodson who may be reached at (510) 725-8572. Obviously, it is all off for my returning to Washington DC at this time, due to a total lack of interest from my peers that I go there again for the seventh time, to participate in radical environmental and peace & justice activities. I decided not to get myself there, and then squat the sidewalk for the sake of advocating world peace. To those of you who wish to stay in association with me, let’s get amazing. — Craig Louis Stehr Email: craigstehr@hushmail.com Mailing address: c/o NOSCW, P.O. Box 11406, Berkeley, CA 94712-2406 Blog: http://craiglstehr.blogspot.com

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EDITOR,

Re: CalTrans, The Movie, by Bruce McEwen, AVA, June 5, 2013

1. Should Mr. McEwen have chosen to verify his assertions The Willits News published photos of the altercation between CHP and Mr. Katz we received from CHP or CalTrans, I would have been happy to provide him with the phone number of our photographer and publisher who took TWN photos that day and the independent videographer who took the videos. We published them on our site within hours to allow people to make up their own mind. I assure you neither CalTrans nor CHP were in anyway helpful to our coverage, having threatened a number of us with arrest throughout this occupation. As best I know, neither agency has chosen to publish any photos or video of the day — even though the CHP photographer was certainly on site and many state officials had video cameras.

2. Mr. Katz pleaded guilty. CHP chose not to make a particularly big deal of either Katz or his cohort choosing to throw the content of their buckets at them, but the vile aroma was certainly smelled by all who were on scene. While many in the protest movement have spread a version of the incident underplaying this activity, it happened none-the-less. This tossing of feces happened before the CHP officers entered the specific tree Mr. Katz was in.

3. Mr. McEwen may have been in court, but he was not at the scene of the mess. We were.

— Linda Williams, Editor, The Willits News

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BRADLEY MANNING IS GUILTY of “Aiding the Enemy” — If the Enemy Is Democracy

By Norman Solomon

Of all the charges against Bradley Manning, the most pernicious — and revealing — is “aiding the enemy.” A blogger at The New Yorker, Amy Davidson, raised a pair of big questions that now loom over the courtroom at Fort Meade and over the entire country: • “Would it aid the enemy, for example, to expose war crimes committed by American forces or lies told by the American government?” • “In that case, who is aiding the enemy — the whistleblower or the perpetrators themselves?” When the deceptive operation of the warfare state can’t stand the light of day, truth-tellers are a constant hazard. And culpability must stay turned on its head. That’s why accountability was upside-down when the U.S. Army prosecutor laid out the government’s case against Bradley Manning in an opening statement: “This is a case about a soldier who systematically harvested hundreds of thousands of classified documents and dumped them onto the Internet, into the hands of the enemy — material he knew, based on his training, would put the lives of fellow soldiers at risk.” If so, those fellow soldiers have all been notably lucky; the Pentagon has admitted that none died as a result of Manning’s leaks in 2010. But many of his fellow soldiers lost their limbs or their lives in U.S. warfare made possible by the kind of lies that the U.S. government is now prosecuting Bradley Manning for exposing. In the real world, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/10/manning-prosecution-press-freedom-woodward>, prosecution for leaks is extremely slanted. “Let’s apply the government’s theory in the Manning case to one of the most revered journalists in Washington: Bob Woodward, who has become one of America’s richest reporters, if not the richest, by obtaining and publishing classified information far more sensitive than anything WikiLeaks has ever published,” Greenwald wrote in January. He noted that “one of Woodward’s most enthusiastic readers was Osama bin Laden,” as a 2011 video<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iTgYGpDKSrS2SI3HUtXqU_DdZXxA?docId=CNG.a4a97915e7a9cc058de3c52ecc2a9610.451> from al-Qaeda made clear. And Greenwald added that “the same Bob Woodward book [*Obama’s Wars*] that Osama bin Laden obviously read and urged everyone else to read disclosed numerous vital national security secrets far more sensitive than anything Bradley Manning is accused of leaking. Doesn’t that necessarily mean that top-level government officials who served as Woodward’s sources, and the author himself, aided and abetted al-Qaida?” But the prosecution of Manning is about carefully limiting the information that reaches the governed. Officials who run U.S. foreign policy choose exactly what classified info to dole out to the public. They leak like self-serving sieves to mainline journalists such as Woodward, who has divulged plenty of “Top Secret” information — a category of classification higher than anything Bradley Manning is accused of leaking. While pick-and-choose secrecy is serving Washington’s top war-makers, the treatment of U.S. citizens is akin to the classic description of how to propagate mushrooms: keeping them in the dark and feeding them bullshit. In effect, for top managers of the warfare state, “the enemy” is democracy. Let’s pursue the inquiry put forward<http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/01/bradley-mannings-civil-war.html> by columnist Amy Davidson early this year. If it is aiding the enemy “to expose war crimes committed by American forces or lies told by the American government,” then in reality “who is aiding the enemy — the whistleblower or the perpetrators themselves?” Candid answers to such questions are not only inadmissible in the military courtroom where Bradley Manning is on trial. Candor is also excluded from the national venues where the warfare state preens itself as virtue’s paragon. Yet ongoing actions of the U.S. government have hugely boosted the propaganda impact and recruiting momentum of forces that Washington publicly describes as “the enemy.” Policies under the Bush and Obama administrations — in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and beyond, with hovering drones, missile strikes and night raids, at prisons such as Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo and secret rendition torture sites — have “aided the enemy” on a scale so enormous that it makes the alleged (and fictitious) aid to named enemies from Manning’s leaks infinitesimal in comparison. Blaming the humanist PFC messenger for “aiding the enemy” is an exercise in self-exculpation by an administration that cannot face up to its own vast war crimes. While prosecuting Bradley Manning, the prosecution may name al-Qaeda, indigenous Iraqi forces, the Taliban or whoever. But the unnamed “enemy” — the real adversary that the Pentagon and the Obama White House are so eager to quash — is the incessant striving for democracy that requires informed consent of the governed. The forces that top U.S. officials routinely denounce as “the enemy” will never threaten the power of the USA’s dominant corporate-military elites. But the unnamed “enemy” aided by Bradley Manning’s courageous actions — the people at the grassroots who can bring democracy to life beyond rhetoric — are a real potential threat to that power. Accusations of aid and comfort to the enemy were profuse after Martin Luther King Jr. moved forward to expose the Johnson administration’s deceptions and the U.S. military’s atrocities. Most profoundly, with his courageous stand against the war in Vietnam, King earned his Nobel Peace Prize during the years after he won it in 1964. Bradley Manning may never win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he surely deserves it. Close to 60,000 people have already signed a petition urging the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the prize to Manning. To become a signer, click here.<http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7612> Also, you can preview a kindred project on the “I Am Bradley Manning” site<http://iam.bradleymanning.org/>, where a just-released short video — the first stage of a longer film due out soon — features Daniel Ellsberg, Oliver Stone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Phil Donahue, Alice Walker, Peter Sarsgaard, Wallace Shawn, Russell Brand, Moby, Tom Morello, Michael Ratner, Molly Crabapple, Davey D, Tim DeChristopher, Josh Stieber, Lt. Dan Choi, Hakim Green, Matt Taibbi, Chris Hedges, Allan Nairn, Leslie Cagan, Ahdaf Soueif and Jeff Madrick. From many walks of life, our messages will become louder and clearer as Bradley Manning’s trial continues. He is guilty of “aiding the enemy” only if the enemy is democracy. (Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”)

“I respect Ms. Thompson, but this is basic stuff, right out of criminal law procedure 101,” attorney Jan Cole-Wilson said. “Any lawyer should know this.”

Ms. Cole-Wilson, as she argued for a new trial for Elliott, was referring to Public Defender Thompson’s failure to make a pre-trial motion to suppress Elliot’s criminal history.

It was only one of many mistakes Cole-Wilson said Thompson made in the jury trial that convicted Elliott of the Second Degree Murder of Sam Billy at the Hopland Rez last year.

Thompson had euphemized her screw-ups during the Elliott trial as “tactical decisions,” part of her overall “defense strategy.”

But Thompson’s failure to suppress Elliott’s legal history was, Cole-Wilson declared, only one of Thompson’s failures to provide Elliott with a competent defense. Worse, Cole-Wilson said, was Thompson’s failure to call a particular witness, Priscilla Knight, to contradict the damning testimony of Patrick Zaste.

Zaste had testified that Tim Elliott and his girlfriend Priscilla Knight had forced their way into his house the night of the killing where Elliott had gone into Zaste’s bathroom and changed into some of Zaste’s clothes, leaving his own clothes and a knife behind.

Zaste, it developed, was a good friend of the deceased.

This testimony seemed to mean that Elliott was dumping his clothes because they incriminated him, because of his “guilty conscience,” as the prosecution called the change even though there was no blood on the clothes tying Elliott to the killing, and the alleged murder weapon, a knife, was later convincingly shown not to be the knife that dispatched Sam Billy.

Priscilla Knight told Linda Thompson that the first she heard of this supposed visit to the Zaste house was when she heard it in court from Patrick Zaste on the stand.

But Thompson didn’t call Ms. Knight to testify.

Why?

Strategy, you see.

There were other problems with the story about the clothes, Ms. Cole-Wilson said.

“Mr. Zaste hadn’t gone to the police with the clothes for four months after the fact, and then — only after the police were contacted by Diane Billy. How would she have known he had that stuff? And then there was the way he [Zaste] was acting when he talked to the police. He was nervous, kept pulling at a rubber band on his wrist. When the officer asked about his nervous behavior, he said he was scared for his family. But nobody ever contacted him about this stuff, or threatened him or his family.”

(I should say here that I’ve twice been menaced by rez thugs from Hopland who have felt free to threaten me in the Courthouse halls without bothering to tell me what they’re unhappy about. I can understand the fear of people who have to live in the same neighborhood with these characters.)

Cole-Wilson pointed out that Mr. Zaste was a good friend of the victim, Sam Billy, and it made no sense that Elliott, Billy’s alleged killer, would go to Zaste’s house to drop off the clothes he’d worn and the knife he’d used to commit a murder.

“That is just totally incredible,” Cole-Wilson said.

What’s more incredible is Ms. Knight, who was with Elliott, wasn’t called to contradict the story, giving the jury no reason to doubt Zaste’s testimony.

“The fact that Patrick Zaste’s testimony,” Cole-Wilson continued, “went unchallenged, un-contradicted by Priscilla Knight who told Ms. Thompson ‘we never went there’ — Ms. Thompson didn’t even bring it up in her closing argument. Maybe she felt the case was going so well she didn’t need it. But that one omission added so much to the ‘guilty conscience’ argument made by prosecution that that alone is enough to grant the motion for a new trial.”

But there was more — lots more.

Another witness, Leanna Valesquez, was allowed to repeat some highly incriminating third-hand hearsay in front of the jury “which was completely inadmissible,” Cole-Wilson said, “and all Ms. Thompson would have had to do was ask for a sidebar to get it stopped.”

A sidebar is a brief meeting with judge where the jury can’t hear what’s being said about the legality of admitting evidence and testimony. But Thompson did not object to the incriminating testimony, vague as it was.

Ms. Valesquez had said that Derek Elliott told her that Sam Billy had told him it was Coke [the defendant] who had stabbed him. Derek Elliott didn’t say any of this when he testified — he hardly said anything.

“There should have been some clarification. Ms. Thompson should have asked to approach the bench. That is the prudent thing to do, and it is not that uncommon.”

So now we had Ms. Valesquez’s third hand hearsay blurted out in open court as if it were perfectly credible when it should have been perfectly inadmissible.

“Yes, Ms. Thompson did object,” Cole-Wilson admitted. “The objection was sustained, the statement stricken from the record and the jury admonished to disregard it. But you can’t un-ring the bell and that, your honor, was strong frigging stuff. Some things can’t come un-stuck, and this was one of them. And it all could have been avoided by Ms. Thompson. As I’ve said before, I respect Ms. Thompson. But when we make tactical mistakes we get to go home. Our clients do not.”

Ms. Cole-Wilson also went over the testimony of the witnesses: Isaiah Valesquez, a seven-year-old boy, who couldn’t remember much of what happened that night; David Primo, an ex-con from Oklahoma who testified only to avoid being extradited to face outstanding warrants back home; and Bettina Torres, a friend of the victim.

None of these witnesses, except the boy, claimed to have seen Coke Elliott attack Sam Billy, and many people were amazed that the jury had taken the word of such a young witness.

It was Ms. Cole-Wilson’s point that eyewitness testimony must be corroborated by forensic evidence, which wasn’t done in this case. She pointed out numerous cases where eyewitnesses had fingered somebody for a crime and DNA or other evidence had proved eyewitnesses wrong.

“A defendant is mandated to have a fair trial by competent counsel, so when you have this testimony by these witnesses and it is not corroborated by forensic evidence and then you put in the errors made by counsel, prejudicial mistakes, the only conclusion is that my client was not given the trial he was entitled to.”

Deputy DA Rayburn Killion quietly said that there was sufficient credible evidence to convict Elliot.

“It was what it was,” Killion said flatly. “It would be nice if this were like CSI on TV and the forensic evidence was more conclusive. But we had the testimony from Isaiah Valesquez [the child]. The court talked to him beforehand and found him competent to testify. He didn’t try to exaggerate, he stayed with what he saw. He said he saw Coke punch Sam Billy and then run off. I’ll admit that David Primo is an unsavory character, but all we told him is that we wouldn’t send him back to Oklahoma; he’s still facing those warrants there. The implication from defense is that all these people had lied. But there’s no reason David Primo had to lie. Sure, Sam Billy was his cousin, but why would he pick this defendant? Bettina Torres testified that she came out later when Sam Billy was already on the ground. Patrick Zaste said his testimony was extremely reluctant. He didn’t come forward, but was contacted by the police. The other point is that, why would he make up such a story about Coke Elliott coming in and taking his clothes? I’m not going to make a lot of hash about the knife. It wasn’t really the People’s contention that that was the murder weapon anyway. Like I said, there was no reason for Patrick Zaste to make up that story. It’s too far-fetched to even make something like that up. As far as the part about Linda Thompson’s representation, she was pretty clear on the stand: It was a tactical and strategic decision not to call Priscilla Knight. As far as the mention by Deputy Goss that the defendant was on parole – it was just a quick mention that that was how they got his address. It was never a ‘propensity argument’ as defense suggests; we were never arguing that because he’d been to prison he had the propensity to commit the crime. There’s the argument that prejudicial evidence shouldn’t come into a trial, but the only question is if that outweighs its probative value. You have to look at what was made of it; it came out real quick, and it wasn’t emphasized.”

Deputy DA Killion looked at his notes. Even though he had said he wouldn’t “make any hash” over the knife, he proceeded to do so. The knife found with Elliott’s clothes was only one and a half inches, whereas the wounds in the victim were five and a half to six inches deep.

Killion said, “The defense expert at the trial, Dr. Haddix, was convinced that it would be impossible for that knife to make the fatal wounds. She was pretty much stuck on her own opinion, which is kind of silly. Given enough force anything can go that deep.”

Killion pointed out that his own expert, Dr. Trent, had a different opinion, that the knife could indeed have been the murder weapon.

“Leanna Valesquez’s testimony,” Killion said, “about what Sam Billy may have said to Derek Elliott while he was on the ground was a surprise to me as well. There’s times in a trial when we’re all surprised. But it was stricken, and the court admonished the jury that they were to disregard the statement. As far Derek Elliott’s testimony, he hardly said anything on the stand.”

Killion summed up by asserting, “Taken as a whole, I think the evidence is sufficient to find that Timothy Elliott did kill Sam Billy.”

Ms. Cole-Wilson wasn’t finished. She pointed out that the only bit of forensic evidence that was found, a spot of blood on Elliot’s shirt, excluded her client as the perpetrator. Moreover, she said, “When Isaiah said he saw the two men, the person he said was Coke would have had his back to him — to Isaiah. Isaiah didn’t know my client very well at the time, and when this person ran, Isaiah would have only seen him in profile, in a matter of seconds.”

The boy had been looking out his second story window when the late night stabbing occurred.

Cole-Wilson addressed the other points Killion had raised. “I did not claim the witnesses were all liars. I was talking about what was credible and what should have been presented. That’s why Priscilla Knight’s testimony would have been so crucial, along with the lack of forensic evidence. I said that Leanna Valesquez’s testimony was inadmissible, and Deputy Goss’s statement about my client being on parole should have been inadmissible, and it highly affects the outcome, especially in light of the fact that David Primo had said my client had just got out of prison. Everyone wants to minimize what Goss said, but taken together, these two statements solidify in the jury’s mind that my client had the propensity to commit this crime.

“The trial court,” she concluded, “is not to sustain the jury’s decision, but to independently review the trial and see whether mistakes were made.” She quoted some case law on tactical and strategic decisions before asserting, “No reasonable person would have made a tactical or strategic decision not to call Priscilla Knight. And I would ask the court to find that my client is entitled to a new trial.”

Judge Richard Henderson considered the presentation and said, “I’ll go back and review the entire trial and I’ll submit a written decision. And I’ll try to get it out as quickly as I can.”

A lawyer loitering nearby noted that no Superior Court in California has ever granted a new trial.

THE HAMBURG BURIAL SAGA CONTINUES. If you came in late, the Hamburg family buried the late Carrie Hamburg on the family’s 46 acre home site southwest of Ukiah. Mendocino County’s Department of Health did not, and could not under California law, issue a burial certificate because home burials are prohibited under California law. Supervisor Hamburg’s attorney, Barry Vogel of Ukiah, filed suit in Superior Court Monday, citing, among other things, the state’s health and safety code, which says: “If the certificate of death is properly executed and complete, the local registrar of births and deaths shall issue a permit for disposition, that in all cases, shall specify any one of the following: (1) The name of the cemetery where the remains shall be interred; (2) Burial at sea (3) The address or description of the place where remains shall be buried or scattered (4) The address of the location where the cremated remains will be kept.”

TOTAL REPEAL

Editor,

Re: Jeff Costello’s April 18 piece, “The Crackpot Files” —

Ahh, another appreciator of Thomas Szasz! Yes, he talked to a friend of mine who asked “what should we do about drugs and drug laws?” The word he used in response was “repeal,” which I’ll reiterate:

Total repeal of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 — the DEA should be about quality control only — let the state license drug users (like a driver’s license — take a test on basic pharmacology and get an ID you’d use in pharmacies). Then if you want heroin, go to the pharmacy and buy it, period. The billions saved on “interdiction” (translation: revolving door incarceration for poor people and other social deviants who find solace in intoxicants) would be rerouted to real clinics where real help would be available for those who want it. Those who don’t want help aren’t aided by incarceration or “drug programs.”

All statistical studies show that people stop using when 1) they decide their lives would improve by using less meds, 2) They have something positive happening in their lives — an interesting career, education, support from friends and family, etc., etc.

And of course the state would add a tax to the drug sales — we’re talking real money here, folks. It costs pennies to manufacture various narcotics for instance — add a small state and federal tax to each sale (narcotics are already federally taxed, by the way) and the user would still pay far less than he/she would for any street garbage. The state would be happy, the users’d be happy.

Who wouldn’t be happy?

Oooops, forgot about the drug mafia paying those billions to crooked politicians, and all the drug squads that no longer would pocket millions in money and drugs (“Oh darn! The evidence locker got left open again — now where the heck did all that dope and money go? Oh well…”)

It’s a plague all right — a plague of corruption, irrevocable loss of civil liberties, the branding of whole populations as “felons” with the concomitant loss of voting rights, jury duty rights, etc.

Anyone dare to disagree with this precis? If so, I suggest you read the news, because the handwriting is on the wall, and it’s pornographic as hell.

Steven Gill

Garberville

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WE’RE THERE IN SPIRIT, OLD SPORT

Editor,

We know that the AVA has the best damn writing and best damn writers around, so I hope that some of those fine and vigorous words will be heard next Sunday June 9th, at the Mendocino Spring Poetry Celebration, at the Hill House in Mendocino.

There’ll be two sessions for the annual marathon. Sign in at noon for the reading at 1pm; sign in at 6 for the reading at 7. Prepare four minutes of poetry or prose. Bring some AVAs for the display table.

See you there, dressed in a literate manner.

Gordy Black

Mendocino

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WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

Mr. Anderson,

Everything is depressing as civilization crumbles on all fronts and all levels, and as human life teeters on the proverbial brink. I can deal with my own mortality, but would have liked to leave something for future generations just as past generations had left something for me.

Recently I read a fascinating and challenging book, If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens — WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb. After examining the arguments of why intelligent life and advanced civilizations may exist despite our not yet having detected it, and counter-arguments as to why it may not, Webb concludes that Earth may be the only place in the entire universe with an advanced technological civilization and gives good reasons for his conclusion. If he’s right, and if the prognosticators of impending doom are right — as I believe they are, the only forces of light, the only part of the universe that has risen out of the muck to examine itself and its place in the universe is about to disappear.

Wallace Stevens wrote a poem called “Domination of Black” in which he contemplates triumph of darkness over light:

At night, by the fire,

The colors of the bushes

And of the fallen leaves,

Repeating themselves,

Turned in the room,

Like the leaves themselves

Turning in the wind.

Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks

Came striding.

And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

The colors of their tails

Were like the leaves themselves

Turning in the wind,

In the twilight wind.

They swept over the room,

Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks

Down to the ground.

I heard them cry — the peacocks.

Was it a cry against the twilight

Or against the leaves themselves

Turning in the wind,

Turning as the flames

Turned in the fire,

Turning as the tails of the peacocks

Turned in the loud fire,

Loud as the hemlocks

Full of the cry of the peacocks?

Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?

Out of the window,

I saw how the planets gathered

Like the leaves themselves

Turning in the wind.

I saw how the night came,

Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks

I felt afraid.

And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

* * *

I too feel afraid. And sad.

Louis S. Bedrock

Roselle, New Jersey

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THERE WAS NO THREAT

Editor,

Last August the Mendocino Co. Sheriff’s office issued this Press Release:

”On 8-30-2012 Mendocino County Sheriffs Deputies were dispatched to the area of the “North Pass Fire complex” in Covelo regarding a firefighter that had been threatened with a firearm.

Upon arrival deputies contacted a CALFIRE Firefighter that reported he was on a vacant lot of land, in the “Blands Cove” area, involved in fire suppression duties and documenting fire damage, when he came across a small marijuana garden. The firefighter, who was driving a marked CALFIRE vehicle and wearing firefighter protection gear, ignored the marijuana garden and proceeded with fire suppression efforts. (It should be noted that this area was clearly marked and identified as a mandatory evacuation area due to the aggressive fire behavior and ongoing fire suppression efforts.)

As the firefighter was continuing with fire suppression efforts, he noticed a vehicle drive up to his location. The vehicle approached him and pulled up next to him. The male subject inside the vehicle told the Firefighter that he needed to leave the area. When the firefighter attempted to explain to the subject that he was engaged in fire suppression activity, the male subject told him that he needed to leave immediately, the subject then looked down at an object that was between his legs on the floorboard of the vehicle. As the firefighter looked into the vehicle, he could see that a shotgun was between the subject’s legs, and that the barrel was pointed directly at him. In fear for his life, the firefighter left the area immediately.

Following a search of the area, deputies located a residence (located within the mandatory evacuation area) and the possible suspect vehicle. Deputies contacted a male subject at the residence who admitted to confronting the CALFIRE Firefighter. In addition, the male subject, later identified as VEDA Bennett-Swank, admitted that he was growing marijuana and that he was aware that he was remaining in an mandatory fire evacuation area.

Veda Bennett-Swank was arrested for brandishing a firearm in a rude, angry or threatening manner, interfering with emergency personnel or a firefighter at a fire and criminal threats. He is being held at the Mendocino County jail on $20,000 bail.”

* * *

Veda Bennett-Swank is my son. I would like to comment on the situation regarding his arrest for supposedly threatening a fire person or brandishing a weapon at him. The DA actually wants to take this to trial.

To understand the situation it’s important to note that the Swank family property is located about 15 miles from Covelo, where the average homestead is about 200 acres and there are maybe 5 homes in 2 miles. It’s remote, far from services, and you are going to have to take care of yourself, rather than rely on police to protect you, who would probably take 45 minutes to arrive at best. The Swanks have owned their property over 20 years, and are improving it as a family homestead and eventually want to build a home and live full time there.

The area is home to bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, coyotes, and “Cinnamon Bears” (relocated Grizzly bears) are known to be in the area. Most residents own and carry guns when they are out on the land to protect themselves.

Residents in the Northern California wilderness areas also have to constantly be on alert for threats from humans. Numerous incidents of gangs trying to set up huge illegal pot operations on someone’s land, steal their belongings, criminals trying to rob them if they are pot farmers during harvest time, and scary folks who come deep into the wilderness to put up a “quick meth lab” which can destroy the land permanently or case fires, are common problems.

During the fire, there were numerous criminals working off their sentences fighting the fires with the firefighters who were within a few miles of the Swank property. The Swank family experienced multiple thefts of thousands of dollars of tools and personal belongings at their property around this time and were concerned about looters or criminals returning to the area after the fire.

This event took place many days after the fires were out, in an area a long ways from the affected fire area, on private property. A white truck, with no placards, signs or other identifying information, was on the property near the small, legally operated marijuana garden on the Swank family land. A man in unremarkable clothing with no badge or other identifying clothing, was standing inside the small, fenced, legal pot garden, snapping pictures of the plants with a camera.

The report says the individual was engaged in “fire suppression efforts.” In reality, his behavior consisted of being inside the small pot garden in question. His “fire suppression equipment” consisted of a photographic camera.

Veda told the person that he was trespassing and should leave immediately. The man got in the white truck, waved goodbye, and left. I don’t know whether Veda was “rude” to the man about him being deep into his garden with a camera or not, but I might have been less than polite if a person claimed to have a right to be doing this on my land, and used his government authority to assert his right to do so.

As to how this gets twisted into a story about a firearm, as the man drove away, he noticed that Veda had a firearm in his truck with him.

Veda is a truthful person, and told the police he had a firearm in his vehicle. This is very common in this area as a precaution against meeting large animals or criminals who may be on your land.

I worry myself for anyone who legally is growing during the time close to harvest due to the risk of being robbed and potentially harmed. I myself own land inside Forrest boundaries and while I do not choose t to grow marijuana, I am always concerned about my safety when there are individuals who are on my property without a right to be there.

As I said before, many people show up in the late summer to rob pot farmers in the wilderness areas of California, or hunt on private land, or worse, are looking to find a secluded spot to set up a quick meth lab or do other criminal behavior. These types of individuals are likely to be carrying weapons should you come upon them.

I don’t think it’s rude or threatening to tell someone who is pointing a camera at a pot plant inside a fenced garden that they need to leave and don’t belong there.

I’ve known Veda all of his 21 years, and I know that he would never intentionally harm anyone who was not at that moment threatening his own life or that of a loved one. He is a very gentle and peaceful young man. I don’t agree that babysitting pot gardens is the best use of his time, but he is committed to living on the Swank family land, and I admire and respect him living his dream to live in this rural way.

Having a weapon in your vehicle in case the other person is a criminal is prudent in the very wild hills outside of Covelo.

The firefighter clearly admits that what happened is that he was told he was trespassing and that he saw a weapon in the car down at the floorboards of the car. I truly believe that this is a horrible abuse of government power to try to claim you were harassed or threatened. To be walking around in someone’s legal pot garden, however small and modest, in the Mendocino Hills, snapping pictures, is an abuse of your position as a Civil Servant.

Veda and the other members of the Swank family suffered significant losses due to thefts during the fires, as well as the tremendous sums defending himself against these unfair charges. I truly believe that Mendocino County residents’ tax dollars are much better spent prosecuting illegal growers, gang drug activities and violent crimes.

That being said, I want to thank all of the brave individuals who fought the fires this year.

Lisa Wrench

Covelo

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AN ELDERHOME SUCCESS

Dear Editor,

The fundraising dinner for the ElderHome last Sunday was a roaring success with the largest attendance ever and the most monies raised! We have a lot of folks to thank for making the evening such fun. The Lions cooked a delicious BBQ. Hard to tell which was the best, tri-tip or chicken. Many Individuals made delicious desserts to share.

DJ Pete kept us all in an upbeat mood with his music. The dinner and camaraderie were helped by the libations poured thanks to AV Brewery, Bink, Maple Creek, Philo Ridge, and Signal Ridge. A big thank you to all of the Volunteers, before and during the event.

We also need to thank the Donators, numerous individuals and businesses, who so generously provided the many items for our live and silent auctions. Our newest board member, Brian Snelling, did a fabulous job as an auctioneer. He topped the evening off with Sandy Mailliard’s help. The Band-Aid over her injured nose, decorated by Jerry Reis, was auctioned off for $100. Yes, a used band-aid, this has raised the bar for auctions in this Valley.

Most of all thank you, Community Members and Visitors for coming and making the event such a success.

Gratefully,

The ElderHome Board

Maureen Bowman, President

Boonville

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WHO APPROVES THIS?

To the Editor:

The third Saturday in May means more than just the running of the preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown around here. It means the Sheetiron 300 motorcycle rally, from Stonyford to Fort Bragg will take place — mostly in Mendocino National Forest and on Mendocino County’s rural roads. 500 supposedly road legal dirt bikes from the Oakland Motorcycle Club participate.

How do I know this? Most of them go by my house, many at excessive speeds. Then they race over the tiny, winding mountain road toward Willits. It’s there that my family, with three or four horses in the trailer, has almost been hit head-on, two years running by groups of motorcycle riders screaming down the middle of what is pretty much a one-lane road. After a few years of this, a pattern emerged; I decided to find out what was going on and happened upon their identity. I spoke with representatives from CHP about this issue and was informed that “we” don’t want to discourage events like this because of the revenue they bring the County. When I asked for some CHP presence on our road I was told that would probably be impossible. (Funny how many CHP officers guard the bypass, while none protect our road while hundreds of dirt bikes blaze over it. Must be the revenue thing again.)

This year I encountered these bikers in Willits — many parked at local bars, Potter Valley and most disturbingly on Orr Springs Road. It’s 32 miles from Ukiah to Comptche on that road and much of it is one lane with multiple switchbacks and blind corners. Two miles east of Comptche a biker lost control of his bike on a hard blind turn, laid it down and smashed it into the driver’s side of my truck. Several other riders were right behind him but couldn’t see the accident. Thankfully they missed us both and no one was seriously hurt. I’m not looking forward to trying to get his insurance company to pay for the damage to my truck — especially since the insurance information he carried was expired. Sure do hope he doesn’t come after me. At least he didn’t come through my windshield. Fun times.

This County can’t provide adequate police/emergency presence for an event like this. We waited about an hour for CHP to arrive at the accident in Comptche. While we waited the motorcycle riders tried hard to talk me out of a police report. These folks are from out of the area, unfamiliar with the treacherous roads they are on and unaccustomed to coming across vehicles like livestock trailers and tractors. Many of the bikes going by our house are racing, passing each other and taking up the whole road. They are having a great time and appear oblivious to the risks they are taking, putting everyone on the road in danger, and breaking many laws — oh, now there’s some revenue.

Money generated from these folks being here for 24-36 hours shouldn’t outweigh public safety on the miles of rural, hard to access roads they travel over — to say nothing of the damage they cause riding through creeks, forests and on fragile dirt roads.

Sheri Cronin

Willits

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THE MENDO NINE

Dear AVA,

My name is Scott Faber and I was wondering if it would be possible for me to get a subscription to the wonderful Anderson Valley News. I am currently residing at the world-famous San Quentin State prison awaiting to see my counselor to get bused out of here to do the remainder of my time at another prison. As you might know, but if you don’t, this is a reception prison where prisoners are classified and shipped out to numerous different places. Unfortunately there are nine of us from Mendocino County waiting for the bus with pretty much “no” communication with the outside world. It is very boring, bland and “distraughting” not knowing anything that is going on in our county and the current news. I have written to you guys before, apologizing to the community. You published my letter. You also sent me a month’s worth of newspapers while I was in Mendocino County Jail. Please sign me up for the newspaper again for me and for the fellows who are sitting in this Dracula’s Cave! I didn’t finish my program due to family issues so the judge gave me my suspended sentence. If you are willing to send me the newspaper that would be so, so, so highly appreciated from me and the rest of the fellows here because we could keep up with Mendocino County news and current situations in our county. You wouldn’t imagine how much that would brighten up the life here. We are locked down about 23.75 hours of every day in a five-foot wide, eleven-foot-long “bat hole” with literally very few things to do. I know I must do the time for the crime I have committed and I am. I would be greatly honored to read your newspaper again to know a little bit more about what is going on in my hometown. If you do decide to send me the Anderson Valley newspaper I will share it with the rest of the eight gentlemen who are in the cells next to me end we will cherish it. If there is some amount of money you would like for the subsciption just let me know and I will have it sent to you ASAP. I know it’s $1 for the paper each week. I can afford that, no problem. Please send me the news as soon as your earliest convenience. Thank you very much. I will be waiting patiently for the reply. Thank you and have a beautiful day. Thank you so much. Thanks!

Sincerely yours,

Scott Faber

San Quentin

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NO HARM DONE

Editor,

I didn’t really want that last letter printed. It was for you, just saying thank you for supporting my letters.

Update: My public defender has done really well since then and I would like to give credit where it is due. At the time of my last letter I was frustrated. Today my frustrations are gone and I would like to say thank you to the public defender for a job well done. I know it’s not over yet, but I still have a sentencing date in six weeks. I’m really not happy about the last letter being printed, but I guess you guys print everything. My public defender is really doing a good job and I would really like to say thank you. I meant no harm by the letters that were printed; I was just trying to get help. In turn, I did get the help I needed. So all in all no harm was done. I just spoke about things that were true at the time. Overall, I learned a lot from writing those letters to such a newspaper because I didn’t really know what kind of effect it would have on people. I am sorry if I offended anyone because that was not my intention. I learned that I should be careful about what I say and I will be especially careful about what I write to the AVA.

Thank you public defender, job well done.

Willie Jackson

Ukiah

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HAMBURG & THE PEA

Editor,

Hamburg’s complaint about the broadband item shows that he suffers from acute Princess and the Pea sensibilities and an equally acute lack of basic reading comprehension skills.

His dismissal of Mark Scaramella’s denial that he posts on the list serve under an assumed name strongly implies that Scaramella is a liar and an internet troll unwilling to stand behind his opinions. Scanning a single issue of the AVA should convince anyone that he has plenty of opinions including critical and unpopular ones and that he doesn’t hesitate to stand behind them. Hamburg and his followers react with outrage if anyone mentions his well-documented personal foibles but he is willing to toss out accusations against Scaramella with no facts to back it up. I’ll bet “Paul Baum” is a hammer critic, just as you and Scaramella have been on occasion. Labeling Scaramella as an internet troll is an attempt to discredit both antagonists in classic “shoot the messenger” style.

When he was caught cheating on his unemployment, Dan blamed his political enemies and had his contractor friend lie to cover up for him. When his marijuana growing partner sued for his share of the profits, Dan blamed his political enemies, trashed his partner and then quietly paid off to avoid going to court. When he was caught cheating on his political disclosure forms Dan blamed his political enemies, dismissed it as technicalities, but paid a substantial fine to settle the case. The disclosure forms are required so the public can track where a candidate gets their money and where they spend it. The public has a right to know if special interests are contributing or if the campaign is being run by a political consultant. Hamburg concealed over $5000 in cash and almost $20,000 in expenditures. As George Hollister pointed out, having a cash donation jar at a fundraising event is a great way to launder campaign contributions. And Hamburg failed to disclose how he spends large chunks of campaign money by making the payments directly and reimbursing himself instead of making the payments from his campaign account. Were the payments for legit campaign expenses? We will never know.

When Dan’s judgment was questioned for being a follower of cult leader Adi Da, he attacked his political enemies and said they were going after him for his wife’s religion. Carrie may have been more into it than he was, but Dan posted an online autobiography where he praised the divinity of Adi Da. As for Adi Da, when he died, the faithful prayed for his resurrection. After about three days with nature taking its course they finally realized they needed to get the Promised God Man in the ground without further delay.

As for the burial flap, I think you ought to be able to bury mom and pops at home, if that’s what you want, but the law in California says there is a process to go through if you want to do that. The Hamburgs had the time and money to follow the process or try to change it but they made a deliberate decision to ignore the law and provoke a confrontation with the county. When I heard Dan hired Barry Vogel I wondered, Is he going to sue the county? Or force the county to sue him? Now we know that he planned to sue the county all along. Hamburg and his camp followers can’t see the problem is caused by him breaking the law. They go after you for reporting it and the sheriff for investigating.

It comes as no surprise that Hamburg is a classic narcissist and entitlement prince.

I bet his colleagues and the CEO are really happy that Hamburg has put them in this position with his premeditated lawsuit. If they roll over they will be charged with granting of special favors and if they don’t they will be labeled as ghouls for interfering with his wife’s burial.

You may print this or not but I am keeping my name out of it to avoid targeting by the loons on the listserve. And if that sounds paranoid just remember the campaign of character assassination against Wendy Roberts.

Name Withheld

Boonville

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POOR DAN, POOR GREG

Editor,

The current run at Dan Hamburg, Re burying his wife on his land, in my opinion is mean spirited politicking. The man lost his soul partner after a long struggle with cancer. This sort of “anything goes” approach to politics is the reason I left the Green party. Somehow decency disappears and the recognition that human emotional pain exists vaporizes. It is clear to me that those willing to undermine folks in this way are clueless and uncaring people. It isn’t astute political work, it is just shameful. The recent AVA article, stirring his path, is bad timing and bad taste. Some basic respect when people are mourning is due.

Greg Krouse

Philo

Ed note: Life can be painful, Greg, as your mummy and poppy should have warned you. But if you can pull your tear-soaked hanky away from your face long enough to read the whole story, and today’s, you’ll find that the Hamburgs fully anticipated everything that has happened. Get a grip.

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PRESIDENTIAL LIT

Dearest G. W. Bush Library and Museum:

It’s a classic in American literature. Might you have onsite a copy of “My Pet Goat” available for viewing?

Michael Slaughter

Pacifica

(CORRECTED ITEM) RAUL MALFAVON, 23, of Ray’s Road, Philo, was found dead Thursday morning about 6. Malfavon, an unmarried single man with a girlfriend, is assumed to have hanged himself.

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UNCONFIRMED, but it seems that the new County Courthouse is back on track. Funding for the indefensible project has been on again, off again, but is on again for now.

ASIDE from its mega-eyesore dimensions, and I say this sight unseen but on the basis of the now abandoned Willits Courthouse, the new structure will house only judges and their immediate ancillary staff. Everyone else conveniently now housed in the existing Courthouse will stay where they are, and these people include the DA and the court clerks. Since only their majesties will enjoy their new quarters, everyone else involved in the court process will have to hump their files two long blocks up and down Perkins.

AND IT’S A CORRUPTED project out of the box, with the well-connected buying up the properties adjoining the proposed new Courthouse where it may be located on the south side of Perkins Street near the old railroad depot. The vultures, who of course include lawyers, hope to lease back office space to the County at the usual inflated rents the County pays.

THE RUBES pushing the thing cite the big shot architectural firm doing the design, as if the big boys won’t simply go to Plan Draw Neo-Totalitarian for the usual glass and steel high rise security bunker. We won’t get a building that will lift Ukiah’s spirits, set the whole County’s heart singing at its splendor; we’ll get a version of the Willits monstrosity, a structure so hideous you can feel your life force flee just walking past it.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT for the new Courthouse emphasized by the rubes is handicapped access. “O the poor dears. They have such a terrible time getting up to the courtrooms upstairs.” As if lifting a wheelchair-bound person up to the third floor of the present building is completely beyond all known engineering abilities.

THEY ALSO CITE “security.” The catch of the day, plus the occasional wild man, is shuffled from the County Jail van across a few feet of sidewalk and on into the Courthouse. The catch of the day is brought in in cuffs and belly and ankle chains, the occasional tough guy in cuffs and chains accompanied by three or four jailers. Years ago a killer’s mother tried to hand her son a gun as he was being hustled into the Courthouse off the public sidewalk. She was unsuccessful. That’s it. That one close call. But the judges have pointed at it ever since.

WHAT THE JUDGES haven’t pointed out but have pointedly ignored, is the plain fact that a lot of the shuffling of inmates from the Jail to the Courthouse and back again is totally unnecessary if the judges would hold most of the preliminary stuff out at the Jail itself, thus saving the time and transportation expense of shuffling people back and forth.

THE PRESENT COURTHOUSE is perfectly, well, imperfectly, suitable for processing low-income Americans in and out of jail. No need for a new process center.

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 (UPDATED ITEM) FIREFIGHTERS, led by the Anderson Valley Volunteers, managed to knock down a wind-driven fire last Tuesday afternoon (June 4) at the Burger Ranch, Yorkville, before the fire reached  several highly flammable wood construction outbuildings. The blaze was completely under control by 5pm after burning through over two acres of grasslands. The fire wa on the south side of Highway 128 on the Burger Ranch about a mile west of the Yorkville Post Office/Fire Station.  It started near the house and burned up the north facing slope in grass and hardwood.  A trailer, two out buildings and the residence were briefly threatened but in the end there was no damage to those structures.  CalFire air tankers dropped retardant on the head of the fire and stopped the uphill progress and combined CalFire/Anderson Valley Volunteer crews contained and extinguished it.

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ON MAY 31, 2013, at 1am the Sheriff’s Office was advised that a 16-year-old female had been attacked by an unknown male adult while walking to a relative’s residence on Concow Boulevard in Covelo.   A Sheriff’s Detective responded to the Ukiah Valley Medical Center where he interviewed the victim and collected physical evidence.  The victim informed the Detective that she had been walking across a field near Concow Boulevard at approximately 10pm the day before, May 30, 2013, when she was attacked.   The victim stated the suspect grabbed her by the hair and forced her to the ground.  The victim fought off the suspect and ran to the safety of a relative’s residence.  The victim sustained minor injuries during the struggle which were treated while she was at the hospital.  The victim described the suspect as being an older Native American male adult who was possibly bald.  Sheriff’s Deputies searched the area where the reported assault took place but were unable to locate the suspect.  Anyone having information regarding this case is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office Tip-Line at 707-234-2100.

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LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON Redwood Coast Fire Department was responding to a small wildland fire in their District on the Coast somewhere on Mountain View Road. A male Hispanic or an Indian man stole a very distinctive black 1999 Camaro belonging to one of their firefighters who was working the fire. About 30 minutes later a CHP patrol unit was seen going up Mountain View Road with lights and sirens to intercept the car thief. Shortly after that many Anderon Valley residents heard three other police units going east through Boonville also with lights and sirens and faster than an average emergency call. Most locals assumed one of them was the CHP patrol unit. The other two turned out to be a CalFire Battalion Commander’s large pickup and a Sheriff’s patrol car. Somehow the theif made it past the CHP unit and headed up Highway 253 toward Ukiah while a parade of police and fire vehicles chased after him at high speed. Eventually, the Camaro got a flat tire and the guy could no longer stay ahead of his pursuers. He was caught about eight miles up Highway 253 and arrested. Presumably, we will hear who he was by sometime Friday.

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CARRIE HAMBURG’S RESTLESS BONES. There are legal ways to get home burials done. They are costly but Supervisor Hamburg, a wealthy man, certainly had the $30,000-plus to establish a family burial site on his 46 acres.

THE SUPERVISOR and his late wife also could have made a public issue of home burials several years ago, or certainly before Mrs. Hamburg died when she made her last wishes known, wishes emphasizing her desire to be buried at her home, no matter what the laws said. She’d been battling cancer for some time before her death, which was not unanticipated.

JUDGE LECHOWICK signed off on Jay Baker’s desire to be buried next door to his True Value Hardware store in downtown Gualala. Dan Hamburg has no friends among this County’s abundant judges, sitting or retired? None of his lib judge pals would give him the necessary permission?

HAMBURG could also have introduced a local ordinance permitting home burials. That ordinance would be helpful to lots of families, not just him. Yes, home burials are illegal in California, but this is the county that took on the federal government over marijuana policy. Who among the present supervisors would oppose a reasonable home burial ordinance?

BUT THAT’S NOT what happened. The Hamburgs decided that somehow they should be above the rules, that they should be permitted to violate the law because, well, because they are who they are. Now what we’re going to get is a prolonged legal wrangle that’s going to cost our broke county a lot of money it doesn’t have.

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ROAD RAGE RANDALL

by Bruce McEwen

Randall

Arthur Randall, a Ukiah tow truck driver by profession, knows his way around town, and the quickest way to get from South State Street to his girlfriend’s work on the corner of Dora and Gobi, he knows best of all. So when he left a Christmas party, December 20^th last year for the kids at Grace Hudson School, he got on the freeway at Talmage and planned to zoom up to Perkins, he said, which only has a few lights, then turn south on Dora, impeded by only a few stop signs, and get his gal to work on time, even though the little family of five were running late. He might have made it, too, but some guy cut him off, and then had the audacity to flip him off as well, and that changed everything. Getting his significant other to work on time was no longer his priority; Mr. Flip Off had to be dealt with first.

Mr. Randall also knows how to drive, he seems to think, far better than most, and he decided to give the guy who cut him off a few pointers on road courtesy. So he followed the man — who turned out to be Kevin Aiken, who was just recovering from back surgery — into the parking lot at Rainbow Ag on Perkins. Aiken parked in front of the store, and as Aiken emerged from his vehicle, Randall came running up and soon had Aiken on the ground trying to throttle some driving skills into the guy, who seemed to be gasping for instruction.

Right there Randall had himself Count One, felony assault and battery.

The commotion soon drew a crowd, and Randall’s girlfriend, Whitney Marsh, called the enraged Randall off. As Randall was leaving, he paused to tell Aiken he would “mess him up — or maybe I said I’d kill him” — Randall didn’t remember his exact words — if Aiken ever messed with him again.

This was Count Two, a felony criminal threat to com­mit a crime with force likely to do great bodily injury.

Even with the damning evidence of the videotape, admitting the threat, and the liability of having Dan Haehl of the public defender’s office as his lawyer, Randall was so self-righteously pissed-off at being first! so blatantly cut off and then! so rudely flipped off, that he, like, had! to take his case all the way to jury trial — even if it meant riding an old Army mule of a public defender into the ground — to prove to the jury that a wee spurt of old-fashioned vigilante road rage was justified in such an extremely provoking case as his.

He was mistaken on that point, ha, as well as a few others, as it turned out.

Attorney Dan Haehl is used to hopeless cases. He takes them in stride — even though his strides are so painful that even watching them makes you wince. Unlike the other lawyers, Mr. Haehl no longer puts on a suit for a jury trial, just his threadbare, shiny slacks, rumpled tweed sports coat and a stained necktie which he doesn’t any longer bother to snug up around the wattles of his neck. No, Attorney Haehl no longer gives much of a good gosh darn by golly what anyone thinks of him. “Don’t worry what people think of you,” he advises. “Because they probably don’t.” He is easily the sourest cynic in a county so full of ‘em that even a sardonic old hack like myself can still get a news column.

Amazing as it may seem, he even won one once. A jury trial — someone get that fainting fellow some smelling salts!

Haehl started his defense in this one by calling the defendant’s girlfriend to the stand.

Ms. Whitney Marsh said she was going to be late for work because they had all gone to a Christmas party for the three kids at Grace Hudson School, which lasted longer than expected. But not to worry, her boyfriend Mr. Randall was an expert driver and would get her there on time. The only problem was, just as they were merging onto Highway 101, a driver in a white pickup interfered.

Ms. Marsh said, “He [Randall] had to honk several times so the other driver [Aiken] didn’t hit us. And then the other vehicle got behind us. He [Randall again] had to put on the breaks and he [Aiken] came around us, flipped us off, and cut in front of us.”

Mr. Haehl: “What did you do?”

Marsh: “We got off at Perkins.”

Haehl: “Then what?”

Marsh: “We followed him down to Rainbow Ag.”

Haehl: “Why?”

Marsh: “He wanted to talk to him.”

Haehl: “Randall wanted to talk Aiken?”

Marsh: “Yes.”

Haehl: “What happened next?”

Marsh: “He, my… wull, you know — what should I call him?”

Judge John Behnke, puckishly: “Do you mean your significant other?”

Marsh: “Yes. Should I call him Mr. Randall?”

Judge: “Please do, if you feel comfortable with that.”

Marsh: “When Mr. Randall got out and went over to talk to the driver he pushed him.”

Judge: “Who pushed who?”

Marsh: (indicating first Aiken, in the gallery, then Randall, at defense table, with pointed looks): “He pushed him.”

Judge: “Yes, I know what you mean Ms. Marsh, but the court reporter is taking everything down and she needs each person to be identified by name, so that when the transcript is finished there’s no question as to who pushed who. Understand?”

Marsh: “Yes. I saw the other guy — who I now know is Mr. Aiken — push Mr. Randall.”

Haehl: “When you talked to Officer Long you said you didn’t see who pushed who first, didn’t you?”

Marsh: “Correct.”

Officer Long of the Ukiah PD had been called in to investigate the incident. He had already testified as to the statements he took at the scene during the Deputy DA’s presentation of the People’s case. The Deputy DA was Beth Norman, formerly a lieutenant of the recently defeated DA Meredith Lintott, one of the county’s more lamentable flukes of the election process, having been voted in by the coincidence of an untimely death of one candidate and a wildly reckless gambit of another, which cheated the electorate out of their real choice, the able and conscientious Keith Faulder, who has just returned from delivering an edition of the AVA to the top of Mt. Everest. He’d already put one at the summit of this continent’s highest peak, some hilltop down in Chile. Next, I expect, he’ll take one to the moon; although I can’t quite imagine anyone settling down to read our paper in such a place — you generally have to turn about and leave as soon as you arrive in those inhospitable climates. DDA Norman has never prosecuted a woman — except as a co-defendant in an otherwise all-male case. The reader will see what I’m getting at when Ms. Norman goes on cross and starts verbally slapping the defendant around. In the lone case Dan Haehl won, he let her do this, rather than object, and the effect of the witness bullying on the jury was decisive: Norman lost a slam-dunk case simply by alienating the jury. This is what rampant sexism — reverse or otherwise — will get you.

Haehl: “But you actually saw Mr. Aiken push Mr. Randall first?”

Marsh: “Yes.”

Haehl: “In the video you are shown to walk up and speak to Mr. Randall. What is it you said to him?”

Marsh: “I said let’s go.”

Haehl: “And what did he do?”

Marsh: “He let the guy up and we left.”

Haehl (adroitly eluding the parting shot made by Randall, which this witness must surely have overheard): “Did you speak to anyone else at Rainbow Ag?”

Marsh: “I think we probably talked about what happened once we were back on the road.”

Reminiscent of the fearful matron who patrolled the library of my childhood hometown, Ms. Norman rose to cross, peering suspiciously — if not accusingly — over her eyeglasses at the witness. Her voice rises when she speaks above the person-to-person range of an ordinary conversation, and she seems not to intuit, or maybe she doesn’t care, how her harping affects the jurors. But it is precisely calculated to unhinge a witness.

Norman: “So, Ms. Marsh, you say your work is on the corner of Gobi and Dora?”

Marsh: “Yes.”

Norman: “So why didn’t you just go down Gobi to Dora — wouldn’t that be the shortest route? You said you were in a hurry — why go all the way down to Perkins?”

Marsh: “’Cause he always takes Perkins.”

Norman: “Any special reason — were you thinking there was a problem?”

Marsh: “No.”

Norman: “The other car, Mr. Aiken, he cut you off; he flipped you off; you’d followed him all this way — was Mr. Randall saying all this time?”

Marsh: “No.”

Norman (her voice rising to screech level): “No? He said nothing — really? Were the kids scared?”

Marsh: “Not that I’m aware of.”

Norman: “The first time you talked to Officer Long you said you didn’t see what went on between Mr. Randall and Mr. Aiken. Now, you’re saying you saw Mr. Aiken push your boyfriend?”

Marsh: “He went like that.”

Judge: “You saw Mr. Aiken go ‘like that’—let the record reflect that the witness made a pushing motion with her palms out and her arms about chest high. Is that correct, Ms. Marsh?”

Marsh: “Yes.”

Norman: “Any chance this was a reaction of him bouncing off the car from having been pushed into it by Mr. Randall?”

Marsh: “Not that I’m aware of.”

Norman: “And when you came over to tell him let’s go because people were coming out of the store, he had Mr. Aiken down on the ground strangling him?”

Marsh: “No, he didn’t have him on the ground.”

Norman: “Have you seen the video?”

Marsh: “No.”

Norman: “Let’s play the video again. I’d like you to watch it, Ms. Marsh.”

The video was played again, and even with the car door somewhat in the way it certainly looked like Randall had Aiken on the ground choking him. But first Ms. Norman stopped the video at the alleged pushing incident and pointed out that from where Ms. Marsh was in the other vehicle, she couldn’t have seen any pushing between the two men. Still, Marsh insisted she saw it. Then she showed Marsh the part where she runs up and the two are down — either on the ground or somehow levitating an inch or two above it.

Norman: “Look! Randall has Aiken on the ground, choking him!”

Marsh: “Randall wasn’t on the ground, and he didn’t have any water on him.”

It had been raining almost all day.

Mr. Haehl put his client on the stand; and Arthur Randall described the trip from Grace Hudson School to Rainbow Ag pretty much the way Ms. Marsh had.

Haehl: “So you followed him to Rainbow Ag and con­fronted him. Did you want an apology?”

Randall: “He seemed to have a complete lack of concern for other drivers, so I yelled at Mr. Aiken. I was a little worked up, and I didn’t get an apology so I contin­ued to yell and he pushed me away from him saying, get over it.”

Haehl: “How did you respond?”

Randall: “I pushed him back into his own vehicle. Then he came towards me again so, yes, I did place him in a chokehold — what I would call a ‘control hold’ — but I did not intend to choke Mr. Aiken. A lot of profanity was exchanged. My point was he needed to learn how to drive.”

Haehl: “When Ms. Marsh runs up, what is it she says to you?”

Randall: “She said she needed to get back to work. I also heard a female voice yelling at us to knock it off. Three or four others were appearing at the door so I told him if he ever did that again I was gonna mess him up.”

Haehl: “What did he say to you?”

Randall: “He said he was going to sue me because he had just had back surgery.”

Haehl: “Do you remember making any threats to kill Mr. Aiken?”

Randall: “I do not recall that. I did threaten him that if we ever crossed paths again I would mess him up; but it’s not something I’d normally do.”

Norman: “Oh? So you don’t get upset often?”

Randall: “I don’t seek out trouble.”

Norman: “You’ve been cut off before, driving truck, haven’t you?”

Randall: “Yes.”

Norman: “But this was different?”

Randall: “Yes. I had my family in the car.”

Norman: “So you decided to chase him down ‘cause you thought you deserved and explanation and an apology?”

Randall: “Yes.”

Norman: “Why didn’t you just call the cops? And didn’t Mr. Aiken ask you why you couldn’t just let it go?”

Randall: “Mr. Aiken said fuck you, you need to let it go and I said you need to learn to drive.”

Norman: “And you were going to teach him.”

Randall: “No.”

Norman: “But you were going to make everyone wait while you got your apology.”

Randall: “He needed to learn how to drive.”

The Q&A was rapid-fire and getting louder and shriller, they were talking over each other and the court reporter threw up her hands. Like a referee, Judge Behnke got them stopped, then they went at it again.

Randall: “You can see how the situation escalated.”

Norman: “No, Mr. Randall, I can’t.

Randall: “Instead of striking him with my fist, I put him in what I called then a choke hold, but what I’d now call a control hold.”

Norman: “Why did you feel you needed to control him?”

Randall: “Mr. Aiken placed his hands on me?”

Norman: “Didn’t he just bounce off the car from being pushed?”

Randall: “Not in my opinion.”

Norman: “But you wouldn’t normally get out of your car and confront someone who cut you off?

Randall: No.”

Norman: “Mr. Randall, in 2010 you got involved in an incident where someone got in front of you at a stop light and you got out in the middle of the street and went up to the other vehicle and threatened the driver.”

Randall: “I opened my door and the other driver took off.”

Norman: “So you ran the light?”

Randall: “I stopped at the light and was sitting in my vehicle when the first vehicle came towards my door, and at that point I did step out of my vehicle. As he came at me his intentions, it was clear to me, was to run me over.”

Norman: “So you literally start running and chasing a car that cut you off?”

Randall: “Yes. A short distance.”

Norman: “Why?”

Randall: “To get him away from me; from me and my children.”

Norman: “Mr. Randall, did you say to Mr. Aiken, ‘if I see you again I’ll kill you’?”

Randall: “I may have. I don’t remember my exact words.”

Norman: “But you wanted him to hear that you would either kill him or mess him up?”

Randall: “Yes.”

Norman (in a calm voice): “I have nothing further.”

Mr. Randall wanted to address the court from the stand without the lawyers asking questions. Judge Behnke explained that the Q&A system was used because it gave the other party an opportunity to object. He said he would consider what the defendant wanted to say outside the presence of the jury then decide whether or not to grant the request, but he should first consult with his lawyer on the wisdom of the idea. Mr. Haehl came back in to say that Randall had decided against it.

Judge Behnke instructed the jury that a criminal threat didn’t require that the person who made it had to have any intention of following up on it; just that if it would reasonably put the person it was made to in a state of fear. The jury found just that — that Arthur Randall was guilty of making a criminal threat. On the assault and battery, the jury would only impose the lesser, the misdemeanor charge. ¥¥

(CORRECTED ITEM) RAUL MALFAVON, 23, of Ray’s Road, Philo, was found dead Thursday morning about 6. Malfavon, an unmarried single man with a girlfriend, is assumed to have hanged himself.

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IT WAS HOT, DRY, AND BREEZY Friday in Anderson Valley. The temperature in Boonville rose to almost 100. In Ukiah, of course, it got well over 100. Saturday is supposed to be a bit hotter, and just as dry and breezy. By contrast Point Arena, just over the coastal hills, was not expected to get above 70 on Friday or Saturday.

BY SUNDAY, however, the temperature is supposed to drop precipitously down by upwards of 20 degrees as the proverbial “marine layer” (aka fog, aka natural air conditioning) kicks back in and moves east.

THE CALFIRE VERSION of this current heatwave:

Record High Temperatures Lead to Heightened Fire Danger
Red Flag Warning Prompts CalFire to Increase Staffing
 — Expected triple digit temperatures, low humidity and breezy winds have elevated the fire danger over the next several days, prompting CalFire to increase its staffing across many parts of Northern California. The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning due to the heightened fire danger starting Friday afternoon and lasting through Saturday evening for parts of Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Butte, Lake and Colusa Counties. On Sunday in the higher country, dry thunderstorms and lightning are possible in the Northern, Central and Eastern Sierra Nevadas. With the increased potential for new fires, CalFire has brought on additional firefighters to staff extra equipment during the high risk days. “While we are hoping we can make it through the next couple of days with minimal fire activity, we are prepared to respond if Mother Nature doesn’t agree,” said Chief Ken Pimlott, CAL FIRE director. “With approximately 94 percent of our wildfires being human caused, we are strongly urging the public to be extra careful and to take the proper steps to prevent wildfires.” Since January 1, CalFire has responded to over 2,100 wildfires across California that have charred over 50,000 acres. Fire activity remains significantly higher than average; typically by this time of year CalFire would have responded to only about 1,100 wildfires with 8,000 acres burned. During the Red Flag Warning, CalFire urges all Californians to exercise extreme caution outdoors in order to prevent wildfires. A few helpful reminders and fire prevention tips include: Don’t mow or weed eat dry grass on windy days; Ensure campfires are allowed, and if so, be sure to extinguish them completely; Never pull your vehicle over in dry grass; Never burn landscape debris like leaves or branches on NO Burn Days or when it’s windy; Make sure all portable gasoline-powered equipment have spark arresters; For more ways to help prevent and prepare for wildfires visit ReadyForWildfire.org or www.fire.ca.gov.

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THE FAMILY OF FIVE MONTH OLD INFANT Emerald Herriot has taken the first formal steps in their wrongful death lawsuit against the County of Mendocino by filing a claim against the County. County employees named in the claim are: Chuck Dunbar, Teresa Baumeister, John Melnicoe, Sue Norcross and Rita Hurley of the Mendocino County Department of Social Services.

Tubbs

BACKGROUND: Wilson ‘Josh’ Tubbs is currently facing charges of child abuse causing death for allegedly beating the five month old infant girl who was placed in his care by Mendocino County, even though he had at least one drug-related arrest. Tubbs is accused of causing 49 or more bruises, two skull fractures, multiple hemorraghes and severe inter-cranial bleeding after baby Emerald was taken from her mother by Mendocino County Child Welfare Services staff back on June 28 of last year. The family alleges that Mendocino County was negligent in placing the baby in a home which included a known drug abuser. The wrongful death suit that will follow the criminal case will take some time to reach court, probably after the Tubbs trial is over.

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Lane

CRIME OF THE WEEK: Shawn Lane, 24, of Sacramento, is accused of multiple felonies for holding three Fort Bragg men hostage in their apartment. During his occupation of the dwelling, Lane repeatedly hit the men — one of them a 65-year-old — with a stick and a metal thermos. To emphasize his menace to his hostages, Lane dramatically killed the family cat as the men apparently looked on. Lane’s connection to his three captives is not known, but he does have a prior for elder abuse in the Sacramento area. The murdered cat was found buried a block from the home where the men were held hostage for at least three days.

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THE FEDERAL lawsuit filed by the Willits Environmental Center, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Protection Information Center against Caltrans and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opposing the current Willits bypass has been postponed until June 21. Natch, their judicial majesties gave no reason for the delay.

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EDITOR,

OK. So Michael Koepf does not like Dan Hamburg for all of the reasons he laid out. He is after all a namby pamby progressive/environmentalist responsible for our untaxed marijuana cultivation industry. Not that the IRS could not tax the growers out there if it wanted to. Having unclaimed income and evading taxes is against the law. Dan has not crusaded against paying taxes as far as I know. But Michael wants to associate Hamburg with this and all manner of wrong because he obviously does not like him. His arguments are so weak that he has resorted to attacking him for his religious/spiritual associations. If Dan were a Catholic, would Koepf denigrate him for all those pedophile priests? If he were Muslim, would he associate him with Al Qaeda? If he were Jewish, would he blame him for the persecution of the Palistinians (or maybe praise him)? Dan Hamburg’s religious or spiritual predilections, should not be used to denigrate him in a public forum and I object to the AVA’s publishing of such offensive crap.

Dan has chosen to fight the system on a matter that is more than personal to him. His wife’s dying wish was to be planted on their rural property. California is one of the few states that will not allow this ceremonial act and there are those of us who think that California should mind its own business in this regard. Dan knew that there could be (or would be) a problem, so he did not bother to ask for a permission that would not be granted. He is prepared to fight this jurisdictional battle over the disposition of his wife’s remains in court. And I expect at great personal cost in money and stress. He should be given support for this battle rather than criticized by some local goof who has an issue with his politics. He may not become the Rosa Parks of home burials, but he is fighting the same kind of institutionalized disregard for our civil and personal rights.

Nicholas Pinette, Oakland/Point Arena

MICHAEL KOEPF REPLIES:

Dearest Nicholas, the thing about Robespierre is that he never actually cut anybody’s head off. He left that for his Sans-culottes: the fanatic followers that did his chopping. Let’s be clear: it’s sad that Dan lost his wife, but Dan is a known serial activist, and his wife was ill for years, which means he had plenty of time to plan. Frankly, I don’t care where he buried his wife, for as my dear Irish grandmother used to say “if you don’t bury me for the love of it, you’ll bury me for the stink of it.” However, Dan Hamburg is my supervisor and president of the County Board of Supervisors. It’s clear, that as a public official, Dan was well aware of the law prohibiting the backyard burials of cadavers. It’s also clear to the few remaining sober citizens of Mendocino County that Hamburg deliberately set out to break that law and cast himself—once again—into his cherished spotlight of serial activist; this time as a champion of the backyard dead, who you, dear Nicholas, equate with the actions of Rosa Parks!

Now we learn that Dan is suing the county with the apparent help of an attorney who is Dan’s political ally, which means Dan may not pay a dime for his lawsuit. However, Dan is suing for damages, which means another hit on the county budget if Dan’s nuisance suit succeeds. Perfect: Dan gets paid for planting his wife—with a whole lot extra for his grief—and the rest of us have less money to fill the potholes on our roads, or hire deputies to protect our kids. Dan’s a serial activist alright; for himself.

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: “I’ve thought about the place of sports (baseball for me) in the scheme of things. Sometimes when some tragedy happens, people involved in sports will say, ‘It reminds you what is really important — it puts the game in perspective.’ And that’s true, but there is an implication that bothers me — that the games are not very important. Why then am I investing so much time in following them? My answer ultimately has to do with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. With our basic needs taken care of, we are free to pursue ‘higher’ things. So while a baseball game is less important than a life and death situation, it is also something that fulfills our higher level needs. It is a beautiful thing when we have the security and leisure to pursue baseball. Life at its best is the creation and enjoyment of activities such as this, and we should appreciate our ability to do so.” — Stephen Schmid

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EVERYONE IS INVITED to celebrate all Fathers and Grandfathers at a Benefit for South Coast Senior Center’s Meals On Wheels Program, on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 16th at the VFW Hall, 24000 So. Highway 1, Point Arena, just north of Pt. Arena. The party starts at 12 noon. Entertainment will be provided by FAST COMPANY and DJ SISTER YASMIN, so shine up your dancin’ shoes! Enjoy delicious barbecued chicken and tri tip prepared by Bob Shimon, home made pies and other desserts, and beer and wine. There will be a silent auction, raffle and more. Lots of fun for the whole family! All ages welcome. Information at: 707-882-2137. See you there!! (— Yasmin Solomon)

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Lamberg in various family photos

ERIC LAMBERG, 51, of Hermosa Beach, was last seen 11 days ago in Laytonville where he spent two days in a motel. From Laytonville, Lamberg made his way to Fort Bragg, then headed back east on Sherwood Road, a long, rough stretch of dirt road until the pavement resumes near the Sherwood Rez not far from Willits. Lamberg’s van was found in a ditch on Sherwood where bloodhounds picked up the missing man’s scent walking from his van both east and west. Deep Sherwood Road is honeycombed with side roads and its hillsides are covered in thick brush that has grown up after the clearcuts of the 1990s. The region is, of course, prime dope-growing territory. Lamberg is a big guy at 6’5″ and about 220 pounds. His wife says he also suffers from a bipolar condition that can leave him confused. The Lambergs had been on their way to Southern Oregon when Lamberg disappeared. Bloodhounds picked up the scent of where his van was found abandoned in a ditch along a rugged stretch of Sherwood Road, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Capt. Greg Van Patten said. The dogs tracked the scent heading eastward along Sherwood Road, a rugged mostly dirt road that winds through the forest between Willits and Fort Bragg. But the dogs also picked up his scent heading west from the van toward Fort Bragg, suggesting Lamberg may have walked in one direction, then turned around and headed in the other, Van Patten said. “There doesn’t seem to be any signs he went into the forest,” Van Patten said. Lamberg had been suffering from bipolar disorder and was driving to Oregon where he hoped to seek treatment, said his wife, Samantha Lamberg. After Lamberg spent several days in Fort Bragg, his silver 2004 Honda Odyssey broke down May 26 near Leggett and was towed to Laytonville. He seemed anxious over the phone when he told his wife about the problems with the van but then seemed more relaxed after he checked into Laytonville’s Budget Inn, Samantha Lamberg said. He checked out May 28. His wife called authorities May 29 after she hadn’t heard from him. The Sheriff’s Office issued an alert for the van and monitored his cellphone and credit cards, but found no trace of the man, Van Patten said.

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LET THE PEOPLE KNOW

Put Full Texts of Government Contracts Online

By Ralph Nader

Openness in our government is essential for a healthy democracy. When citizens and voters have access to information about the inner workings of their government and representatives, they can cast informed votes. However, when this information remains in the shadows, citizens are left without access to the information necessary for them to properly exercise their civic powers and responsibilities.

Certainly the regular disclosure of how our government spends our tax dollars is extremely important.

In 2006 and 2009, legislation was passed that advanced open government initiatives. With the creation of USASpending.gov in 2006, the public was given access to an online, searchable database that discloses federal financial awards and their recipients. In 2009, the Recovery Act included openness provisions that created a public website to track recovery spending and formed a board that would oversee the Recovery Act funds to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. These were good first steps, but there is much that is left to be done.

Just last month, President Obama signed an Executive Order and a Policy Directive that would officially require data generated by the federal government to be made available to the public online. As with all open government initiatives, this is a welcome development. But again, President Obama and his colleagues in Congress can – and need to – do more.

Attempting to build on the foundation of the 2006 and 2009 transparency laws, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa and Democrat Senator Mark Warner have been working to advance the DATA Act in the House and Senate. The DATA Act passed the House in April 2012, but was not acted on in the Senate and died in committee in the 112th Congress. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs did, however, hold a hearing to discuss the bill, titled “Show Me the Money: Improving Transparency of Federal Spending.” During this hearing, despite bipartisan support in Congress, White House representatives from the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department balked at the bill, giving insight to improvements that could be made. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, however, made it clear that a law is needed to specifically enumerate what information must be reported.

The DATA Act was reintroduced in the 113th Congress (H.R. 2061 and S. 994) at the end of May 2013 and unanimously passed the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. It aims to improve the quality of publicly accessible government information, set uniform data standards, collect spending data, and examine the information to root out waste, fraud or abuse.

Neither the President’s Executive Order nor the DATA Act, however, has gone far enough. There remains one crucial provision that is notably absent from both proposals: making full contract texts available online. Unfortunately, when it comes to government spending and government contracts, the devil is in the details. Providing this degree of public access to reporters, scholars, taxpayer associations, and more competitive bidders would be an important step forward. It would help keep corruption in check, hold government accountable for its actions, propagate best practices in contracting, give rise to significant taxpayer savings, and encourage fiscal responsibility.

Each year hundreds of billions of dollars in federal government contracts, grants, leaseholds and licenses are awarded to corporations. Taxpayers should be able to easily access clear and concise information on how their tax dollars are being spent by the government at all levels. This is especially needed in an era of massive outsourcing to large private corporations.

States across the country have been implementing their own open government initiatives in the past several years. States leading the way by consistently moving toward making full contract texts of all direct government spending available online include Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Texas. Requiring federal agencies and departments to post the full text of all federal contracts online would be the logical next step.

Concerns about confidentiality or cost of such an endeavor are vastly overblown. The computer age should make it possible to efficiently allow for certain redactions related to only legitimate concerns about genuine trade secrets and national security in contracts before they are posted online in a publicly-available database.

To repeat: Let the people know now. No more secret contracts and other deals.

Putting the full text of these contracts online could give taxpayers both savings and better value; lets the media focus more incisively on this vast area of government disbursements to inform the wider public; encourages constructive comments and alarms from the citizenry; and allows research by scholars specializing in the daily government procurement, transfers, subsidies, giveaways, and bailouts.

(Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of ‘Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!’ He is a contributor to ‘Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion,’ published by AK Press. ‘Hopeless’ is also available in a Kindle edition.)

Soto

LATE FRIDAY the Highway Patrol released the name of the young man who stole the car of a Coast volunteer firefighter on Wednesday and then lead a parade of cops and firefighters on an exciting high-speed chase over Mountain View Road, through Anderson Valley and up Highway 253 before he was caught when the car had a flat tire. His name is Roman Soto, 23 of Manchester. He was arrested about nine miles up Highway 253 for stealing the vehicle. Somewhat amusingly, he was also charged with “failure to yield, driving on a suspended license and resisting arrest.”

THIS WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME Mr. Soto, who is identified a “Native American” in his booking information, has had contact with local law enforcement. In August of 2012 he was arrested for possession of marijuana for sale, vehicle theft and receiving stolen property at a swap meet. In February 2012 he was arrested for possession of marijuana for sale.

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INNOCENTS ABROAD: Vietnamese cab driver who said he was on one of the last helicopters out in ’75. I mistook him for a Filipino because he wore a jaunty porkpie hat. “Can Pacquiao beat Mayweather?” I asked. “No,” the driver said just prior to identifying himself as Vietnamese. Manny Pacquiao lives in the Tenderloin with his wife in a rent controlled studio. He eats at the excellent Bodega Restaurant at Larkin and Eddy. “The streets in my neighborhood are bad,” he says, “but I stay home most of the time anyway.”

USUAL POINTLESS shoes-off bullshit non-security at the San Francisco Airport, and now we’re in the business class lounge, next door to the first class lounge, far from the sight and sound of the rabble. Free booze, tiny sandwiches, bags of sun chips, corporate art, bananas and apples. First class lounge probably gets bigger sandwiches. My first trip anywhere but coach, in the rear with the gear, as we used to say in another lifetime. Of course the journey to the olde country is funded by Mr. Gatsby, hence business class. The flight is delayed nearly an hour, of course. Many of my fellow adventurers are watching the aftermath of the latest lone nut, this one in Santa Monica. Now that the government has us all under surveillance, the odds of terror attacks and lone nuts has probably doubled. I wonder if the Mendo List Serve is armed?

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ON MONDAY, JUNE 10, from 7-9pm two of the most articulate opponents of the Willits Bypass will take their roadshow to the Boonville Firehouse in downtown Boonville with a presentation called “In Defense of Little Lake Valley: Stories From The Campaign to Stop The Caltrans Bypass.” Scheduled guests are Amanda “Warbler” Senseman, AVA contributor and Bypass protester/tree sitter Will Parrish, plus a showing of the fine local documentary “How Caltrans Sold the Willits Bypass.” Will Parrish writes, “In Willits, the California Department of Transportation is in the process of paving paradise to put up an unnecessary freeway. It is arguably the most destructive development project to occur in Mendocino County in decades. It would cost more than $300 million and destroy the largest area of wetlands of any Northern California project in the past half-century, while doing remarkably little to alleviate in-town traffic congestion. Learn about the Bypass from people who have been on the frontlines working to stop it, and also learn how you can be involved.” (Sponsored by: Little Lake Valley Defenders.)

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MENDOCINO COUNTY IS PREPARING to spend much more on capital improvements next year after several years of letting things go for austerity reasons. According to CEO Carmel Angelo’s introduction to next year’s budget, “In the 2012-2013 budget, the County was only able to allocate $105,000 toward the County’s multi- million dollar list of Capital Improvement needs. This recommended budget proposes $1,316,036 be applied to our Capital Improvement Plan to begin to address the priorities identified by the General Services Agency and the Board of Supervisors. Many of these projects are long overdue, especially considering that major investment in capital maintenance and improvements ceased in 2006.

ACCORDING TO General Services Manager Kristin McMenomey: “The following have been identified as unmet General Fund Capital facility needs:

“There are several County facilities that are in critical condition as it pertains to the roofs. The condition of these roofs are the result of many factors, including end of life as well as deferring maintenance resulting in increased damage from normal wear and tear. The following County facilities have been identified as the top priority for roof replacement within the next five years at a minimum:

• • County Administration Center, Low Gap Road, Ukiah $3,000,000
• • County Museum, Willits $350,000.
• • Ukiah Public Health and Mental Health Facility $1,000,000.
• • Sheriff Training Center, Low Gap Road, Ukiah $300,000.
• • Yokayo Center (Social Services), State Street, Ukiah $700,000.
• • Ukiah Veterans Administration Building and Shed $25,000.
• • Willits Integrated Services Center (WISC), Willits $400,000.

These roofing projects are estimated to cost approximately $6,000,000 over the next five years. GSA anticipates scheduling prioritized roofing projects beginning in FY 13/14.”

IN ADDITION: “County’s Property System — Since 1995, the County of Mendocino has used property system software acquired for ‘at no cost’ from Sutter County. The property system is used to send and track property tax bills, maintain information regarding parcels, record current and historical property assessments, log unsecured assets for billing, and many other functions. The property system is necessary for the collection of well over 100 million dollars of tax revenue per year. The County’s current software system, titled the ‘Mendocino County Property System,’ is obsolete; it features a system code base/language that dates back to the 1970s, and represents a significant risk of catastrophic failure. The property system was created by a County development support staff which no longer exists within the County system. The County has no available staffing resources to utilize, no dedicated vendor maintaining the system, no user documentation and we have extremely limited developer documentation. Recent County staffing retirements and relocations has left the property system without support resources. Soliciting staff to support this outdated system and technology would not be effective or efficient. Currently, County GSA/IS staff expends a great deal of resources attempting to address the performance shortcomings of the current software and continually experiences issues with providing adequate support. Due to the risks involved with maintaining the current software system, coupled with the costs associated with maintaining its platform, it is recommended that the Board of Supervisors authorize staff to begin a review and analysis associated with the replacement of the Mendocino County Property System. The project is estimated to cost up to $1,000,000 with an annual maintenance cost of $100,000. This project is anticipated to be rolled out during FY 14/15.”

THERE’S ALSO AN UNANSWERED QUESTION about the $900k budgeted for retiree healthcare in the context of Obamacare which may or may not cover some or all of it.

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AT THEIR MAY 21 meeting the Board of Supervisors had agenda item entitled: “Discussion and Possible Action Regarding Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the County of Mendocino, Ukiah Valley Fire District, and the Pinoleville Pomo Nation Concerning Mitigation for Off Reservation Impacts Resulting from the Tribe’s Casino and Hotel Project.”

AGENDA SUMMARY: “The Board of Supervisors Ad-Hoc Committee has met and discussed with the Pinoleville Pomo Nation and other interested parties the anticipated offsite impacts of the proposed casino and other related facilities to be constructed at 2150 North State Street, Ukiah, California. The proposed MOU represents the tentative agreements agreed to by the interested parties. It is requested that the Board of Supervisors review and approve the proposed MOU.”

IN THIS CASE, the “mitigation” is: Cash. After several people spoke to the item, both enthusiastically pro and mildly con, the Board had a short discussion of the agreement which has been worked on for several years since the Pinoleville Pomo tribe first proposed building another casino/hotel north of Ukiah right of Highway 101:

HAMBURG: The state approved this arrangement which kind of trumps the county. I know that for myself I have a lot of sympathy with the arguments being made by Ms. Lockhart and Ms. McGee regarding the suitability of the site for a casino given the traffic impacts and the proliferation of casinos all over inland Mendocino County. I just can’t imagine another casino could possibly be profitable in this area. It seems like everybody’s just — every casino kind of cannibalizes every other casino. I just don’t know where all the gamblers are. It’s a sad commentary on our overall society. This is no criticism whatsoever of Native Americans and trying to get money out of these. But it’s really a sad commentary that this is the — what we call economic development in Mendocino County is more and more and more casinos encouraging more and more and more gambling and all the things that go along with gambling problems in our society. The only other thing that I want to make specific reference to is Recital B where it says the county recognizes the tribe as a federally recognized Indian tribe recognized… that’s three recognized in one sentence, that’s pretty tricky English. But anyway, the next sentence, the tribe owns lands within the boundaries of which constitutes the original rancheria land. Now if ever there was a sentence that was built for obfuscation that’s it. I have no idea what that sentence means. And I did pass English. So I don’t know what, I don’t know why anything has to be written in such a confusing manner, but I’m sure there are some lawyer somewhere who was paid $300 an hour to craft that sentence.

MCCOWEN: That may have been one of the true beneficiaries of the agreement.

HAMBURG: I totally agree.

MCCOWEN: But I would point out, and I agree the language is not a model of clarity, but that is the part of the recitals and it’s really not the heart of the agreement.

HAMBURG: I know. I know. I know.

MCCOWEN: But I think it may refer to the fact that the tribe does own land within the boundaries of the original rancheria land and once this parcel is purchased, and it’s my understanding that there is currently some sort of lease-option agreement, but once the tribe knows they are ready to proceed I’m sure they would finalize that purchase and these lands within the boundaries of the original rancheria land will be owned by the tribe. But that certainly could have been stated with greater clarity.

HAMBURG: In English, maybe? In English would have been good.

PINCHES: Obviously what happened in the early 60s when they built the freeway out there that separated if not legally, it separated that piece of property physically from the Pinoleville lands. Then that probably led them to sell it and whatnot, but it physically separated that from the tribal lands. But I’m totally supportive of what the tribe wants to do. Frankly, I think that casino and hotel will do great there for the simple reason that it will be the only gambling facility that’s actually right on 101 Highway. I think that’s really smart. In my opinion.

HAMBURG: What about Coyote Valley? It’s not on 101?

PINCHES: You can’t really see the casino from 101. It’s there, but you don’t see the physical building. It makes a big difference in attracting people that are going through the area. The biggest problem as they move forward is that casino project in Rohnert Park. Otherwise, you’d get a straight shot between here and the Bay Area. So that’s what your investors are going to have to look at. But that’s not the issue we’re talking about. I’m totally supportive of this. You talk about developer fees, do you realize that we are asking the tribe under this agreement to put up front $600,000 a year, actually more than that, it’s over $700,000. But $600,000 of that is going to be on an annual basis. So I guess if this project moves forward the tribe is going to completely bear their fair share to Mendocino County. If I was a tribal member and was committing myself to this I would be a little reluctant although I guess when you run the numbers the investors seem to think that this will all work. But paying this $600,000, basically that’s money up front before you can even start operations.

HAMBURG: It just tells you how lucrative gambling is, John.

PINCHES: Well, I guess so. Anyway, I think the county is getting its fair share for the services that we are going to provide. You look at the $200,000 to pay the sheriff annually, that doesn’t guarantee that the sheriff even has to show up for a call. It’s just says you’re going to pay the sheriff’s office. We don’t ask that from anybody else that’s building a store or anything. We don’t ask for a developer fee from anybody else. But the tribe seems to be in agreement to move forward. So if this moves forward it looks like it’s going to be a good deal for everybody except for the person who needs to gamble.

The Board then voted 4-1 to approve the Memorandum of Agreement with the Pinoleville tribe, 4-1, Hamburg dissenting.

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SONOMA COUNTY has announced plans to do some work at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat the work involves lengthening the runways which is supposed to somehow give an “economic boost” to the area. But, based on the photo accompanying the news report, we can think of some work at the airport that might take priority over runway lengthening.

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON announced Friday it would shut down the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant. The move comes 17 months after the San Onofre plant was closed because of problems in steam generator systems. The plant powered about 1.4 million households in Southern California before the outage. Until now, Edison had vowed to restart the plant. But the company released a statement Friday saying it would stop the process to fire up the plant. “We have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if [the plant] might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region’s long-term electricity needs,” said Ted Craver, chairman and chief executive of Edison International, parent company of SCE. SCE President Ron Litzinger said in a statement: “Looking ahead, we think that our decision to retire the units will eliminate uncertainty and facilitate orderly planning for California’s energy future. Edison International Chief Executive Ted Craver said Friday that the company had spent more than $500 million on replacement power during the plant’s outage. San Onofre Nuclear Generating station was shuttered earlier after a tube in the plant’s replacement steam generator system leaked a small amount of radioactive steam on January 31, 2012. Eight other tubes in the same reactor unit later failed pressure tests, an unprecedented number in the industry, and thousands more tubes in both of the plant’s units showed signs of wear. The wear was blamed on tube vibration caused by excessively dry and high-velocity steam and inadequate support structures, particularly in one of the plant’s two units. Tube vibration and wear has been a problem at other plants, but the specific type of vibration at San Onofre had not been experienced in the industry. Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric (which has a 20% stake in the plant) spent more than $780 million replacing the steam generators several years ago, which ratepayers are now repaying. (Courtesy, the Los Angeles Times)

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Dr. Strada

PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION AND TREATMENT OFFERED at North Coast Family Health Center and Mendocino Coast District Hospital — The North Coast Family Health Center and Mendocino Coast District Hospital have added psychological evaluation and treatment to its list of healthcare services offered to residents of the Mendocino Coast. To provide the service, E. Alessandra Strada, PhD, FT, MSCP has joined the MCDH and NCFHC Provider Team as a clinical psychologist. Dr. Strada provides outpatient services at NCFHC and inpatient consultations at MCDH. Dr. Strada holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology, a PhD in East-West Psychology, and a post-doctoral Masters in Psychopharmacology. She is an adjunct associate professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and adjunct faculty in the post-doctoral psychopharmacology program at Alliant University, San Francisco. She is a fellow in thanatology, the scientific study of death and its processes and the author of two books on the subject: “The Helping Professional’s Guide to End-of-Life Care: Practical Tools for Emotional, Social and Spiritual Support (Jan. 2, 2013)” and “Grief and Bereavement in the Adult Palliative Care Setting, Oxford American Palliative Care Library (May 7, 2013).” In addition, she is a former assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and attending psychologist in the department of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, where she developed and directed the psychology fellowship in pain, palliative, and hospice care. Dr. Strada is also a regular presenter at national and international conferences. Her clinical work and research focus on psychological care in chronic and advanced illness, end-of-life, grief, bereavement in the palliative care setting, and non-pharmacological treatment of chronic pain. Dr. Strada has also worked extensively to promote stress management and burnout prevention for clinicians. Her treatment approaches include integrative use of psychodynamic, existential, and insight-oriented approaches with cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnosis, guided imagery, mindfulness, and meditation. (Coast Hospital Press Release)

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FRED GARDNER WRTES: The picture of the dreadlocked yid on your front page reminded me of an old New York joke:

“What has two legs and sleeps with cats?”

“Mrs. Katz?”

“Wrong, Mrs. Shapiro.”

* * *

The reffing in basketball and umpiring in baseball is so bad that sometimes I just turn off the tube. Friday night Giants pitcher Mark Affeldt had a 2-1 count, threw a strike that got called a ball, walked the batter and then Goldschmidt homered. I don’t usually go for technological fixes, but for calling balls and strikes…

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FIREWOOD PERMIT SALES SUSPENDED on Jackson Demonstration State Forest Fort Bragg– California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Mendocino Unit is suspending firewood permit sales on Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), due to the very high demand for permits and a limited supply of available downed wood. Firewood areas will remain open to those with valid permits until the wood supply is gone, September 15^th, or the first significant rain which ever occurs first. Information regarding the firewood program is available at the CAL FIRE Fort Bragg office located at, 802 North Main Street, Fort Bragg, CA (707) 964-5674. Office hours are 8-12 & 1-5 Monday through Friday.

A DRAMATIC AGREEMENT HAS BEEN REACHED between the Coast Hospital Employees Union and Coast Hospital which is estimated to save the Hospital $1.85 million. The agreement which was approved by almost 90% of the Hospital’s employees last week, eliminates vacation accrual cash-outs; puts a hold on step increases or bonuses after July 1, 2013, eliminates the 3% salary increase which had been scheduled for July 1, 2013 and cuts the pay of everyone including management across the board by 5% effectively returning pay rates 2011 rates. The Hospital also agrees to withdraw its application to the bankruptcy court regarding voiding the employee contract and leaves all other provisions of that contract in place, including healthcare benefits and pensions, as well as benefits for part-time employees all of which were very important to the union members. Other aspects of the Hospital’s bankruptcy filing remain in place, although that process continues to slog along at a snail’s pace. One of the main objectives of the agreement was to give the Hospital a positive bump to the Hospital’s short-term cash flow to provide some wiggle room in negotiating with other creditors.

THERE IS STILL NO DISCUSSION of the expensive contracts between the doctors and the Hospital, although there has been speculation that perhaps at least some of the doctors would switch from Hospital affiliation to Coast Clinic affiliation which might save the Hospital a significant amount of overhead and provide an alternative funding for the doctors and specialists which has been difficult for the Hospital to cover under current billing arrangements. But such a change would require time and bureaucratic thrashing and is not expected to change the financial picture in the short term.

TWO BOARD SEATS are up for election in November and it will be interesting to see if the bankruptcy situation becomes an issue and who comes forward to run. Long-time observers think that the time might be right to propose an increase in the Hospital District’s parcel tax which hasn’t increased since the District was formed in 1975. The last time a parcel tax increase was proposed was back in the late 1990s during time that the very unpopular and corrupt Bryan Ballard was Hospital CEO. The public was rightly skeptical of giving more money to that corrupt Hospital management team. But now Ballard is gone and the employees have already taken a cut and the argument for a parcel tax increase is much stronger.

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DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT. Which I would amend to Don’t Leave Home At All, after a nightmarish two days of missed flights, airport mazes, security hassles, and late-night disorientations through rural Scotland before finally arriving at a place called Hoscote House in the deep sheep-boonies near a Ukiah-sized town pronounced something like Oik.

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BIG BRO STRIKES AGAIN! Calorie labels on wine. How silly. The only people who will read them will be the same people who read the tiny stickers on fresh apples. And more clutter on the bottle.

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A SECOND MYSTERY Willits Coke bottle. The first was found near the Navarro by Dave Severn, and now Nikki and Steve at Petit Teton, formerly the Herried Ranch about six miles south of Boonville, report they, too, have found a bottled-in-Willits Coca Cola bottle.

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MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES in Mendocino County are at best very limited and underfunded, and several high-profile examples of inadequate responses have come to light in recent months and years. The question — or more accurately the done deal — before the Board of Supervisors last May 21 was whether privatizing or contracting out Mental Health Services is the solution.

SEVERAL THINGS make us skeptical of the contracts the Board approved, not the least of them the fact that County School Superintendent Paul Tichinin and a member of his Special Ed staff thought the privatization was a great idea.

TICHININ: “This proposal that has come together is the result of many ongoing discussion within this county by groups such as Impromptu Mustard Seed, like Mendocino Futures, like school districts and superintendents. The Youth Project was actually started with an original grant to the County Office of Education over 30 years ago. So to me the efforts that have gone forward in making this a partnership, in making this something where people are working together, building relationships, working with law enforcement, working with medical professions in the community and with the staff and all of my review of this proposal leaves the mental health department or the County of Mendocino in charge of the upper level management, goal setting and direction for the service and instead you are utilizing the strength of local partnerships to bring forward a type of services that we all deserve to have.”

EVERYONE ELSE who stand to benefit from the privatization, including the therapeutic outfits that the County is contracting with, are also enthusiastically on board, of course, and on May 21 they all came forward to publicly congratulate each other on their wonderful accomplishment.

COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH MANAGER Tom Pinnizotto, one of the key officials in setting up the contracts, told the Board, “We strongly feel that with this collaboration and with the entities coming together that our services will be more comprehensive, more flexible, more bidirectional referral; we’ll see more collaboration care management, we will have levels of care management from assertive to other types, our services will be more coordinated and more community-based.”

THOMAS ORTNER whose company, Ortner Management Group, will get the contract for mental health services for adults 21 and over, told the Board, “This contract includes a multi-tiered crisis response service. Multilayered bidirectional and assertive care management system, a ‘no wrong door’ access system, comprehensive and collaborative system of care, robust quality management system, expanded housing and housing support program. We will work in partnership with the county and act as an extension to the county to serve the needs of the mentally ill adults in Mendocino County.”

JOSEPHINE SILVA, a Willits woman who has attended most of the recent Mental Health Board meetings but who is not on that board nor is she among the beneficiaries of the contracting, was one of the few speakers not to join the cheering. “The proposals indicate that there is about $8.8 million available for the population under 21 years old which is about 25% of the population of Mendocino County,” said Ms. Silva. “The second proposal for adults 21 years and older is worth $6.7 million which is about 75% of the County’s population. It seems to me we should have at least three times that amount for the adult services. I don’t know the details of how this works but you have frequently first-time mental-health episodes happening in the early 20s which means you will need money and a lot of services in the adult contract. But that’s not there apparently. I don’t know how that interfaces with the children’s services contract. I have complete faith in Carmel Angelo. I am sure she will work something out to work with this. But I think the Board needs to address that. Also, with the new healthcare laws, I would expect that primary care services will involve more Medi-Cal people who need mental health services. Also, the grand jury report says that we need to hire more qualified people for mental health services. I have observed many different facilities of the Ortner group in the Northern California area, including their facility in Willits. In Willits, I noticed that there were inadequately trained staff who were not paying attention to people, that there was poor case management, not much interface with families and in addition, there was a very poor interface with Manzanita Services. In Yuba City [where Ortner also has offices] I saw the same situation. I would like to see in this contract a client-to-case-manager ratio written in so that we are guaranteed a certain number of people who will be working with these clients that you are responsible for.”

DAVE EBERLE, President of the County’s employees union, was also critical of the contracting, but some of his claims missed the mark, such as his claim that the Board had somehow violated the Brown Act in preparing the contracts. But Eberle’s complaint that the contracts were developed by insiders without much public involvement was essentially true, although most of “the public” probably knew that they would have fallen asleep in the face of the jargon-laden discussions of the contract provisions that the bureaucrats spent months hammering out. Eberle also complained that the contracts were the result of a conscious effort to undermine the County’s mental health staff to make it look like contracting out was the only solution. “The argument that the County is incapable of providing the needed services is a self-fulfilling prophecy of your own policies and the outcome of your deliberate actions dismantling the department over the last few years. Just seven months ago in November 2012 the mental health apartment had 93 funded positions, but less than half, or 45 of them, were filled. This is part of a pattern of understaffing that has gone on for at least the last two years. You crippled the department, declared it incapable, and then moved to sell off its functions to private bidders. Legally, the county has an obligation to provide quality health services to its residents. The contracting is an abdication of that responsibility. The county can only contract out “special services.” Dismantling its own mental health system does not convert the work into a special service. The law does not let the county used this self-inflicted wound as an excuse. Going through with this now without waiting for these issues to be debated and resolved will only cost the county taxpayers more. On behalf of the Mendocino County citizens and employees we urge you to vote no and instead address these issues in a public forum.”

COUNTY COUNSEL TOM PARKER responded that the County was “not contracting existing services,” that what was contracted for was “enhanced and additional special services, therefore there’s no need for meet and confer.”

PARKER MAY BE NARROWLY CORRECT, but the over $15 million dollars worth of mental health dollars being contracted out, is not new money. Health and Human Services Director Stacy Cryer made it clear that she plans to dismantle and transfer most of the existing mental health line staff to positions that were held open in other branches of her department. Cryer also said that Mental Health positions were not intentionally left vacant, that recruiting was going on. Nevertheless, it does sound like Eberle had a good point. Ms. Cryer also agreed in passing that the idea to specify client to case worker ratios was a good idea that might be talked about later. But given the givens in Mendo, that’s highly unlikely.

IN THE END, after a few nitpicks of the legalese in the contracts from Supervisor John McCowen, the Board voted unanimously to approve the contracts with very little discussion other than heaping more praise on those involved. After the vote the roomful of privatization proponents erupted in applause.

THE DISPROPORTIONATE value of the contracts on juvenile services which have historically been the most lucrative aspects of mental heath service funding makes us think that the contracts were tweaked via input from the prospective bidders to farm out the most well-funded services and programs. Sheriff Allman was on record supporting the contracts, although he wasn’t on hand on May 21 to participate in the cheering section. It remains to be seen if the well-publicized gaps in adult crisis management services which have put much of the first-line mental health job in the hands of local cops will be improved by Mr. Ortner and his admiring cadre of well-paid helping professionals.

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Republican Headquarters in Fort Bragg (Not the meeting location)

THE MENDOCINO COUNTY REPUBLICAN CENTRAL COMMITTEE will meet Saturday, June 15, 2013, 10:00 AM  – 12:00 Noon at the Moura Senior Housing, 400 South Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437.  For further information contact: Stan Anderson, 707-321-2592.

COMING FROM the incoherent country of America where town and country have become inseparable, the towns slurbing every which way, Scotland is a revelation. Town is town, country is country, and town ends and country begins with strict borders between the two. Leaving Edinburgh’s airport and driving to my ancestral beginnings at Selkirk, a beautiful little place on a hillside, we were immediately in sheep country whose pastures were neatly marked off by ancient stone walls. Traffic was light, then non-existent when we turned off to the series of one-lane side roads that led eventually to Hoscote House where 17 of us are staying. The Mendo equivalent would be to drive to the very end of Spy Rock, ford the Eel, then drive up into the hills of Covelo, the difference being that Scotland is a much less menacing place than rural America. We even drove through a streambed at one point, making our slow way through scattering sheep and small herds of long-haired red cattle. But we didn’t get into the deep boons until after Selkirk, population 8,000 and the site of Scotland’s first king, a fine fellow by the name of Wallace who’d managed to unite the country’s medieval warring tribes, descendants of the men who’d shed their kilts, painted their balls blue, and came running out at the Romans with broad axes. The Romans enjoyed a good laugh and then cut the blue balled savages down like so many weeds. Five hundred years after the birth of Christ, and after centuries of fending off raiding parties of various nationalities and fighting constantly among themselves, Wallace got these primitive warrior clans united and re-oriented to fight the English by whom he was eventually captured, taken to London and dragged through the streets. To make sure he was dead the Brits pulled him apart, drawing and quartering as it was called. Many Americans, including me, are descended from these Scots. When the lords grabbed off miles of pasture for themselves early in the 19th century, they rounded us up and packed us off to Appalachia. My grandfather, though, made his way from Selkirk to, of all places, Honolulu, where the world’s most uptight persons, the Scots Presbyterians, were proselytizing the world’s least uptight persons, the Hawaiians. Grandad was there primarily to make money but did both. He didn’t think women should wear make-up, and everyone should spend all day Sunday in church. I met elderly people who remembered him. I remember him for rapping my knuckles with a heavy bread knife when I made an unmannerly reach across the dinner table. Locals these days seem free of the old strictures but they still commemorate ancient battles, and as one said, “These hills are all soaked in blood.” I hiked long and hard to an old Roman mile marker deep in the hills where I tried to imagine their route this far north and on into England. On some initial expeditions they marched on through on elephants accompanied by regiments of African warriors, both the elephants and Africans dumbfounding the Scots. To a Californian, 1850 is ancient history. To these people it’s yesterday. I was assured by a friend that “the scones in Scotland are the real thing, the best you’ll ever have.” Well, they invented the things and one would think. But on Day Three of this adventure the scones I’ve tried are so far inferior to the scones of Boonville I’m tempted to mail some Selkirk scones to my informant to show him how wrong he is. We could learn from these people, though. Selkirk, directly on the Scottish tourist path, maintains a public bathroom complete with an on-site attendant. It’s scrupulously clean and comes with changing rooms for families travelling with infants. The towns I’ve seen are deceptively prosperous-looking but unemployment rates exceed twenty percent and many of the shops appear to be struggling. No street people, crazed or otherwise, and every little town with a stream of any size has a streamside walk, and every little town a museum. It’s in the low 70s here, a veritable heat wave people say. The balmy days inspire some people to strip to their skivvies and sunbathe stretched out beside the road. I walked around a bend in a remote road to encounter a couple waxing their car. It would have been impertinent to ask why drive miles from the nearest town to spiff up the transportation.

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Jordan, Audet

THEY’RE BACK, if they ever left: Miss Jacqueline ‘Pixie’ Audet, 23, and Miss Audet’s love interest and road dog, Mr. Don Jordan.

Pixie and Don were drunk in Fort Bragg where, Deputy Riboli reported, they were also camped illegally.

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MARY MOORE WRITES: The Bohemian Grove Action Network will NOT be planning an organized protest this July out at Bohemian Grove. I had earlier sent out the SQUEAKY WHEELS protest (re: sequester cuts led by those in wheelchairs and walkers) and we got plenty of encouraging feedback but when it came to getting folks affected by the cuts (in so many areas) no one showed up to the meetings to do the actual work. It’s disappointing but we also got a late start and realize everyone is in overwhelm so we understand — kind of. There are still some from our group who will make an appearance out there on either July 13 or July 20, the first two Saturdays of the encampment, and I can put you in touch with them. Thanks to all those who did lend actual support and good wishes. I’m turning 78 in July and most everyone in our core group is on the aging train. It is truly time for the next generation to take on the important task of connecting the corporate, financial, governmental and military elite that gather in our backyard every summer. There is now a movie in the works and some of us are still working on a book exposing what we already have on the Lakeside Talks at the Grove (one of the main focuses of our work over the years). The latest membership list is from 2010 and new research is always needed. We now have a website exposebohemiangrove.org and have just started a Facebook page. As you already know we are not conspiracy hounds and have been fighting them off for several years. Reality is truly scary enough — no need to invent or embellish. I can be reached at 707 874 2248 if you need more details but for this year at least there WILL BE NO organized protest in July at Bohemian Grove. Thanks, Mary.”

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LOOKS LIKE A JAM-PACKED Sierra Nevada Music Festival this year. Vehicle camping at the Fairgrounds is already sold out and visitors are being steered to alternate spots such as the AV Brewing lawn at the corner of 253 and 128 or whatever other campgrounds they can find. Limited “Walk In Camping” for three-day ticket holders is still available for 10×10 spaces for three days, maximum of three people per space. In these cases campers will have to park at the High School, so expect crowded conditions all weekend from June 21-23. Organizers have announced that there will be no overnight vehicle parking in downtown Boonville or on the highway. Parking at the high school will require a Festival-issued voucher/sticker. For more information go to snwmf.com.

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DAVE EVANS at the Navarro Store is gearing up for another summer series of events, albeit somewhat scaled back from the high volume of events of some recent years. On Saturday, July 13 Roy Rogers and the Delta Rhythm Kings will highlight an evening dinner show along with some popular local groups (to be announced) starting at 6:30pm. The Navarro Store’s grill serve up their usual tasty barbecue to accompany the show. On August 13 a not-to-be-missed appearance of Charlie Musselwhite is on tap with another line-up of locals filling out the card.

THE NAVARRO STORE’S famous barbecue will be up and running throughout the summer with Neil Kephart serving up grilled specialties every weekend from 11-3. To start with the grill will open this Sunday and Monday (June 16-17) from 11-3; then Saturdays and Sundays for the rest of the summer.

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STATE PARKS OFFICIALS haven’t made an official announcement, but we understand they’ve quietly been forced to close Paul Dimmick Park in Navarro because their generators were stolen by a person or persons unknown a few weeks ago. Without the generators, the basic water, sewer and electrical services have been knocked out with no re-opening date as yet set. To make things worse, their lock boxes were vandalized a few days later.

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Pierce

LADIES AND GERMS, introducing Miss Kelsey Pierce, 19, of Ukiah, 5’4″ and 118 pounds, busted for allegedly busting her Sig Other in his undoubtedly deserving chops. Because her bail is set at $25,000 rather than the usual $10,000 Miss Pierce must have struck Lover Man while she was holding something, maybe an electronic gizmo, maybe a whoopee cushion. Whatever, and call us old school, but what kind of shameless wimp-twit would call the police on this fairest bloom of the Ukiah Valley? Wouldn’t a self-respecting man cry out in delight, “Again, Miss Pierce! Hit me again! Slay me even, but I’m at your feet forever.” Instead, this guy calls the cops.

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JOANNE ALDEN WRITES:

Dear friends, I definatly am not big on signing petitions, in fact never when they are outside a market.  But this matter of constant and complete surveillance has got to be exposed, and I am not afraid of these people who think they have enough power to change GOD’s plan for this country;  we have a responsibility to be heard, and it’s pretty obvious voting isn’t the vehicle that works. This is one of the few ways I see that we can speak truth to power.

http://www.causes.com/ReformPatriotAct?utm_campaign=activity_mailer%2Fshare_to_followers&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes&token=3W9s_B0WzBkhzECF9KTW9xsP

HISTORIC CHALLENGE to Support the Moral Actions of Edward Snowden

by Norman Solomon

In Washington, where the state of war and the surveillance state are one and the same, top officials have begun to call for Edward Snowden’s head. His moral action of whistleblowing — a clarion call for democracy — now awaits our responses.

After nearly 12 years of the “war on terror,” the revelations of recent days are a tremendous challenge to the established order: nonstop warfare, intensifying secrecy and dominant power that equate safe governance with Orwellian surveillance.

In the highest places, there is more than a wisp of panic in rarefied air. It’s not just the National Security Agency that stands exposed; it’s the repressive arrogance perched on the pyramid of power.

Back here on the ground, so many people — appalled by Uncle Sam’s continual morph into Big Brother — have been pushing against the walls of anti-democratic secrecy. Those walls rarely budge, and at times they seem to be closing in, even literally for some (as in the case of heroic whistleblower Bradley Manning). But all the collective pushing has cumulative effects.

In recent days, as news exploded about NSA surveillance, a breakthrough came into sight. Current history may not be an immovable wall; it may be on a hinge. And if we push hard enough, together, there’s no telling what might be possible or achieved.

The gratitude that so many of us now feel toward Edward Snowden raises the question: How can we truly express our appreciation?

A first step is to thank him — publicly and emphatically. You can do that by clicking here to sign the “Thank NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden” petition, which my colleagues at RootsAction.org will send directly to him, including the individual comments.

But of course saying thank-you is just one small step onto a crucial path. As Snowden faces extradition and vengeful prosecution from the U.S. government, active support will be vital — in the weeks, months and years ahead.

Signing the thank-you petition, I ventured some optimism: “What you’ve done will inspire kindred spirits around the world to take moral action despite the risks.” Bravery for principle can be very contagious.

Edward Snowden has taken nonviolent action to help counter the U.S. government’s one-two punch of extreme secrecy and massive violence. The process has summoned the kind of doublespeak that usually accompanies what cannot stand the light of day.

So, when Snowden’s employer Booz Allen put out a statement Sunday night, it was riddled with official indignation, declaring: “News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm.”

What are the “code of conduct” and “core values” of this huge NSA contractor? The conduct of stealthy assistance to the U.S. national security state as it methodically violates civil liberties, and the values of doing just about anything to amass vast corporate profits.

The corporate-government warfare state is enraged that Edward Snowden has broken through with conduct and values that are 180 degrees in a different direction. “I’m not going to hide,” he told the Washington Post on Sunday. “Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.”

When a Post reporter asked whether his revelations would change anything, Snowden replied: “I think they already have. Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.”

And, when the Post asked about threats to “national security,” Snowden offered an assessment light-years ahead of mainline media’s conventional wisdom: “We managed to survive greater threats in our history than a few disorganized terrorist groups and rogue states without resorting to these sorts of programs. It is not that I do not value intelligence, but that I oppose omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance. That seems to me a greater threat to the institutions of free society than missed intelligence reports, and unworthy of the costs.”

Profoundly, in the early summer of 2013, with his actions and words, Edward Snowden has given aid and comfort to grassroots efforts for democracy. What we do with his brave gift will be our choice.

(Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”)

Old-timers remember Malvina Reynolds’s satiric song, “Little Boxes.” Penned in 1962, the song heralded the coming suburban blight, where poorly constructed houses “were made of ticky-tacky and they all looked the same.”

How times change. Today, scarce resources and staggering home costs have created a new definition of the “little box” – the Tiny House. And Mendocino College is at the forefront of the movement.

This summer, the college’s Sustainable Technology program is offering a summer course on Construction Fundamentals and Green Building. The course, taught by Mendocino County native and PhD. Jen Riddell will attempt to build a Tiny House in 15 days, according to Orion Walker, Sustainable Technology program coordinator and Business instructor for the college.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Tiny House is its portability. The houses are often built onto the bed of a trailer, sized to comply with highway towing standards so that the structures then become a moveable, portable home. The college collaborated with Ukiah High’s welding department to modify a standard trailer so that the foundation of the 18-foot-by-8-foot Tiny House would be properly attached to the bed. Ukiah High students Dayton Payne, Little Joe, Colten Dennett, Kyler Kirch and Beau Franzen removed some portions of the trailer’s features and welded on additional outrigger supports, according to welding instructor Bob Bartow. B & B Industrial donated the materials for the modification.

“The idea is to build the house right onto the trailer,” Riddell explains. “We’ll run floor joists across the deck, put up the walls and see how far the class can get in 15 days,” she smiles.

The college’s Tiny House will have all the features of a full-sized home – a bathroom, kitchen and a sleeping loft to maximize space. “You try to build in efficient storage – drawers in stairs, upper-level storage and of course, reduce your possessions,” Riddell smiles. She estimates the cost of this house at approximately $15,000, not including, solar, a hot water system and toilet. “You can build a simple, salvage-based house for around $20,000. One woman in Healdsburg built her home for $3,500 using all salvaged materials,” she continues.

“This idea has really come into its own over the past few years,” says Walker. “There is a lot of potential for building and selling these structures, for agricultural workers, as a granny unit or other temporary structure. From a career perspective, we see this as a very good business option,” he continues.

The benefit for the students in this summer’s class is that they will have a hands-on experience of building an entire house. “It’s a condensed building process. They’ll see a lot of different aspects involved in building a house,” Riddell continues.

Another interesting fact, according to Riddell, is that currently there are no codes that govern the construction of houses on wheels. “Right now, they fall into the category of an RV, so no permits are currently necessary,” she explains. That doesn’t mean that students will be learning sub-standard construction methods, however. “Our Residential Electric class will be doing all the electrical installation,” Walker explains. “It’s building as you go. It’s very nice not having to go to the county if you decide to make a design change mid-stream,” he continues.

Riddell is currently constructing her own tiny house, perched atop a 22-foot long trailer. It is just over 8 feet wide and less than 13.5 feet tall, making the structure towable. “I started in December working part-time on it,” she explains. She did some degree of salvaging and chose many of her materials for their degree of lightness. You do have to focus on lightness and flexibility with your materials. I used recycled denim insulation, which was great. It meant that I wasn’t breathing in fiberglass when I installed it,” she notes. Riddell was working in Washington, D.C. on science policy when she heard about the Tiny House movement. “I realized I was so done in D.C.,” she laughs. “I made plans to move, began to design my house and got a lot of support from carpenters, plumbers and friends.”

Tiny House communities are beginning to sprout, particularly in urban areas. “There are three examples in the U.S.: a San Francisco development, a project in New York where the houses are 300 square feet, and another in Washington, D.C.,” says Riddell. The Washington, D.C. project consists of a small group of individuals who purchased a lot, each constructing their own version of a Tiny House. “Some neighbors are delighted and others are confused,” Riddell smiles. “It’s definitely an experiment in urban living.”

There are still openings in Riddell’s class, as well as other courses in the college’s Sustainable Technology program. Minimum enrollment is necessary for the summer classes to be offered. “We’re offering three online courses, which is more convenient for some people,” says Walker.

Openings are available in a number of classes including Sustainable Overview, Residential Electric, The New Green Economy and Entrepreneurial Management courses. Though the courses can be taken with the goal of receiving a Sustainable Technology certification, Walker stresses the classes are standalone and will enlighten and assist anyone interested in the burgeoning field. “There’s a sustainable niche in every business today, and a strong entrepreneurial component to Sustainable Technology. These courses bring flexibility and adaptability to any career path,” Walker concludes.

Meanwhile, Riddell studies the sleeping loft in her Tiny House. “How do I build stairs that aren’t a ladder?” she opines.

Classes begin June 10. For information on the Sustainable Tech program, click here, email Walker at owalker@mendocino.edu, or phone (707) 468-3224.

Craig Barnett of Fort Bragg was on his way to check in with his probation officer and stopped at a second-hand store where one can often find a good deal on any number of useful things. On this occasion Mr. Barnett found a tool loggers often use to tighten down a rope on a load where steel cable isn’t necessary.

Barnett is a logger by profession and recognized the tool as a rope lock, something he would either use himself or offer to his employer, Anderson Logging of Fort Bragg. The problem arose when he reached the Ten Mile Court in Fort Bragg, where the probation office is located; he couldn’t get past security with the rope lock and since he was on foot, he couldn’t leave it in his vehicle. So he hid it in the bushes.

Mental health services in Mendocino County are at best very limited and underfunded, and several high-profile examples of inadequate responses have come to light in recent months and years. The question — or more accurately the done deal — before the Board of Supervisors last May 21 was whether privatizing or contracting out Mental Health Services is an improvement.

Several things make us skeptical of the contracts the Board approved, not the least of them the fact that County School Superintendent Paul Tichinin and a member of his Special Ed staff thought the privatization was a great idea.

Tanya Ridino

The Clean Water Act lawsuit that aims to halt construction of the California Department of Transportation’s current version of the Willits Bypass will be heard in a San Francisco federal court on June 21st. Filed by the Willits Environmental Center, the Redwood chapter of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Protection Information Center against CalTrans, the Federal Highway Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the suit aims to compel these agencies to examine less damaging and costly ways of addressing regional traffic problems and traffic problems in Willits, and to examine the legitimacy of CalTrans’ mitigation plan.