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Valley People (November 11, 2020)

THE THREE INCUMBENTS on the Anderson Valley Community Services District board were all significantly ahead of newcomer Stacey Rose when the preliminary vote results were announced last week. Challenger, Stace the Ace Rose, nevertheless garnered a respectable 11% of the roughly1500 votes cast. 

BOONVILLE'S POLL WORKER, KATHLEEN McKENNA reports on the Anderson Valley polling place at the Boonville Fairgrounds: “I was expecting a very slow day because all voters got ballots by mail and about half had already submitted their ballots by Tuesday. However, the day turned out to be typically busy. In a normal year we always have 20-30 people who got mail-in ballots, but then come in to vote without bringing their ballot. Their ballots are provisional ballots, which require more paperwork and time. This year, since everybody was a mail-in voter, we had 81 of those. Some claimed they never got a ballot, but most just didn't have it. There were 51 ballots issued to people who surrendered their mail-in ballots in exchange for a regular ballot that would be counted sooner on election night. As usual, we had lots coming in to drop off completed ballots. Also, the drop box in the fairgrounds office had 90 additional ballot envelops in it. There were a few new voter registrants and several who announced that they were first-time voters. The day went really fast. There were only a couple of times that we did not have any ‘customers’ in the room. What was different this time was the Plexiglas barriers, masks, gloves, alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer, etc. that the County provided us with." 

MARSHALL NEWMAN wonders about this yesteryear valley night spot. 

Precursor to the Last Resort? I would guess the old Last Resort. I don't know of any other structure that might have housed this place.

I have no idea regarding its location - maybe in the building that was the Last Resort in the early 1960s?

PS. The ad for the Last Resort was in the Ukiah Daily Journal. Ukiah News was a header for the website.

AV FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA REPORTS: “We responded to a two vehicle traffic collision at the intersection of Philo-Greenwood Rd and Hwy 128 on Tuesday. A sedan traveling west bound on Highway 128 was slowing down to turn onto Greenwood Road when a truck traveling the same direction decided to pass. The pickup truck hit the car in the intersection as it started to make the turn. The driver of the truck was not injured but the driver of the sedan was transported to the Ukiah hospital for minor injuries. Both were reported to be locals. 

HELP THE CSD REC COMMITTEE improve local recreational opportunities

On Tuesday, November 17th at 4pm, there will be a Zoom meeting of the AVCSD Recreation Committee. Public input is being sought for ideas about how to spend a grant that has been awarded by the California Parks Department. The grant is from the Per Capita Program of the Parks and Water Bond Act(Prop 68), which was passed in June, 2018. This program grants $74M statewide and $177,952 for the AVCSD and each of seven other agencies in Mendocino County. Ideas that are submitted will be ranked by criteria that includes, number of people served, cost, feasibility and sustainability. More information at parks.ca.gov. Zoom ID for the meeting is 245 263 9282.

For more information call the CSD Office at 895-3075.

ERNIE PARDINI nicely sums up the pre-election noise: “With the upcoming elections coming in a few days, there is an endless parade of campaign ads in the media. Candidates ranging from hopeful dogcatchers to incumbent senators buying time on television (they do still call them televisions, don't they?) Space in the newspapers or on the internet, and posters strung out along our highways. But I've realized that after watching and reading endless politicians and hopefuls, they all have one thing in common. Rather than tell the voting public what they would do for the voters and make an effort to win them over by making them believe they were the person best equipped to work in their best interests, instead, they spend most of their ad time finding fault with their opponent and pointing it out to the public. I don't want to vote for some rat bastard that would sell out his own mother to get elected. There are no good choices these days. Our whole two party system of government has been adapted perfectly to fit the needs of the rich. It is used to keep us warring with each other and keeps us divided ,each party promoting a cause that will take our attention away from the fact , while we're fighting amongst ourselves, that politicians from both parties are negotiating their next payoff with some corporate head for his vote. Behind the scenes It's business as usual. Until and when a strong third party emerges, you may as well not vote because nothing's gonna change. There, that's it for me in politics for a while. I refuse to harm friendships by debating something that isn't going to change.

DOWN BUT NOT OUT: Library Lines. The AV Community Library has been closed since mid March due to COVID. We hope to be able to reopen in early Spring, when the weather warms up. You can return any books you checked out, to the drop boxes at the Philo Post Office or Fairgrounds office during business hours. Please do not leave any donated books. Of course there will not be any fines for the books you still have. Hope everyone stays well. Thank you, Liz Dusenberry

RAIN? I almost couldn't believe my sensory intake apparatuses, but at exactly 6:46am this morning there was audible, tangible moisture falling from the sky, a three-minute timpani on the office's tin overhang. And, a few minutes later, as if the sky gods were telling us the first burst was for real, a second three minutes of dust settling air sweetener. Best of all, maybe enough over the showery day to end fire season for this fraught year. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY SUMMIT, the youngest 75-year-old guy you'll see in all of Mendocino County, and just about old enough to qualify as patriarch of the Summit-Waggoner clan once based in Boonville where, for two decades, they made Anderson Valley High School among the most feared small school sports powers on the Northcoast.

Summit with daughters

“SWISS” was the unfailingly friendly guy who often manned the counter at the late Pic 'N Pay in central Boonville. I say “late” because it burned down a year ago, taking the legendary Boonville Lodge with it. “Swiss” now works at what most of us recall as the Water Wheel Market on South State in Ukiah, next door to the site of the now gone Water Trough, a watering hole every bit as legendary as the old Boonville Lodge as Mendocino County continues its dispiriting blanding down, way down. “Swiss” is a native of the deep Himalayas. He mentioned once that on his rare visits home he must pass through Afghanistan, a journey he made seem as simple as Boonville to Philo. His real name is far beyond my ability to either remember or pronounce, but he seems happy to simply go by “Swiss” rather than try to pound it into ethnocentric American skulls. (A friend of mine, upon meeting a French national, and having no idea where the guy came from, asked, “How's the fishing over there?”) Anyway, “Swiss” told me last week that Pic 'N Pay will be raised from its ashes and that the Shankat Ali family will be back to run it. (They were known locally as Shawn and Mrs. Shawn and, among the 'necks, Al Qaeda. Very nice family most of us miss.) The owner of the lot, Mr. Johnson of Sonoma has always been incommunicado, but the large lot has a pad, a good well and a functioning sewage system so we shall see what we shall see.

ON THE SUBJECT of Boonville's battered downtown, it would be real nice if our Community Services District would place several trash cans from the Disco Ranch on the north and on the south just past the presently vacant repro of the Tindall Market. But, but, but.... But won't all the deadbeats fill them up three minutes after they're in place? And who's going to pay to haul the trash away? The ongoing Mendo-wide prob is the steady rise in disposal prices, presently so high that lots of people simply can't afford them. The days when we simply drove up Mountain View Road and tossed whatever over the side are long gone and, most of us would agree, was not a particularly healthy way to offload everything from ancient cans of paint to deer carcasses. The old Boonville Dump was a literal dump, closed after two elderly women managed to tumble over the side and on into the perpetually burning mass of who knows what. The present transfer station rests on the old dump, much of it these days a pleasant vista of healthy new trees and bee-friendly brush.

WELL, who'll pay? CSD, that's who. They tell us that 74 grand for recreation just walked in their door. They're responsible for the local infrastructure, and surely there's room in their budget to keep Boonville trash-free. Lots of locals haul their trash over the hill to Ukiah where disposal prices are a lot lower. Maybe CSD could do its own hauling via some of the people making that run regularly now. We’ll never be Healdsburg if we don’t pick up the pace, Boonville, but Geyserville is doable!

AND A PUBLIC BATHROOM? Should have one downtown. I suggest the perfectly antiseptic one at the Boonville Fire House and a sign pointing visitors to it and the restrooms at the Fairgrounds just west of the Fairgrounds' world record number of handicap parking spaces, the most parking set asides relative to our population of any small town in America.

EVERY GEEZER reading this will agree that when we're on the road we're looking for men's facilities every two hours on the hour. The restrooms at the Healdsburg Police Station were open round-the-clock prior to the plague kicking in. We need similar accommodations here.

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