Off the Record

by Bruce Anderson

THE NUISANCE and damages portion of the lawsuit brought by Preserve Country Neighbors against Martin Milleck and Buck Guntly (aka Neighbors vs the Cold Creek Compost facility located in Potter Valley) started out with jury selection on Monday. The trial is to last eight days. Presiding is Judge La Casse who anticipated the jury would be picked and both sides' opening statements completed by the end of the first day. However, motions brought by Neighbors' attorney, Pano Stephens, and by the Milleck-Guntley attorney, Jenny Chandler (from Jared Carter's Ukiah law firm), took up a couple of hours. La Casse was rather harsh in his rulings against most of Neighbors' motions, but he did spare us all a trip out to see the "sanitized" operation as proposed by Chandler.
        The jury was finally fully selected about 4:30 to everyone's relief, especially those who would lose eight days' worth of wages if they had been chosen. Mike Sweeney of the Mendocino County Solid Waste Authority, who orchestrated a $500,000 public money loan for the compost operation before it had any permit to operate in 1995, is scheduled to be put on the stand.
        While only two potential jurors admitted they had ever read about Cold Creek Compost in the newspaper, several voiced strong opinions about the operation. The best one was a juror who bellered, "There is absolutely no way I'd believe anything Michael Sweeney says." Full report next week. —RW

MICHAEL ROSS REES, 50, of Fort Bragg, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in state prison and a $5,000 fine for the possession of heroin for sale. Agents of the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force served a search warrant on Rees' resident in Noyo Harbor on November 6, 2003, and arrested Rees, who has been in custody since then. Seized during the search were 42 grams of heroin and items associated with the packaging and sale of drugs. He also was in possession of 47 methadone pills, hypodermic syringes, and over $6,000 in cash. Rees has five prior felony convictions and last went to prison from Mendocino County in 1996 for possession of stolen property. The judge found that Rees' prior record warranted the maximum term of punishment for this offense, but told the defendant that he appeared to be an upstanding citizen when he was not using drugs based on the many character reference letters received by the judge prior to sentencing. Rees has made his living as a commercial fisherman for over 30 years.

SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED. Partly confirmed anyway. I'd said that Pam Elizondo might defeat Bill Meyers in the Green Party primary to see which Green would run against corporate incumbent Mike Thompson for the 1st District congressional seat. I said I thought it likely that the Democrats had given Elizondo the money to run against Meyers because Meyers, one-on-one against Thompson, and with a Republican in the race, might draw enough votes from disaffected Democrats to dump Congressman Mike, a mediocrity who should have been dumped years ago.

MEYERS is an active Green, Elizondo is not. Meyers has successfully run for public office, Elizondo has not. (Meyers is a member of the Point Arena School Board.) Meyers is a serious person, Elizondo is not. Meyers is a man, Elizondo is a woman. Meyers is Meyers, Elizondo sounds Hispanic.

SO MEYERS GOT P-CEED. Big time. Middle-class white guy, uncool by definition, lost to a whacked-out female with a Mexican-sounding surname. Lots of libs vote gender, lots of libs vote race. A woman with a Mexican-sounding name is going to get a lot of votes on the Northcoast solely for gender-race reasons. If the Democrats had taken Eileen Wournos, the famous serial killer, and re-named her Elizondo Lopez, Wournos would have defeated Meyers in the Green primary. They'd have voted for Wournos even if they knew who she was — especially if they knew who she was. The reasoning of the lock-step people would have been, "Any woman who knocks off 19 males is my kinda feminist."

THE NORTHCOAST is America's PC rural headquarters. (Vermont runs a distant second.) 1st Congressional Greenies didn't know Elizondo from a roach clip. They didn't know Meyers either because they made no effort to find out and Meyers' fellow Greenies did nothing to help him.

ELIZONDO, a Laytonville-area pot grower, is a recreational political candidate who only appears at election time. She's run as a Peace and Freedom Party candidate, she's run as a Reform Party candidate. She runs for office on the off chance she'll get her name in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

THIS ELECTION, Elizondo somehow managed to put up $500 cash to oppose Meyers in the Green primary. I suspect the Democrats gave her the money. Elizondo, who's been on welfare for as many years as she's been a dope grower, wouldn't put up $500 of her own even if she had it. Which she doesn't. What she has is her gender and a Mexican-sounding name, which is all she needed to give the Democrat incumbent another free electoral ride.

WHY WOULD THE DEMOCRATS fund Elizondo? Because Thompson, whose only enthusiastic support in this area comes from the emphatically un-Green wine industry and, of course, public employees, is vulnerable to a Green challenge from a smart, presentable candidate coming at Thompson from his left. Thompson's support in the district ranges from tepid to lukewarm among most registered Democrats; among the small percentage of people who pay attention, Thompson is Ultra-Hack. Republicans put no money into the 1st District Congressional race because they're delighted with Thompson. Congressman Mike's positions on the issues, insofar as they're discernible, are far enough to the right not to alarm the big boys. Congressman Mike is greatly admired at the Press Democrat, always a sure sign of political decadence. Thompson is for Thompson, Chesbro for Chesbro, Shoemaker for Shoemaker, Colfax for Colfax, and what else is new on the Northcoast?

THE UPSHOT is that Elizondo will pull a third of the protest votes the articulate Meyers would have pulled from Democrats who know that Thompson and the Democrats are more of the same. The Greens will continue not to influence public policy on the Northcoast. Worse, every time Elizondo gets on KZYX or KMUD, or makes an actual appearance among the non-medicated, the Green Party will be confirmed in public opinion as the party of the nut balls.

DISCREDITING any and all challenges from the left is an ongoing project of the Thompson Democrats of the Northcoast — Richard Shoemaker, Joe Louis Wildman, David Colfax (a self-alleged Marxist, of all things!), David Nelson, Val Muchowski, Kendall Smith, Barry Vogel, and Rachel Binah. These folks do the heavy lifting for the Mendocino County Democrats, as do their media gofers at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and what passes for our public radio station.

(EXCUSE ME! Something's happened! Just as I typed in the gruesome names of the Democratic Party's lib lab enforcers listed above, the birds ordinarily flocked around my feeder suddenly took flight! Simultaneously, an unnaturally dark cloud obscured the sun! Two children next door have begun weeping, and the daffodils on my porch all dropped their heads as if in choreographed mourning! )

SOUTHERN HUMBOLDT COUNTY (surprise!) put Elizondo over the top. Pam pulled 1,223 HumCo votes to Meyers' 810, enough to finish Meyers off in the entire district. Here in Mendocino County Meyers racked up 493 votes to Elizondo's 359. She beat him by a few votes in Lake, Sonoma, Del Norte, and Yolo counties, but in Napa County Meyers pulled 138 votes to Elizondo's 105.

THE 1ST DISTRICT is gerrymandered to keep Democrats of the Thompson type in office forever. Challenges from the left will always be Elizondo-ed.

MOST PERTINENT political question of the week: "If Kerry is the answer, what's the question?" A man named Blum was the person who posited the inquiry on a website called "killinghope.com." Bush-Kerry definitely does that, I'd say, just as Mendolib does it here, and won't it be interesting to see if Kucinich will throw in with Ralph when the Democrats anoint Bush Lite in June?

COULDN'T HELP but notice the other day that the Fort Bragg branch of the Savings Bank employs a lot of women. "Is this an all-female bank?" I asked the young woman counting the pennies I'd piled in front of her. "The manager is a man," she said, "but there are 15 of us." Shouldn't be a prob getting him out then, should there? I remarked. "He probably does feel surrounded most of the time," the teller conceded.

HERE'S a perfect example of how Mendocino County's courts are managed: The other morning at Ten Mile Court in Fort Bragg, it became obvious that several defendants were monolingual, their one lingual being Spanish. They were all working people who had jobs to get back to but their cases were put over until — brace yourselves — a court-certified translator could drive to Fort Bragg from Redding, 3-4 hours northeast. The Redding translator arrived at 3pm. Ten Mile hasn't had its own translator for months because the previous one was fired. (Someone had finally noticed that what was being translated into English was not what had been said in Spanish.) There's a translator on duty in the County Courthouse in Ukiah, but Ukiah has a huge load of Mexican defendants in need of translators, and there's not one to spare for Fort Bragg. But one would think a back-up translator would be on-call in Fort Bragg, but the golly gee Mendocino County only has two court administrators and they can't possibly think of everything for $70 grand a year, can they?

ALL THE RIGHT people groused about Johnny Pinches when Pinches was a supervisor, but Pinches was the last supervisor we've had who instinctively protected the taxpayer against the spendthrifts presently running Mendocino County straight into permanent bankruptcy. Sparing no expense on their own comfort and welfare, the most ominous thing the profligate five sitting supervisors have done is to imperil the viability of the County's employee pension fund. As Pinches points out, there's an imbalance of employees at the retirement end of the fund, and not enough younger ones paying into the system which, of course, is an imbalance made worse by the County's deteriorating return on its pension fund investments.

MENDOLIB, A TRUE STORY. "Hello Bruce; I read in last week's paper where you wrote that the Tarbells of Caspar voted for Republican Patty Campbell over progressive Rod Jones in the 2004 supervisorial race. Knowing the Tarbells well, I knew this just couldn't be true, so I call Jim and asked, and he affirmed that they both voted for their friend Rod Jones. It just wouldn't make any sense for progressives like them to want Campbell over Jones. Where did you get your info, Bruce, that the Tarbells voted for Campbell? Big error. Spreading such lies doesn't help your shaky credibility at all. Tom Wodetski, Albion."

LIES? Credibility? Why would I lie about midgets? Could it be that The Little People had lost faith in me?

I FIRED OFF an intemperate e-mail to Wodo, a man I like on a personal basis probably because I seldom see him. His associates? Well, when the shooting starts they would be wise to double-reinforce their front doors.

I REPLIED: "If you and the Tarbells are so concerned about my credibility — and I'll put mine up against theirs any time, certainly — why not complain at the time of the alleged lie? I have no prob apologizing to wronged persons, and I don't deliberately spread misinformation. It pisses me off mightily to be casually libeled by people like the Tarbells who, so far as I'm concerned, have never stood for much of anything around here......In the disastrous 8 years of Campbell on the board I never heard a single word from a single CoastLib about her many reactionary votes. Which is typical around here, I must say. I should add the Tarbells are the ones spreading 'lies' if they didn't long ago correct my error about their vote. I saw them in person recently at an Alliance event; why didn't they say something then? What this kind of slo-mo retroactive bullshit is really about is that the Tarbell political type — chickenshit liberal — would rather roll their eyes, tell everyone they never read the AVA because (fill in the blank...) The Tarbells are unconvincing, to say the least. To me, it's simply confirmation of ancient suspicions. If local libs are going to hold themselves up as representing something better than Mike Thompson, they need to be better than Thompson. I don't see it anywhere in Ecotopia, frankly. Our institutions are reactionary by any objective standard, and there's no real opposition to anything anywhere on the Northcoast. Please forward this letter to the Tarbells and ask them to comment. I'm writing it up for next week and will apologize to the Tarbells if I've been wrong. Bruce Anderson, AVA."

WODETSKI, the very picture of disinterestedness, sent this e-mail to the Tarbells: "Hello Jim (Tarbell). Bruce asked me to forward this on to you. Please let him know you actually endorsed Rod and signed his endorsement form in Roanne's kitchen. Tom (Wodetski)

FROM ROANNE WITHERS: "Guys, As you both know I helped manage Rod's campaign. I have no idea how the Tarbells voted. What they did do, however, is refuse to endorse Rod, do a get-together for him in Caspar, or anything else helpful to his candidacy. The Tarbells have been over many years, and were then, what we call in the biz a 'key endorsement.' A key endorsement is one that brings along many other folks. The reason given was they needed Patti's support for the Caspar headlands buyout. This was their priority, not Rod's election. In the end Ron carried the Caspar area, but their failure to step up to the plate was inexcusable. There was no such thing as an 'endorsement form' in Rod's campaign. We had a fund raising letter. The Tarbells were asked but would not sign. I did circulate the county elections form (In Lieu of Petition) which satisfies state election law for X amount (I've forgotten exactly how many were/are required) of signatures of bona fide registered voters that a candidate must have in order to be placed on the ballot. Hell, I stood in front of Safeway in the rain and gathered these from random, totally uninvolved shoppers so that Rod could qualify for the ballot at the last minute. Jim may have come to my house and signed this form (I don't remember) but so did several others, including several Republican friends of mine. In no way can signing the In Lieu of Petition be construed as an 'endorsement.' I went back through my Jones campaign box of 2000. I saved all the internal notes of the campaign. My notes show Judy and Jim as key endorsements, but notes say they would not endorse Rod. I also called Lee Edmundson who managed the campaign. His memory is the same as mine. The Tarbells hid during the campaign. Their reason was they needed Patti's support for the Caspar land buyout."

AND I'D SAY the Tarbells were desperate not to offend Campbell simply because the Caspar Headlands happens to be their viewshed. To hell with them and Wodo, too.

MARK 'The Major' SCARAMELLA: "Even if the Tarbells voted for Jones, and who knows if they did or not, the point is that we had legitimate sources indicating that they didn't and reported it, which is what newspapers are supposed to do. If the Tarbells were insulted or wronged, they should have said something at the time. Of course. But for Wodetski to bring this up now with gratuitous insults like 'spreading such lies' and 'shaky credibility' — especially after the AVA's given him lots of free space and publicity and promotion over the years for his and the Tarbells' Alliance For Democracy — is another indication of how low down the coast liberals tend to be. Meanwhile, they give free passes to the Advocate/Beacon/Press Democrat/KZYX and don't make any effort to engage in County politics except with their behind-the-scenes treachery. I wish they'd all stay in their self-admiring little hidey holes and leave us alone."

WHY, THANK YOU, MAJOR. Couldn't have said it better myself. The Major has to type press releases, which I seldom read unless the first sentence seems to promise satiric possibilities in the rest of it. But what really, really annoys us on an ongoing basis about the Northcoast's self-certified "progressives" is that so many of them are so goddamn dumb. And pretentious. And boring. And humorless. I can't even imagine any other group of "progressives" in any other country in the world paying their way in to listen to Julia Woo-Woo Butterfly. Or that other ding, Starhawk. Both of them, needless to say, packed 'em in in Fort Bragg under Alliance For Democracy auspices. Of course there isn't a structure in Anderson Valley that would hold the crowd that would turn out to hear Baba Rum Ring Rang Dass. Ukiah? So much as whisper "An Evening of Pure Bullshit with Michael and Justine Toms," and the Ukiah PD would have to call the CHP for help with crowd control. Put all five of these charlatans on one bill in Willits and traffic on 101 would be backed up to Cloverdale to the south and Eureka to the north. Which is all a way of saying that if you can't think clearly enough to distinguish ca-ca from coo-coo you ought to shut the hell up.