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Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021

Cooler Temps | 65 New Cases | Recall Rejected | Babyface Arson | Jesus Soon? | Water Crisis | Fair Weekend | Unvaxed Employees | Open Carry | Philo Produce | Little River | Old Boonville | Ed Notes | Cost Comparison | Supe Letters | Successful Marriages | Cove Cleanup | Free Testing | Yesterday's Catch | Kelp Comeback | Never Whatever | Interesting Time | Quarter Brains | Religious Journey | Croc Tank | Melville's House | Riot 2 | Corporate State | Under Attack | Youth Doom | Donner Dome | Altruistic Species

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COOLER and more temperate conditions will end the work week. A more substantial upper low arrives late Friday, bringing beneficial rain to the area. (NWS)

YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 102°, Yorkville 99°, Boonville 99°, Fort Bragg 69°

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65 NEW COVID CASES and 2 more deaths reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

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MENDO OPPOSES NEWSOM RECALL BY 70% in early election results. Statewide early results show the Newsom recall going down by about 2-1. Of the also-rans Larry Elder got the most Mendo votes with Bernie Bro Joel Ventresca beating Republican John Cox and the other Republicans.

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20-YEAR-OLD UKIAH MAN ARRESTED FOR STARTING THE HOPKINS FIRE

Johnson

Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Captain Greg Van Patten announced at a public update this evening that law enforcement has arrested 20-year-old Devin Johnson for arson. Law enforcement accuses him of purposefully starting the Hopkins Fire, the blaze that destroyed multiple homes and has forced hundreds to evacuate. 

kymkemp.com/2021/09/14/20-year-old-ukiah-man-arrested-for-starting-the-hopkins-fire-which-burned-numerous-structures-threatened-hundreds-of-lives/

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FORT BRAGG CITY COUNCIL DECLARES A STAGE 4 WATER CRISIS 

The Fort Bragg City Council declared a Stage 4 Water Crisis at its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday night. A Stage 4 Water Crisis targets a 30-40% decrease in seasonal water use based on the most recent year in which water conservation measures were not required (2019). Stage 4 mandatory water restrictions include all of the following: 

  • Wasteful use of water is prohibited. All water usage must be for beneficial uses.
  • Water use shall stay confined to the customer’s property and is not allowed to run off onto
    adjoining property, public sidewalks, streets or parking lots. Water use will not exceed the point
    of saturation.
  • No landscape irrigation shall be allowed.
  • No water from the city water system shall be used to refill swimming pools, artificial lakes, ponds
    or streams.
  • Water use for ornamental ponds and fountains is prohibited unless required to maintain existing
    vegetation or to sustain existing fish/animal life.
  • Washing of automobiles or equipment shall only be done at a commercial establishment that
    uses recycled, reclaimed water or private well water.
  • All water leaks shall be repaired within twenty-four hours of notification by the utilities
    department or discovery by the owner, or service may be discontinued.
  • Base water allocations, as established by the City pursuant to Section 14.06.030 for the
    appropriate customer class may be implemented to establish a maximum water usage
    limitation.
  • Washing of streets, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, buildings and other hardscape surfaces
    is prohibited, except with an approved exemption form.
  • Water cannot be used for construction purposes such as dust control, compaction or trench
    jetting, except with an approved exemption form.
  • Restaurants shall serve water only upon specific request.
  • Discontinued use of hot tubs and in-room spa tubs at hotels/motels and lodging establishments.
  • Hotels and lodging establishments shall not provide patrons with stays of three days or less
    daily laundering of towels, sheets and linens. Lodges must prominently display notice of this requirement in each room.

Questions and concerns about the Stage 4 Water Crisis can be directed to waterconservation@fortbragg.com or by calling the Department of Public Works at (707) 961-2823 Ext. 131. Additional information on Stage 4 Water Crisis and other helpful water conservation guidance is available on the City’s Water Conservation webpage. Water conservation kits are available for free at the farmers market every Wednesday from 3-5pm. 

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THE FAIR IS HAPPENING!

Dr. Coren, Mendocino County Public Health Officer has given us approval to have the fair and You ALL know what to do to be SAFE: Wear a mask, especially indoors, Maintain social distance.

"Freaky Fruits" and "The One the Got Away" is ON: just bring in your entries until Sunday 9/19 at 1:30 in the Ag Building - and there's a $100 prize!

Enjoy the parade outside and safe Sunday 9/19 at noon.

(Donna Pierson-Pugh)


IMAGES FROM FAIRS PAST...

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COUNTY NOTES: YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN INACTION

by Mark Scaramella

During the Covid update on Tuesday, staff told the Supervisors that about 30% of the County's approximately 1200 employees (or about 360 of them) remain unvaccinated.

Supervisor Dan Gjerde asked about somehow charging a premium to the unvaxed to cover weekly testing in lieu of vaccination as many large organizations are now doing. Assistant CEO Darcie Antle told the Board that testing that many employees could cost well over $1 million and would require a new phone app specialized to do vax tracking to make sure that the unvaxed were indeed tested. Ms. Antle also told the Board that testing that many people, many of whom don't live in Ukiah where testing is available, would be a "logistics challenge" and there's a good chance that the county doesn't have enough test kits to do weekly testing for that many people.

County Counsel Christian Curtis told the Board that there are all sorts of legal and union meet and confer complications involved with charging a premium to the unvaxed among county employees. (Among them a large number of obese, unhealthy people.)

Supervisor Haschak suggested postponing the testing requirement until the federal government issues new guidelines on the subject whenever that may be.

AT NO TIME did anyone ask what could be done to increase the vaccination rate for County employees. Could the Wellness Cart be wheeled from desk to desk pre-loaded with paperwork and vaccines to put each unvaxed employee on the spot in front of their peers to either get vaxed or sign a waiver and agreement to pay for their own testing? Could they threaten, like they did with the department heads, to dock the pay of anyone who infects a co-worker? Could they grant paid time off to get vaxed? Anything? Nope.

AS USUAL, the Supervisors and the CEO agreed with Supervisor Haschak’s brilliant idea to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but maybe do some research on the subject while waiting for Poor Old Joe & Co.

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THIS WEEK AT BLUE MEADOW FARM

Heirloom, Early Girl & Roma Tomatoes

Corno di Toro, Gypsy, Bell, Paprika Sweet Peppers

Padrons, Poblanos, Jalapenos, Georgia Flame Chilis

Eggplant, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Basil

Nancy’s Broccoli & Cauliflower Starts

Linda’s Italian Prune Plums

Zinnias & last Sunflowers.

Blue Meadow Farm, 3301 Holmes Ranch Road, Philo, (707) 895-2071

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A READER WONDERS: "I was screwing around on the Internet looking for story ideas when something piqued my interest. In 2017 (couldn't find a more recent reference) Little River apparently had the lowest per capita income of any USCensus-designated town of its size. So who are these impoverished people and where do they live? Real estate listings in Little River show two options: The Woods, a senior manufactured-home community where the HOA is a grand a month, and cliff-hanging mansions in the 3-5 million $ range. I found a couple references to a downtown of sorts but not a single photo of such a place. The homeless don't make it into the census so I'm flummoxed by this. Wassup?"

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BOONVILLE POSTCARD with 1925 postmark (via Marshall Newman)

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ED NOTES

STILL SCAMMING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Please help the starving Bari Cult with expenses incurred at their looming Mendocino County-sponsored be-in: facebook.com/groups/judibari/permalink/10157999971725059/

RE THE FORTHCOMING BARI CULT EVENTS, a reader writes: “I think what bothers me as much as anything is that they are using the Mendocino County Museum as their stage. The museum may not be the innovative place it once was but it is largely responsible and reliable, I think. This event is a big circle jerk. It is not an honest examination of the time, and what might have happened. No Susan Faludi. No nothing. Pathetic. The GoFundMe is outrageous given the $4 million payout to these people. Going to pick up the tab for Dennis Cunningham, who raked in hundreds of thousands from this? Truly, disgusting.”

ED NOTE: The Bari Cult has always been absolutely shameless, as was Bari herself in many ways. She was an ace fundraiser, and many funds were raised under false pretenses, such as the fundraising for the federal suit she wrote for Cunningham, co-edited with the feds to exclude any and all witnesses who might say the ex-husband did it. The fed suit fundraising pitch, which went out to the unwitting around the country, promised to plant lots of trees if Bari-Cherney won the suit. They won, but nary a tree was ever planted. Instead, the money went to Bari's already wealthy daughters and to Cherney, who bought a dope farm near Garberville. For all their grand talk about “speaking truth to power,” these people are cowards, never appearing anywhere to publicly argue the bombing case, and never appearing anywhere at all unless in a giggling, look-at-us group. Worse than the County sponsoring these scammers, we'll soon get hours of recordings of these events on pseudo-public radio KZYX where Alicia Bales, one of the primary cult members, is “program manager.” No mention, of course, of the dissenting views on the Bari bombing can be mentioned on our local “free speech” radio station. If you've ever wondered what Stalinism looked and felt like, take a look at these people coming up at the County Museum in Willits.

PS. You may recall that Bari, after firing Susan B. Jordan for the thought crime of asking, “How about the ex-husband here?” in came the infinitely pliable, slo mo Cunningham. Susan B. also at Bari's request, applied to the FBI for limited immunity from prosecution, which the FBI denied. And no member of Bari's family has ever publicly demanded that the bomber be found and prosecuted.

SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE. Monday, there was an unedifying news clip of thousands of people marching across the Brooklyn Bridge chanting “Fuck Joe Biden,” coming to rest at City Hall to protest vaccine mandates on Monday as Mayor Bill de Blasio's policy requiring venues to demand proof of the shot went into effect. Worse, the demonstration was organized by a teachers group opposed to New York City's requirement that they be vaccinated against COVID-19. The city has also mandated that teachers and staff in the public schools are required to get at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by September 27. There is no test-out option, nor are there exemptions for religious or medical reasons. Those teachers who refuse to get vaccinated would be laid off. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents the city's educators, has said it is seeking arbitration to fight the order.

A PASSERBY, noting that our old office is being dismantled, drove up to ask what was going on. “You're not going out of business, are you?” No, I explained, last night some guys took off with the deck and were just hooking up the trailer to take it too when I caught them in the act. It was just before dawn and too dark to ID them. “I'll bet it was the same bastards who stole my bicycle,” she said. “I hope you catch them.”

WHY AM I not surprised? The County of Mendo employs about 1200 people, 30 percent of whom aren't vaccinated. That's about 360 people, a goodly slice of the work force who are indifferent to the welfare of their workmates, themselves and their own families.

ACCORDING to an in-person voter, the turnout at the Boonville Fairgrounds polling place for the Newsom Recall, “was very light.” A light turnout supposedly works to the advantage of the Magas.

LOTS OF PEOPLE are understandably upset about the many illegal marijuana grows underway in the county, not only in historically lawless areas like Covelo but the traditionally more staid precincts of neighborhoods like Anderson Valley and Comptche, both of which are long-time pot producing precincts but not to the overwhelming extent they are this season. But leave it to supply and demand to reduce the number of grows for next year. Local growers can't even unload last year's dope, and this year we've got Bulgarians in Covelo and Serbs in Comptche with huge grows and not so much as a green card among the lot of them. It's sad. Both wine grapes and marijuana are heavily chemicalized and require lots of water, which a lot of these outsized hoop houses get from whatever water is closest, environment be damned. Our watershed is taking its most severe beating ever, but they say Mother Nature bats last. Well, Ma. The eco-bases are loaded… 

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LETTERS TO THE SUPERVISORS

CEO NOT PROGRESSIVE?

Dear Supervisors—

I appreciate the hours of deliberation and thought that you have put into the new pot ordinance and believe it is a big improvement. However, I do not like the allowance of growsites even on previously cultivated rangelands. Can you drop this divisive portion of the ordinance and keep the rest without recalling the whole thing? I think that would largely appease the critics. I would not like to see this go to a vote—too many special interests are involved. Also, we desperately need more enforcement and a will to enforce, IMO. 

Respectfully—

Suzanne Pletcher, 

Ukiah

PS. I urge you to hire a new and progressively minded CEO from outside the County rather than promoting from within. Our County needs and deserves someone with progressive ideas about open space, tourism, leadership and teamwork—more in line with the City of Ukiah—and I don’t see that mindset in any of the people in line to replace the current CEO. Sincerely—Suzanne 

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Board of Supervisors 

RE: Streamlining the Permit Application Process 

Good Morning, 

My name is Jude Thilman and I’m speaking on behalf of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, MCA, to the issue of Portal efficacy, as referenced in Agenda Item 5h. Our cultivators applying for permits are bringing problems to our attention. We want to share a few of them to hopefully help expedite the permit process. 

First, a general Recommendation: MCA strongly urges the County to provide an Appendix G #15168 checklist that can be accessed through the County website. That would help a lot. Here are some specific examples of issues that have stalled, or sidelined, applications. 

1. Discrepancies between the current “acceptable” language suggested on the County website vs language previously approved in County Appendix G templates. Please settle on, and provide, standard language as required in the application. 2. An applicant explained language on the application form as “It is indicated in the Cultivation and Operations Plan” Staff responded “Cultivation and Operations Plan for which agency?” That stalled the application. 3. An applicant wrote “The site features an on-site domestic water well and on-site septic system.” County staff replied that “The use of ‘domestic’ here gives the impression that there may be a separate commercial water source.” That delayed the application processing. 4. An applicant planted over 20 cedar trees to block the view of a large illegal grow on land next to them. Staff acknowledged seeing the trees on a satellite picture, but mistakenly listed them as “additional canopy space.” The application was put on hold until Staff performs a site visit, which has proven to be very difficult to schedule. And staff is unwilling to accept photos as proof that this is not canopy. 5. One applicant’s primary power source is listed in County records as a generator. However, all permit renewals since 2018 include proof of their PG&E installation and its use as the primary power source. Staff needs to simply update and correct the old inaccurate information. 

This all may seem somewhat trivial. But first of all, they are common problems. And more importantly, each time an application is rejected for format, grammar, punctuation, wording issues, outdated information -- that application is delayed. Once corrections have been submitted the application is placed at the bottom of the stack and must wait in line alongside new portal submissions and other applications in the queue. 

We ask you to please help “fix” this flawed process. 

Thank you for your kind attention. 

Mendocino Cannabis Alliance

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To: Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Re: Hip Camps Hip Camps Not Hip

Dear Board of Supervisors,

I am concerned about the increase if Hip Camps in our County. Hip Camps are like an Air BNB for tourists who want to camp. Private citizens set up campsites on their property that are then advertised and accessed through the Hip Camp site. These camps can be located in residential areas and in areas that may be heavily wooded. My concern is 2 fold:

Campers are allowed to build fires in these camps. While Hip Camp asks their Hosts to be aware of fire ordinances, sites advertise that campfires may be built in the camp. My understanding is that there is a campfire ban in the county. But I was able to go to the Calfire web page and fill out a form, watch a 2-minute video, complete an 8-question quiz and print out a campfire permit for my home in Albion. Additionally, my understanding is there is an exception for fires for the purpose of “heating and warming”. I can find no clear guidance in County documents regarding guidance for this practice. Talking with residents who have seen the campfires built by these tourists indicate that tourists are not fire savvy. Safety is only as good as the Host. A Host allowing fires on their property, to me, indicates a lack of good judgment and concern for the safety of their neighbors.

Secondly, how will these camps be monitored for safety and proper set up? In one camp trees were removed and streambeds were bulldozed through. Neighbors reached out to enforcement but it took 2 months of multiple problems with the camp host before action was taken. Code Enforcement is already overwhelmed. We have seen the failure of a complaint driven system with the proliferation of illegal cannabis grows. How can we keep the same thing from occurring with an overabundance of Hip Camps?

Possible suggestions could include: 1. An emergency ordinance banning all campfires in the County until the rainy season begins. Or at least clearer guidance as to what the campfire ban currently is; 2. Enforcement of the Bed tax: County could monitor the Hip campsite and be sure all camps were properly signed up with the County to pay their Bed tax. Not only is this a source of revenue but also lets Hosts know that they cannot fly under the radar; 3.Educating the Hosts that they are liable for any fires that begin on their property. I do not know if this is common knowledge for Hosts. Perhaps they would willingly consider prohibiting campfires (which they can do) if they understood the risk they were taking themselves if they allowed fires; 4. Partnering with Hip Camp to help with monitoring these sites. They want their sites to be safe and offer a good image for their business. It is a win win if participating camps are well run with attentive Hosts.

The County needs to think about the overall impact of a proliferation of these camps and the impact to water and land resources. We do not want another issue of too many campsites that cannot possibly be monitored such as the illegal cannabis grows. Let’s learn from our previous experience.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Marilyn Magoffin, Covelo/Albion

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www.rarehistoricalphotos.com

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CLEANING UP THE COVE

Coastal Cleanup Day At Arena Cove Sat Sept 18 9am-Noon

Arena Cove will be the site of a Coastal Cleanup Day this Saturday September 18, from 9am to Noon at Arena Cove. Bring gloves and sturdy shoes. Cleanup materials will be available at the site. Please follow all Covid19 precautions.

Help remove trash and plastic pollution at Arena Cove, as well as beautify the area. In 2019, more than 74,000 volunteers picked up more than 900,000 pounds of trash from beaches and waterways throughout California. To find a cleanup site near you: https://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/ccd/ccd.html

Coastal Cleanup Day

Saturday September 18 9am to Noon

Arena Cove, Point Arena

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FREE COVID TESTING Friday 9/17/2021 -- 9AM to 12PM

There will be free COVID testing at the Veteran's Building/City Hall at 451 School Street this Friday September 17 from 9am to 12pm. The testing is first come-first served.

No appointments are being taken but you will need to register in advance at: http://lhi.care/covidtesting to receive a client number. If you already have a number, bring it with you.

NOTE: This is not a drive-thru event. Please park on the north side of the building.

For any questions, call City Hall at 882-2122.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, September 14, 2021

Beacham, Bravo, Chavez, Cortinas

PARIS BEACHAM-VANDERPOOL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MARGARITO BRAVO-GARCIA, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI.

YOVANI CHAVEZ-CHAVEZ, Riverbank/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license.

ALEX CORTINAS, Ukiah. Marshal’s warrant.

Fonsen, Hall, Hinkle, Johnson

KELLY FONSEN, Willits. Domestic battery, battery with serious injury.

JOSHUA HALL, Fortuna. Failure to appear.

JIM HINKLE, Albany, Oregon/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, stolen vehicle.

DEVIN JOHNSON, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

Pilgram, Reid, Sandoval

MICAH PILGRAM, Point Arena. Burglary, stolen property, felon-addict with firearm, concealed weapon in vehicle with prior, probation revocation.

GEORGE REID, Panama City/Ukiah. DUI.

BRANDY SANDOVAL, Albany, Oregon/Ukiah. Vehicle theft.

Shealor, Slatten, Wyatt

AUSTIN SHEALOR, Ukiah. Burglary, controlled substance, conspiracy, county parole violation.

GLORIA SLATTEN, Redwood Valley. Burglary.

CHRISTIAN WYATT, Fort Bragg. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

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KELP FORESTS SURGE BACK ON PARTS OF THE NORTH COAST, With A Lesson About Environmental Stability

by Alastair Bland

An unexpected darkness has recently fallen over the seafloor of the Northern California coast – the shadows cast by bull kelp.

The giant marine alga nearly vanished after a perfect storm of environmental and ecological events, including a marine heatwave and a population boom of seaweed-eating sea urchins, disrupted the marine ecosystem between 2013 and 2015. Kelp forests collapsed by more than 90 percent in Northern California, and with them went both scenic appeal and marine biodiversity. 

Red abalone, which graze on kelp, starved in droves, and fish departed for deeper waters. What was left, and which persists in much of the region, is a bleak underwater landscape dominated by purple urchins and not much else. 

But this year the bull kelp forests of memory have surged back along parts of the Northern California coast. Areas that were completely devoid of kelp as recently as last winter are now marine jungles of tangled underwater stems and dense floating mats of fronds. James Ray, a California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist and kelp researcher, says the comeback seemed to begin in 2020 “with a little bump in kelp cover.” 

“Now we’re seeing a much bigger bump along much of the coast,” he says. 

The rapid resurgence, possibly the result of strong springtime upwelling of cold water, has other experts both delighted and a bit mystified. 

“The rebound of the forests in Sonoma and Mendocino counties has been surprising and profound considering how devastated they were just a few years ago,” says Franklin Moitoza, a graduate student at Humboldt State who, working with a team of collaborators, has closely tracked kelp forest health and recovery. He says he has seen pronounced kelp regrowth from Bodega Bay to Trinidad within the past year.

Kelp growing back in the midst of dense urchin colonies has challenged what many marine ecologists thought they knew about kelp forest ecosystems. By numerous expert accounts in the past five years, the North Coast’s bull kelp would not recover so long as sea urchins remained in dense numbers.

“Once an environment shifts into an urchin barren state, it tends to stay that way,” marine biologist Cynthia Catton, formerly of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told me in 2017. “Everything is pointing toward this being a long-term problem.”

Urchins aggressively eat marine vegetation and can live for decades, even after extinguishing their food supply. Under such circumstances, they have a tendency to overwhelm the environments they dominate – drab ecosystems that scientists call urchin barrens and which can persist for staggering periods of time. In the Aleutian Islands and Tasmania, urchin barrens replaced kelp forests decades ago and have remained ever since, and coastal Hokkaido is home to barrens that developed almost a century ago. It’s this gloomy fate that many marine biologists assigned to the Northern California coast. 

The unexpected rebound also complicates a particular theory of ecology that scientists had applied to the California coast’s kelp disappearance – that of alternative stable states. Alternative stable states theory describes a paradigm of alternating ecosystems that share the same location under identical environmental conditions, just at different times. One ecosystem state dominates the space and persists until a powerful environmental disruption causes a rapid transformation, after which a very different ecosystem takes hold. Grasslands, in certain areas, are the alternative stable state to forest. Mucky freshwater lakes clouded with phytoplankton are the alternative stable state to clear-water ecosystems in which predatory fishes prevent the proliferation of phytoplankton. Coral reefs, some scientists believe, are the alternative stable state to underwater seaweed meadows (although this example is debated).

In the case of temperate coastal upwelling zones, kelp forests alternate with urchin barrens. True to the criteria of the theory, which was first introduced to the peer-reviewed literature in 1969, each alternate ecosystem is remarkably stable, and to shift from one to another requires a dramatic environmental disruption that rapidly “flips” the system over. On California’s North Coast, such a perturbation took the form of a multi-year marine heatwave, which stressed the cold-dependent kelp, coupled with a simultaneous viral outbreak that wiped out predatory sunflower sea stars. Their favored prey, purple urchins, proliferated. By grazing on any available vegetation, the urchins prevented kelp recovery even after water temperatures cooled to historical norms in 2017.To scientists studying the collapse of the kelp forests, all signs pointed toward an alternative stable state change, and there was every reason to think the urchin barrens would last indefinitely. 

Craig Johnson, a researcher at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, told me in 2017, “For all intents and purposes, once you flip to the urchin barren state, you have virtually no chance of recovery.”

Such a fatalistic perspective stems both from real-world scenarios as well as the rigid defining criteria of alternative stable states. For instance, each stable ecosystem has an internal positive feedback cycle that helps perpetuate it. Often, it is the species that occupy the ecosystem that lock the states in place. Another key criterion is that it takes a much lesser environmental force to maintain the stable state than it takes to flip the system from one state to the other. For example, an ungodly number of urchins, practically stacked on top of each other, is generally required to demolish a kelp forest and turn it into a barren, but thereafter it takes relatively few of the creatures to maintain the barren. In fact, they must be nearly eradicated to allow a kelp comeback. 

At least in theory. But this year divers on the North Coast have seen bull kelp holdfasts fixed to rocks very near clusters of urchins.

“It might be that the stable states aren’t as stable as we thought,” says Sean Craig, a Humboldt State University biologist studying kelp forest ecology. Craig points out that “the general theory does not always fit the reality underwater.” 

Moitoza notes that bull kelp never did entirely vanish as many media reports have indicated. 

“Patches of bull kelp always remained, and there were large remaining areas in Humboldt County,” he says. “We’re wondering if there are some features of the ecosystem in these places that explain why we saw kelp persist.”

Mark Carr, a kelp forest ecologist at UC Santa Cruz, suggests something else entirely – that the ongoing saga in the waters of the North Coast is not, after all, a stable state alternation but something different: a regime shift caused by a change in environmental conditions. Regime shifts, unlike the more dramatic and rapid alternative stable state shifts, happen when overarching environmental conditions change. The ecosystem changes that follow don’t necessarily occur quickly. Rather, they unfurl in sync with the changing environment. 

“It’s an important difference,” Carr says. 

In Tasmania, kelp forests vanished through the 1990s due to rapid and long-term ocean warming. The southward push of tropical water also brought a species of warm-water urchin, which became established and, along with the changed ocean conditions, prevented any kelp recovery. The Tasmanian saga, similar in obvious ways to California’s recent experience, is commonly cited as a classic example of an alternative stable state shift – but, by the rules of the theory, it was not.

“It was really a regime shift,” Carr says.

It’s possible that’s what has happened here, he says. The waxing and waning of Northern California’s kelp may be more closely tied to fluctuating water temperatures than urchin densities. If this is the case, kelp forests could be more threatened than we thought. It would also exonerate the urchins that have been cast as the villains. The loss of kelp might be not their fault, but ours.

“If all of a sudden we start having marine heatwaves every 10 years, forget it – you can say goodbye to kelp,” Carr says. 

He cautions that the scale of recovery at this point might not amount to an ecosystem change. 

“There are still large areas of the North Coast that continue to be urchin barrens,” he says.

Tristin McHugh, The Nature Conservancy’s Kelp Project director, is cautiously optimistic about the years to come. McHugh says she expects “kelp will continue to flourish and potentially increase” so long as ocean temperatures remain cool and favorable – which, of course, they might not. Strong upwelling early in 2021 brought cold, nutrient-rich water into coastal ecosystems – perfect conditions for bull kelp growth. A second La Niña year is in the forecast, which would perhaps mean more of the same in 2022. But with oceans warming worldwide, and with armies of purple urchins still occupying the North Coast’s shallow waters, the bull kelp bounce-back could easily turn around.

Further complicating the study of ecosystem changes is the fact that humans play an increasingly important, if often overlooked, role in ecosystem dynamics. Craig says traditional ecology “has been a bit arrogant because it assumes humans aren’t an important part of how things change.” 

In fact, humans have played a fundamental role in the fate of the North Coast’s kelp forests. Hunting sea otters to extinction in most of their range left just a single major predator – the sunflower sea star, Pycnopodia helianthoides – to control purple urchin populations. In effect, humans made the stable kelp forest state much less stable by halving the predatory effect on urchins. Then, when sunflower sea stars vanished, the top-heavy ecosystem caved – but it was human dabbling as far back as the 1700s that was responsible. 

Urchin removal efforts are underway in a few locations on the Sonoma and Mendocino coastlines, with the goal of reestablishing bull kelp beds. However, kelp has rebounded at many sites that saw no organized urchin culls. Marissa Baskett, an ecosystem modeler at UC Davis, says understanding how bull kelp has managed to regrow in the presence of a dense urchin population is important not just for the sake of honing ecological theories and predictive models but for resource management purposes.

On the one hand, the kelp could continue to regenerate, urchins or none. On the other, humans may have to help.

“If this really is an alternative stable state, then we know we have to get past a very specific threshold in urchin density to allow kelp recovery,” says Baskett, who recently received funding to assess climate change’s potential effects on kelp restoration efforts, and whether full restoration will even be possible. She will be collaborating with colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis and Humboldt State. 

McHugh, at The Nature Conservancy, says it’s not yet clear how heavy-handed a role humans must play in future management, and protection, of kelp forests in northern California waters. Culling urchins through removal or underwater smashing may be a long-term maintenance requirement in Northern California waters. 

“Even though we’ve seen a comeback [of kelp],” she says, “with no predators more natural predators, we’ll never be out of the woods.” 

(Alastair Bland is a freelance journalist based in Northern California. He writes regularly for Hakai, Estuary News, and the East Bay Express.)

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WE ARE LIVING IN INTERESTING TIMES

by William Miller, MD; Chief of Staff at Adventist Health – Mendocino Coast Hospital

There is an old saying, “May you live in interesting times.” Some people consider this to be a curse, suggesting that life during uninteresting times is better. I disagree. While I certainly want this pandemic to be over and for our lives to return to normal, I think that how we overcome life’s challenges is what gives our lives greater meaning. 

As a country, we are now engaged in many monumental debates and are becoming increasingly divided. Perhaps we can find ways to work through the differences and come back together. How we go about doing that will, in the end, tell much about who we are as a nation and will either leave us stronger or weaker for it.

One interesting debate going on right now is around vaccination mandates. As you probably know, the state health department mandated that all healthcare workers in California must be vaccinated against COVID by September 30th or have received an exemption based on health or religious reasons. Those that are unvaccinated and not given an exemption may not work. Those that are unvaccinated and do have an exemption may work, but will need to be tested regularly for COVID.

Mandating vaccinations is not new to COVID. Healthcare workers already must show proof of vaccination or immunity for many things including hepatitis B, influenza, mumps, measles, rubella, and varicella. Every year, healthcare workers must also get a PPD, which is a skin test in which a foreign protein from tuberculosis is injected to see if there is a reaction indicating an exposure. So, mandating injections of foreign antigens is nothing new.

However, sentiments are running high on both sides in favor or against mandated vaccines. Many people decry that mandating vaccinations is an infringement upon personal liberty. Some feel that hospitals should not require vaccination at all. Further, that if we do, we should accept proof of prior COVID infection in lieu of vaccination. Meanwhile, others come down on the side of insisting that we should require all staff to be vaccinated and not provide any waivers at all. Some people in this group also feel that if staff are given a waiver, then we should notify patients of which staff are vaccinated and which are not.

I can see both points of view. None of us like being told by authorities what to do, especially when it comes to what goes into our own bodies. At the same time, there is mounting frustration at the folks who are unvaccinated for not participating in the vaccination effort to halt the spread of the disease.

Here is the reality for hospitals and clinics. On August 5th, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued an order to all healthcare facilities in the state requiring full COVID vaccination of all staff by September 30th. This is a broad order and includes all types of healthcare facilities from skilled nursing homes and dialysis centers to private dentist’s and doctor’s offices. It also extends to all staff in those facilities, not just clinical staff. Affective August 23rd, all these facilities had to start performing testing of staff who are not vaccinated; weekly in the out-patient setting and twice weekly for in-patient settings. Such regular testing had already been implemented a year ago for all the state’s nursing homes.

The CDPH order also requires that each facility have a mechanism for staff to apply for an exception based on either medical grounds or for religious beliefs. Some folks in the community have already complained that they think we are granting religious exemptions too easily. To that, I would say that it is easy to make such comments when you are not the one having to make the determinations. This great country is based on principles of freedom and especially around religious freedom. I would be hard pressed to have to judge the “authenticity” of another person’s religious beliefs. 

As for requiring staff to indicate whether they are vaccinated, there are other legal requirements that employers must hold in confidence medical related information about their employees. So, it isn’t as simple as people may think. We should also keep in mind that masking, handwashing, and social distancing is effective at holding the Delta variant at bay, just as it was before with other variants. So, it is hard to make an argument that there is justification for breaking confidentiality and giving out such private information to patients.

Another very important consideration in all of this is that we are facing a serious healthcare staffing shortage locally as well as nationally. This was going on before COVID, but has been made much more acute. Our three hospitals in Mendocino county have been at full capacity for several weeks now. We need every nurse and support staff we have. If we lose any because they do not get vaccinated or resign out of protest, and several already have, then it makes it all the more difficult to continue to care for our community.

So, it is an interesting time trying to find the right balance between protecting personal liberty and meeting the needs of the larger community. It is a challenge that is not all that easy to solve. As of today, on the Coast, we have about 320 staff at the hospital and clinic. A month ago, about 120 of those staff fell into the unvaccinated group. We have worked with them by providing education and support while encouraging them to get vaccinated. We have also processed their exemption requests. As of this writing, a little over 60 have gone ahead and gotten vaccinated. We have given 27 religious waivers and 6 medical exemptions. Eighteen staff remain undecided and 6 have resigned in protest.

Of the 65 physicians and mid-level providers on staff, all but one are fully vaccinated. An exemption was given for the one who is unvaccinated. 

You can access previous Miller Reports by visiting www.WMillerMD.com. 

The views shared in this weekly column are those of the author, Dr. William Miller, and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher or of Adventist Health.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I went the way of Zen Buddhism, lived in Japan for awhile, moved on to Guru Maharaji ji, (had an experience while meditating that sent me straight into the arms of Judaism), where a rabbi convinced me to go back to the Catholicism of my youth.

Thanks Wolpe!

It’s different now. We confess sins against the 10 commandments.

Sometimes after taking the eucharist, I have peace for hours if not days.

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Crocs at SF Science Museum

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MY HARVARD, MY YALE

Letter to the Editor

Jonah Raskin marvels at the contemporaneity of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick in the Sept. 8 AVA ("Melville, Our Contemporary"). One need look no further than its opening chapter, "Loomings," to find the following:

”And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.”

"Whaling voyage by one Ishmael.”

"Bloody Battle In Afghanistan."

I read Raskin's article upon my return from a trip to Massachusetts, where my French-Canadian father was born over 90 years ago in the industrial mill town of Lowell. While there, I had taken the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the house in Pittsfield wherein Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick, Bartleby and Benito Cereno, among other masterpieces. Having learned from MapQuest or Google - never mind which one precisely - that it took approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes to make the drive from Amherst, where I was staying, and, from the Berkshire Historical Society website, that tours began every hour on the hour, I set off in my rental car - a Toyota Prius, for those sharpening their harpoons on either side of the political spectrum - shortly before 11:30 a.m., planning on arriving in time for the 1:00 p.m. tour.

Shortly before the Route 20 exit from the Massachusetts Turnpike that winds northward through Lenox to Pittsfield, traffic began backing up due to road work. Finding my planned timely arrival now under threat, with some anxiety I made my way to Holmes Road (lawn signs in front of several residences read "No Cell Tower"; a propitious sign, thought I, an erstwhile cell antenna activist and documentary filmmaker when I lived in San Francisco), and Melville's house at No. 780, just as the tour was beginning. I paid my admission fee and added myself to the seven or so other Melville acolytes in attendance.

The tour guide, a self-described "Melville fanatic," began by directing our attention to four towering trees on the south lawn that Melville himself had planted some 170 or so years ago. He proceeded to the porch that Melville had added to the north side of the house, flying in the face of the Berkshires' tradition of locating verandas on the south side of homes to take advantage of the sun's trajectory during the months of the frigid New England winters. Melville had done so because it afforded a view of the distant Mt. Greylock, the tallest of the Berkshire mountains, whose silhouette I recalled reading resembled the hump-back shape of a whale, but which now, disappointedly, was shrouded by grey clouds on this warm, overcast, and rainy autumn afternoon, and hence invisible to us as we stood on the porch.

We made our way through the Melville home, pausing in each room as our knowledgeable guide regaled us with various tales of Melville's family, life and work. Finally, we reached to last stop on the tour: the second-story room where Melville did his writing. His desk stood before a window offering a northern view of . . . Mt. Greylock, which, at the precise moment we entered Melville's sanctuary, mystically and miraculously appeared as the distant clouds parted.

Melville, whose formal education ended at age 13, one year after the death of his bankrupt merchant father, writes in Moby-Dick, "…a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." For me, college-educated, raised by parents with no religious indoctrination or instruction whatsoever, and whose father died two years ago when I was 57 after he had abandoned the priesthood in his youth to become a psychologist, Moby-Dick was my Old and New Testament.

Doug Loranger

Walnut Creek

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JUSTICE BARRETT, an on-line comment: I personally don't think that Amy was put there specifically to overturn Roe V Wade... I think Amy is a stealth weapon, the facade of which is designed to end Roe V. Wade, but like Brett Cavanaugh, Amy has a long and distinguished career pandering to Corporations and Big Money interests, as well as pushing a Conservative Catholic agenda that would effectively erase every social rights gain manifested since the Civil War. Her long and committed position to overturn Roe V Wade, is a bait and switch for the Religious Right, who keep voting for their own extermination (and everyone else's too, just as an aside.)

This is the slow steady march toward something more resembling a corporate state.

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MAJORITY OF YOUNG PEOPLE Believe Humanity Is 'Doomed'

Amidst a sharp increase in deadly wildfires and flooding, increasingly violent storms, and extreme heat, new research published Tuesday found that refusal by governments to act on the climate emergency is causing a widespread sense of hopelessness and eco-anxiety in teenagers and young adults worldwide. The global advocacy group Avaaz joined researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and five other universities to survey 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25—the first large-scale eco-anxiety survey of its kind—and discovered that majorities of the respondents were fearful for the lives and livelihoods of their families and the future of the planet.

commondreams.org/news/2021/09/14/climate-inaction-has-left-majority-young-people-believing-humanity-doomed

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AYN [RAND] COMES FROM A PARTICULAR PLACE and time and speaks to a particular spirit. I can see how either people of great merit, or great wealth and power might find themselves seduced by the siren call of exceptionalism, and having the "Best and Brightest" build the future as a natural extension of their egos. It never works. There's a reason in nature, that altruistic species thrive, and violently competitive species burn themselves out. If Ayn had been a child of biology instead of political conflict, she might have reframed her philosophy. (Marie Tobias) 

75 Comments

  1. Eric Sunswheat September 15, 2021

    RE: One interesting debate going on right now is around vaccination mandates.

    -> September 14, 2021
    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Spectrum Health will allow employees to be exempt from its vaccination mandate if natural immunity to COVID-19 can be proven…
    While we still recommend vaccination for people with prior COVID-19 infection, according to this new research, there is increasing evidence that natural infection affords protection from COVID-19 reinfection and severe symptoms for a period of time. Current studies are not clear on how long natural immunity protects from reinfection.
    https://www.fox17online.com/news/coronavirus/spectrum-health-giving-employees-waivers-to-vaccination-requirement-with-proof-of-natural-immunity?_amp=true

    -> August 25, 2021 preprint.
    People who had COVID show 13x more immunity to Delta variant than people who received vaccine…
    Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.
    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf

    • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

      I really wish we could follow the Canadian model, where you can show proof of vaccination or an antibody test showing you have had COVID already. Pretty ridiculous to get people vaccinated unnecessarily.

  2. Kathy September 15, 2021

    Did I hear correctly at yesterday’s BOS meeting that the county department with one of the highest non-vaccinated rates is the Sheriff’s Dept?

  3. Douglas Coulter September 15, 2021

    I read they have an arson suspect in custody for the Hopkins fire. One more career criminal with nothing to lose. We will house and feed this man for years in the growing prison system that costs 60 to 80K per year of taxpayer money and it’s only crop is violent reoffenders
    If they send him to Susanville maybe he can learn to fight fires.

  4. George Hollister September 15, 2021

    “WHY AM I not surprised? The County of Mendo employs about 1200 people, 30 percent of whom aren’t vaccinated. That’s about 360 people, a goodly slice of the work force who are indifferent to the welfare of their workmates, themselves and their own families.”

    Wait a minute. Indifferent to the welfare of the their workmates, and their own families? Isn’t it being indifferent to their own welfare, and the welfare of others who are not vaccinated? Yes, vaccinated people can get Covid, but it is usually symptomatically mild, or a-symptomatic. Of course there are unvaccinated children who can get it, but in children the symptoms are also usually mild. It is the unvaccinated who are getting sick and dying. I think this is the way it is until a new variant emerges, from somewhere, that the current vaccines are ineffective on. I am vaccinated, and am back to doing what I did before Covid. If you are not vaccinated, that is mostly your problem, not mine. It would be nice if the unvaccinated weren’t clogging up the hospitals. What did I get wrong here?

    • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

      “In children the symptoms are usually mild.” That used to be true, but no longer.

      More children are getting Covid now, and more are getting sicker, sick enough to be hospitalized in greater numbers. There have been numerous reports on this issue over the last several weeks or more, with some children’s wards and children’s hospitals in various states being overwhelmed by Covid cases.

      • Stephen Rosenthal September 15, 2021

        Not to get too mawkish, but maybe when children start dying by the thousands the morons will begin to realize the misdirection of their beliefs and the demonic politicians who guided them there – or not.

        • Marmon September 15, 2021

          Chuck, you should be ashamed of yourself, who are you calling morons? Statistically, Black and Hispanic people are less likely to get the shot than white people. Mendocino County is not being transparent with the race/ethnicity of who is being hospitalized or died as a result of Covid. I doubt that very few of them are Trump supporters.

          Latest Data on COVID-19 Vaccinations by Race/Ethnicity (Published: Sep 09, 2021)

          “As of this week, 75% of the adult population in the United States have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. While this progress represents a marked achievement in vaccinations that has led to steep declines in COVID-19 cases and deaths, vaccination coverage—and the protections provided by it—remains uneven across the country. With the continued spread of the more transmissible Delta variant, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising, largely among unvaccinated people. While as of late July 2021, White adults accounted for the largest share (57%) of unvaccinated adults, Black and Hispanic people remain less likely than their White counterparts to have received a vaccine, leaving them at increased risk, particularly as the variant spreads.”

          https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/

          • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

            James, not sure what you are referring to–I did not call anyone a “moron,”–but have been tempted at times to be honest. I also did not refer to any racial issues regarding Covid. ??????

        • Paul Andersen September 15, 2021

          Nah, we’ll just normalize 1000 people a day dying from Covid like we do gun violence and every other fixable malady.

      • George Hollister September 15, 2021

        There is so much room to play with statistics here, but as of now in Mendocino County we have 500 reported cases of people 12, and under out of 6,600. We don’t know how many cases went unreported, or were a-symptomatic. And I did not look to see how the rate of change in those 12 and under has evolved, or what percent of the county population is in the 12 and under group. Typically, it is the 12 and under group that are the most likely to get infected by a virus, too.

        • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

          Here, George are the nationwide statistics, and they speak directly to the issue I raised. Further, there really is not, as you allege in a crude argumentative strategy, “so much room to play with statistics here.”

          “Why the Delta Variant Is Giving More Children Covid”
          Jason Gale
          Bloomberg News, 9/14/21

          “Covid-19 cases among children are surging across the world amid delta-fueled outbreaks, spurring hospitalizations and raising concern about the risk of severe illness and persistent “long hauler” symptoms. It’s also prompted questions about the safety of schools.
          In the U.S., as of early September, almost 5.3 million children and adolescents had tested positive for the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That represents 15.5% of all cases, though individuals under 18 make up 22.2% of the U.S. population. However, after declining in early summer, pediatric cases have increased exponentially and comprise a higher share of the total — 28.9% in the week ending Sept. 9, or more than 243,000 cases. That surge, coinciding with increased circulation of the delta variant, has translated into more Covid-related hospitalizations among children and adolescents, although serious cases remain proportionately rare…”

          • George Hollister September 15, 2021

            although serious cases remain proportionately rare…”

            • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

              George you said that in children the “symptoms are usually mild.” Cases beyond “mild” are now expanded among children, hence the need to hospitalize and the increased number of such cases. Don’t make light of this, it’s dishonest..

            • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

              George you said that in children the “symptoms are usually mild.” Cases beyond “mild” are now expanded among children, hence the need to hospitalize them and the increased number of such cases.

  5. Harvey Reading September 15, 2021

    MAJORITY OF YOUNG PEOPLE Believe Humanity Is ‘Doomed’

    They’re far more intelligent than most of their elders.

    Oh, and a shout out to Marmon: howdga like those recall results? There ARE still intelligent people in the state of my birth and most of my life…

    • Marmon September 15, 2021

      It’s a shame that a lot of Californian’s have pulled up roots and moved to other States, such as your own Wyoming. We could have used their voice yesterday. Furthermore, California allows everyone to cast a ballot, whether their citizens or not.

      Marmon

      • Stephen Rosenthal September 15, 2021

        Why don’t you follow suit and move to Texas?

      • sam kircher September 15, 2021

        Your last sentence is patently false, and you return to predictably intentional obfuscation as usual. Here’s a place to start: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/false-claim-of-california-registering-noncitizens-to-vote/
        Unless, of course by “cast a ballot,” you mean a provisional ballot, which Batman, Robin, and Winnie the Pooh can all do in most states, though those ballots won’t be counted.
        I’d personally love to see prospective voters pass an eighth grade civics quiz in order to qualify for the privilege. Good luck with that.
        I’ll leave your fifth grade homophone issues alone for now.

      • Harvey Reading September 15, 2021

        The smart kids in Wyoming get out as soon as they graduate high school. Many of them choose CA, where wages are often above poverty level (backward places, like Mendo, excepted), government is not neanderthal/fascist (again, excepting Mendo), a still-excellent higher education system exists, and where (again excepting Mendo) the median IQ is greater than 10.

        My vote, and most likely, those of others who moved to the backward state, would have been to keep Newsom. I was pleased to learn that you fascists lost, and big! You all have trouble seeing beyond the front of your trademark big bellies.

        People move here for the scenery and public lands, knowing full well the politics are from neanderthal times. In other words, the margin of victory for the duly elected governor would have been even greater had we remained.

    • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

      True. The Green party was one of our last hopes. Now that I’m in my 40’s, I can’t count myself as one of the youth or the elders. Still, I tried to make changes against the tide of baby boomers, but alas…

      “Green Party has been “right all along,” says UK sustainable development chief

      Sir Jonathan Porritt, chairman of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission – the most influential Green in Britain – told journalists today that British politicians were “in a state of cognitive dissonance” over the
      ecological crisis. ”

      https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2009-03-13-porritt.html

  6. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    Any Catch this BOS report from Code Enforcement?

    “Hip Camp need to deal with these that are popping up to direct Planning & Building and the Treasurer Tax Collector to investigate and abate the businesses that are popping up regarding open fires, no restrooms,
    Please share this information about burning http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/aqmd/pdf_files/BurnInfoSheet.pdf
    3 more code enforcement and two administrative staff plus one acting supervisor added to staff will start showing more enforcement and reporting with the increased capacity. ”
    https://mendofever.com/2021/09/15/2nd-district-supervisor-mo-mulherens-weekly-update-inland-housing-hometown-heros-and-mendolatino/

  7. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    Jesus in the old Testament?

    Hell No? The Letter “J” wasn’t even used in ancient times. The means “Jahovah” “Joseph” “James” and “Jesus” are all modern inventions (of Men).

    https://warriorsoftheruwach.com/en/the-letter-j

  8. Harvey Reading September 15, 2021

    “Does it say he’s coming soon?”

    How long does it take the guy to come?

    • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

      lol! lmao!

  9. Marmon September 15, 2021

    I did some digging around after Chuck Dunbar called all the unvaccinated in Mendocino County “Morons”.

    The California Department of Public Health releases data tracking the spread of the coronavirus in Mendocino County. (Updated Sept. 15)

    The latest trends for Mendocino County (Updated Sept. 15)

    Only 25% of Native Americans are fully vaccinated
    Only 40% of Blacks are fully vaccinated
    Only 45% of Latinos are fully vaccinated.

    Compared to 54% of whites who are fully vaccinated

    Tracking the coronavirus in Mendocino County

    https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/mendocino-county/

    Marmon

    • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

      James, once again you are wrong–I did not call all the unvaccinated in Maendocino County morons–Get you facts straight. I do agree, in a lesser degree, that most of those who do not get vaccinated are engaged in an act of stupidity and that it is a dangerous course for the individuals and their community.
      And further, not sure what you are trying to say or imply with your racial statistics. It is good you are a white guy as we are the truly virtuous and righteous ones with our high rate of vaccination!!!!

      • Marmon September 15, 2021

        So how many white people are getting hospitalized and dying compared to people of color in Mendocino County? Those numbers should be made public.

        Trump did not put bleach in his vaccines.

        Marmon

        • Marmon September 15, 2021

          The only reason I put this out there is because you and Rosenthal keep spreading manure that the unvaccinated are right wing Trumpers. I guarantee you there are not many of them in Mental-cino County.

          Marmon

        • Harvey Reading September 15, 2021

          “Trump did not put bleach in his vaccines.”

          You mean he drank it straight?

        • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

          You are becoming more and more unhinged, James. Get some help. Or, as your friend, Will, put it awhile back in this section: Get off the internet and go out into the real world and find some folks to help.

    • Stephen Rosenthal September 15, 2021

      Neither race or ethnicity is a criteria for moronic behavior.

    • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

      That’s as sad a story as I can imagine. I hope this mother can get help for her addiction during her incarceration. It’s hard to even imagine how one would live with this memory of a terrible mistake made and of such a loss.

    • Lazarus September 15, 2021

      So, where is this place “Right outside of Willits!”
      Thx
      Laz

      • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

        The map is right there in the link. Looks like the spot is by the trash piles in the creek by the top of Tomki road where it meets with Canyon road? On the way to Hearst?

  10. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    RE: This is what I don’t understand about anti-vaxxers

    “Mandating vaccinations is not new to COVID. Healthcare workers already must show proof of vaccination or immunity for many things including hepatitis B, influenza, mumps, measles, rubella, and varicella. Every year, healthcare workers must also get a PPD, which is a skin test in which a foreign protein from tuberculosis is injected to see if there is a reaction indicating an exposure. So, mandating injections of foreign antigens is nothing new.”

    • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

      Yes, nicely put–guess the difference is that alternative realities and gross craziness have come to our land.

  11. Lazarus September 15, 2021

    Mr. AVA,
    Do you guys know what the vote at the end of the BoS meeting was about?
    Be well,
    Laz

    • Mark Scaramella September 15, 2021

      The agenda item was:
      “Item 5g) Discussion and Possible Action Including Certification of the Mendocino County Referendum Petition Protesting the Ordinance Adopting Chapter 22.19 – Commercial Cannabis Activity Land Use Development Ordinance and Amending Chapter 10A.17 – Mendocino Cannabis Cultivation Ordinance and Chapter 20.242 – Cannabis Cultivation Sites (Sponsor: Assessor/Clerk-Recorder) Recommended Action: Pursuant to Elections Code section 9145, either (1) repeal the ordinance adopting Chapter 22.19 – commercial cannabis activity land use development ordinance and amending Chapter 10a.17 – Mendocino cannabis cultivation ordinance and Chapter 20.242 – cannabis cultivation sites or (2) submit the ordinance to the voters at the next regular election.”
      Supervisor Mulheren commented somewhat cryptically last night on her website:
      “None of the Board members are supportive of putting the ordinance on the ballot and vote to rescind.”
      We think she meant “voted to rescind.” But we have to go back over the video again. Others, hopefully including Jim Shields, will probably be reporting on the development and its implications. But it seems like they are rescinding their somewhat controversial pot permit “expansion” ordinance and leaving the old one in place in the face of the “throw the new one out” referendum having qualified for the ballot. We will leave it to the pot permit people to speculate on what this means, but Supervisor Williams said it meant the end of pot permits as we know them, or something like that.

      • Ted Williams September 15, 2021

        On a 100 acre parcel zoned for agriculture, you can grow 100 acres of alfalfa, 100 acres of grapes, 100 acre of low-THC industrial hemp or 1/4 acre of THC-Cannabis. In an attempt to rig state wide supply/demand under the guise of environmental protection, the commercial cannabis industry will go elsewhere along with the tens of millions of dollars per year in potential pothole filling county revenue. The referendum locks in the existing flawed ordinance, which has proven to be disastrous to neighborhoods, the environment and good faith legal-market applicants, forcing open the door to expansion under 2017 passed 10A.17.

        Prop 64 is unworkable for Mendocino County. Cannabis cultivation is under transformation from lucrative cash crop to overtaxed agricultural commodity. No amount of unicorns and butterflies roundtable committee meetings will change this reality.

        • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

          RE: “commercial cannabis industry will go elsewhere”

          Define “Commercial”…

          Do you mean the hundreds of greenhouse blighting the hillsides that the majority of Mendocino citizens have said no to, including local cannabis farmers, the sheriff (former and current), and the MCA? News flash! Small Farmers are a commercial industry. You just want to force all of the people that have been doing it for so long to “Scale up” and produce vast amounts of low quality crap using plastic and greenhouses. Call it whatever you want.

          WE DON’T WANT SALINAS VALLEY SIZED GROWS HERE! GET IT TED? Good Riddance, Go elsewhere so we don’t have a bunch of out of state gold miners driving up already overinflated property values.

          • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

            The People are pissed because you are reinforcing the belief that most of us have. The BOS isn’t listening to the citizens. You assume that you know what’s best for Mendocino county despite what the majority want. You are just going to force everyone to scale up because you know best, right?

            Red tags and financial punishment are what local cannabis farmers have faced. Meanwhile you, and you alone, have okayed Planning and Building thousands of illegal grows to have permitted unchecked greenhouses by the dozens. What are you incentivizing again?

            “Cannabis cultivation is under transformation from lucrative cash crop to overtaxed agricultural commodity. No amount of unicorns and butterflies roundtable committee meetings will change this reality.”

            No one is asking for Unicorns and butterflies. They are asking the BOS to take direction from the informed cannabis industry in this county, but instead you have felt obligated to “Overtax” an agricultural commodity and put in under the realm of “Planning and Building” instead of the Dept of Agriculture. The citizens didn’t do that, nor did they ever ask for it.

            • Ted Williams September 15, 2021

              Rye,

              Show evidence of: “Meanwhile you, and you alone, have okayed Planning and Building thousands of illegal grows to have permitted unchecked greenhouses by the dozens.”

              ted

              • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

                Starting right at the beginning near 5 minutes. Isn’t it you that directs EH dept to move ahead without a proper meeting with Planning and Building because hoophouse permits are “ministerial” according to Scott Ward? July 19th, 2021.

                • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

                  It has already been pointed out that “AG exempt” Hoophouse permits are self-certified by the owner, and no staff member is assigned to check any of these standards. If there is, I would love to know who checks these. The AG exempt form from PnB doesn’t even match the county code, so It would be impossible to enforce, even if you did have someone.

                  per the county code:

                  ec. 18.12.010 – Purpose and Scope. • The purpose of this Chapter is to provide rules and regulations for the erection, construction and enlargement, alteration, repair, removal, moving, conversion, occupancy, equipment, use, height, area and maintenance of all residential, commercial and industrial type buildings or structures within the unincorporated area of this County except those structures regulated by Chapter 18.20 hereof. Regulations imposed by this Chapter are intended to be equal to those imposed by Part 1.5, Division 13, of the Health and Safety Code.
                  (Ord. No. 465, Sec. 201, adopted 1965.)
                  • Sec. 18.12.020 – Regulations. • Pursuant to and for the purpose and scope of this Chapter as declared in Section 18.12.010, supra, the County of Mendocino adopts and incorporates into the Mendocino County Code by reference, and as having the full legal effect as if their respective contents were set forth verbatim herein, each of the uniform codes referred to in Section 18.04.040, supra.
                  (Ord. No. 465, Sec. 201, adopted 1964, and amended by Ord. No. 819, adopted 1971.)
                  • Sec. 18.12.030 – Exemption for Agricultural Buildings.

                • Ted Williams September 15, 2021

                  Rye, that’s not me alone approving hoop houses. The law is clear. It is not legal for Environmental Health to unilaterally withhold review of ministerial building permits.

                  • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

                    Yes, and like I said before, “You don’t need a new ordinance to fix the illegal hoophouse loophole”. Ever think of making the cannabis dept a review on AG exempt permits? Why keep this horribly obvious loophole open?

                    Definition of ministerial: ” A ministerial permit is a permit that is granted based upon determinations that the proposed project complies with established standards set forth in either the Coastal or Non-Coastal Zoning Ordinances. These determinations are arrived at objectively, involve little or no personal judgment, and are issued by the Planning Director or his/her designee. This type of permit is commonly referred to as an “over the counter” approval. Some tree trimming and tree removal permitsas well as film permits are ministerial. In addition, Zoning Clearancesissued over the counter are also considered ministerial.”

                    https://vcrma.org/ministerial-permits

            • Ted Williams September 15, 2021

              “but instead you have felt obligated to ‘Overtax’ an agricultural commodity and put in under the realm of ‘Planning and Building’ instead of the Dept of Agriculture. The citizens didn’t do that, nor did they ever ask for it.”

              Actually, the tax was established by the people. The specialized staff to navigate CEQA do not exist in the Ag department. Cannabis under Ag did not result in state annual licenses.

              • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

                Why am I not surprised? Instead of hiring the proper staff, the county moves the program to a new department with less staffing and less oversight of permits. I hear that the new cannabis staff don’t even see building permits, nor do they have a say in their approval. Typical Mendo.

                • Ted Williams September 15, 2021

                  Who would you like hired as proper staff?

                  Link to resume?

                  • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

                    It’s not about “who I like”, it’s about the county opening up positions and paying people enough so we can buck the reputation as a “training county” where people put up with low pay and understaffing so they can move on after a year. Or so said the Grand jury report.

                    Personally, I believe your comment reflects the attitude at the county of nepotism and poor hiring practices. Send me a resume? Is that how the current Cannabis manager was hired? Seems like it since you announced that she was hired 3 days before the position officially closed to applicants.

      • Lazarus September 15, 2021

        So, if Mr. AVE doesn’t know, then what did happen?
        Are the current permits any good or not?
        Did Phase 3 come to an end or not?
        Or did the Board merely rescind the ballot measure?
        How about a simple answer from a Supervisor?

        At the end of the meeting, I saw five people obviously wanting to get it over as fast a possible and move on.
        Even Chair Gjerde remarked several times that he could call the 5:30 rule and adjourn the meeting.
        Be well,
        Laz

        • Lazarus September 15, 2021

          Crickets….just as I thought.
          Laz

          • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

            Official notice is:

            The incorrectly labeled “phase 3” aka the “New Cannabis expansion ordinance” has been recinded. Reluctantly, the BOS heard the people’s choice, and didn’t want to waste anymore money on a referendum election that they knew would pass due to popularity. Now, lets see if they can listen to the rest of the citizens guidance on environmental damage from hoophouse visual pollution and water hauling.

  12. Marmon September 15, 2021

    Correction, Chuck’s buddy Rosenthal who called the unvaccinated Morons, but I’m sure Chuck would agree.

    Marmon

    • chuck dunbar September 15, 2021

      James, I often agree with Stephen Rosenthal’s thoughts, but not always. He writes clear, cogent comments about many issues. See my real thoughts above about this issue above. You are not a prophet, James, and you do not always know what I think. And you are a darn poor predictor of election outcomes.

    • David Moore September 15, 2021

      Mr. Marmon,
      He did not call anyone moron. He called the BEHAVIOR moronic. While I don’t agree with that broad assessment, because some folks do have valid reasons to forego the vaccinations that are within the realm of reality, I find it silly and disingenuous that you’ve repeated your misinterpretation of his actual words several times now.

  13. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    RE: AYN [RAND] COMES FROM A PARTICULAR PLACE

    Thank you for this quote. It confirms what i have always felt about her philosophy.

  14. Marmon September 15, 2021

    RE: THE FIRST OF MANY TO COME

    Arizona just filed a lawsuit against Biden’s vaccination mandates. The attorney general said they are an “egregious” violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

    Mr. Biden’s new vaccine requirements unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens because undocumented immigrants apprehended by federal law enforcement are not subject to a federal vaccination requirement.

    “In a nutshell: unauthorized aliens will not be subject to any vaccination requirements even when released directly into the United States (where most will remain), while roughly a hundred million U.S. citizens will be subject to unprecedented vaccination requirements,” the state told the court. “This reflects an unmistakable — and unconstitutional — brand of favoritism in favor of unauthorized aliens.”

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-sues-biden-administration-covid-19-vaccine-mandates/

    Marmon

    • Harvey Reading September 15, 2021

      Arizona has always been home to right-wing nut cases. Remember Barry Goldwater? Now, if all the Californians who moved to AZ had stayed home, the recall results might have been changed slightly in favor of recall. Not enough to make a difference, but a change nonetheless.

      By the way, is asymptomatic really spelled “a-aymptomatic”?

  15. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    The State of the Cannabis Industry in Mendocino County.

    I would love some answers to these questions that have been asked for the last 4 years since the passing of Prop 64.

    Do any of you think that upscaling the Mendocino Cannabis industry will allow us to compete with Salinas and Santa Barbara Counties?

    What will it do to our water supplies?

    What do you think it will do to property value and housing prices?

    What happened to Flow Kana, and all those amazing jobs they promised?

    Do ANY of you think cannabis expansion, as mansplained by Ted Williams, is going to help the housing crisis?

  16. Marmon September 15, 2021

    RE: COVELO COVID

    I just watched yesterday’s BOS video. Apparently there is a large outbreak in that community. The State and Feds have set up a Monoclonal Infusion Therapy station at the health clinic in an attempt to save lives. This treatment has been available for over a year, but Bidenites refused to support this and other alternative treatments wanting a “one size fits all” approach to defeating this enemy, that being vaccines only.

    Marmon

  17. Miranda Edison September 15, 2021

    I once hiked Mount Greylock in the dead of winter (which does indeed look like a white whale from Melville’s window, and his house creaks like a ship in the wind). Not many people up there, but stunning views…you can sense what gave the author such inspiration!

  18. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    Isn’t the invisible hand of the free market just wonderful?

    In order to not blame themselves for the cannabis mess, now the BOS can blame the small growers for not wanting to keep up with the rest of California. You know, don’t want to support “Communist cannabis”. So that must mean supporting Walmart weed is the right thing to do. There is no accountability for what the county was promoting and encouraging. Not even a sorry to the locals. Just blame them for not putting up as many hoophouses as possible to compete with their illegal neighbors. You know, Markets of scale, as the economists say. Creates more jobs, or so the theory goes.

    Seems to have worked out well for the local logging industry eh?

    • John McCowen September 15, 2021

      Chapter 10A.17, the current (and still the only) cultivation ordinance was written entirely for the small legacy grower. It was limited to 10,000 square feet; only those who could show proof of prior local cultivation could apply; and to this day no one else is allowed to apply.

      Chapter 22.18, which provided for limited expansion for those who had an appropriate site and were able to comply with more stringent environmental, neighborhood and community protections, would have done nothing to harm the interest of legacy growers. In fact, it would have helped them by also allowing them the opportunity for modest expansion and an alternative path to State Annual Licenses.

      Ironically, legacy growers helped lead the charge to demonize cannabis cultivation and turn the general public against a functional ordinance. Yes, the BOS could and should have read the tea leaves in time to amend the ordinance to eliminate the 10% of parcel size provision prior to adoption but if they reneged on their June 22 pledge to do so that could have been the subject of a subsequent ballot measure, as well as a recall.

      Now that the BOS has repealed 22.18, the likely result is that many current applicants will fail for economic reasons no matter if they are able to get a State License or not.

      • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

        How many of the thousands of currently approved AG exempt hoophouses are at locations of these “small legacy growers”? I could walk into building and planning tomorrow, and apply for 14 AG exempt hoophouses with no proof of any kind of cannabis permits or legacy cultivation, and if I meet setbacks the permits would be issued, no questions asked. Is that the fault of legacy growers?

  19. Marmon September 15, 2021

    So some positive news, Biden is getting some push back from the Blue Dog Democrats over his 3.5 million dollar idiotic infrastructure plan.

    Marmon

  20. Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

    The problem with Mendo County.

    It’s not a secret. The grand jury stated the problems with Mendo County very clearly as far back as 2015. The real problem is that the so called “Leadership” has done nothing to fix it. There’s even a grand Jury report from 2019, entitled “Who runs Mendocino County?’. I think everyone can guess the answer…

    https://mendovoice.com/2019/06/who-runs-mendocino-county-the-grand-jury-takes-a-look/

    Here is the issue with Mendo stated as clearly as possible. This can be applied to just about every department. From the Grand Jury report in 2017:

    “The Mendocino County Grand Jury has come out with a scathing report saying the county’s Family and Children Services division of the Health and Human Services Agency has not really improved since their last report two years ago. The report says the agency’s still suffering from high turnover and non-competitive salaries. The report says the county’s, quote “pervasive drug culture, insufficient mental health and drug treatment services are contributing factors”. It goes on to say drug use ending in police action has meant the Department is having problems finding families who can take in detained children. Statistics in Mendocino County worse than the majority of counties as far as response time goes, the time it takes to get to an investigation of child abuse reports and the time taken to conduct the investigation of those reports. This year’s grand jury says the 2015 report on the department appeared to not have been taken well.” https://945kwine.wordpress.com/2017/06/

    More recently:

    F4. Lack of housing forces the price of existing housing to be unaffordable for working families as well as preventing new potential employees to choose to work in Mendocino County.

    F5. The Median income of county residents and the higher cost of goods and services does not keep pace with the cost of new single-family homes, which discourages contractors from building here when they can profit from building in other areas.

    F6. The current shortage of affordable housing will continue without Mendocino County hiring qualified housing and community development planners. Such assets would assist in locating funding sources for infrastructure improvements, attracting appropriate developers, and informing the BOS what effect proposed regulations may have on the development of new housing.

    https://kymkemp.com/2021/07/20/mendocino-county-grand-jury-says-critical-lack-of-affordable-and-available-housing/

    https://www.mendocinobeacon.com/2021/08/07/mendocino-county-grand-jury-recommends-more-cooperative-action-to-meet-housing-needs/

    • Rye N Flint September 15, 2021

      When I listen to the BOS meetings on the CEO report, every time I hear “Short staffed” I think “Short Shaft”.

  21. Betsy Cawn September 16, 2021

    About “short staffing” as the perennial handicap that both Lake and Mendocino Counties proudly bear, the upper echelons have benefited from the recent years’ compensation that was claimed to be necessary, while keeping the front line workers’ pay at the minimum and therefore justifying the agrandizement of the chiefs. The 80’s era cutthroat business models perpetuating management by fear and intimidation seem to have become embedded in our two counties’ attitudes toward public services — and their deeply resented “White Man’s Burden” of public health and safety, as we are told repeatedly (in Lake County, anyway) that the emergency management agencies will provide only a limited level of public information and it is up to each of us to have the capacities to scramble for survival because they will all be too busy responding to the core crisis.

    We are always grateful, and humbled, by the extraordinary efforts of our fire and medical care first responders, and equally offended by the arrogance and tone-deafness of our law enforcement leadership, and those laudable but mistaken fans whose comprehension of life without technology renders them insensitive and uncaring at best toward the lame and the halt. Meanwhile, the administrations of both counties have constructed socially impregnable kingdoms of self-serving programs with barely any acknowledgement of the disadvantaged serfs whose pennies and nickels add up to the recently announced bounty of Lake County’s bloated annual budget — repleat with millions of dollars coming from the so-called commercial cannabis industry.

    Safe evacuation routes, protected water supplies, sanitation, health care, emergency preparedness, environmental brownfields all fall beyond the myopic attention of elected officials, who seem to think they’re doing us a huge favor by adding 7 whole new jobs in the Sheriff’s Office — while our Office of Emergency Services is down to one soon-to-retire functionary, and the Sheriff notified everyone that his budget for Nixle alerts is close to exceeding the available funding, so even further limitations to the provision of public information will be necessary.

    Supervisor Pyska, District 5 (Cobb/Kelseyville) informed the rest of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday September 14 that only about 20% of the area of Cobb has rebuilt since the Valley Fire. But the Administration lauded the Board of Supes and her own penny-pinching staff for the bulging coffers they are magically spending on further economic “recovery” fantasies. We don’t need analysts here anymore, we need an exorcist!

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