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Mendocino County Today: November 30, 2012

HANDS UP! You're under arrest for having a good time. “On 11/28/2012 at approximately 2:15am, deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a call for service in the Boonville area. When they drove by the Boonville Saloon (14161 Highway 128, Boonville), they noticed numerous cars parked out front and it appeared there were still patrons in the bar after closing hours. When the deputies cleared the call for service they responded back to the Boonville Saloon. They parked down the street and approached the bar on foot. When deputies arrived at the bar they noticed the front door was locked from the inside. They could hear music playing, and when they looked in the bar window they could see five subjects (two females and three males) drinking alcohol and dancing to the jukebox music well after closing time (2:30am). The deputies stood outside the bar for approximately 30 minutes and watched the two females serving alcohol to the male subjects and also drinking shots themselves. At 3am hrs a very intoxicated male subject exited the bar and the deputies made contact with him. The male was identified as suspect Jared Titus, 30 years old. As deputies spoke with Titus they could see he was too intoxicated to care for his safety so they arrested him for public intoxication. The deputies then entered the Boonville Saloon and contacted the remaining subjects. The second suspect was identified as the bar owner, Marcia Martinez 47 years old. She was confronted about serving alcohol to patrons after bar hours (2am). Martinez was very intoxicated and unable to care for her safety; she was also arrested for public intoxication. Deputies then contacted and identified the remaining subjects in the bar. They were later released without charges. The bar’s liquor license was checked and it was expired. Suspects Martinez and Titus were transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail for public intoxication, later to be released with a court appearance date. Martinez will also have two additional chares filed against her through the District Attorney's Office for 25631 B&P [Business and Professions Code]: Sales of Alcohol during closing hours and 25632 B&P: Consumption on premises during closing hours. This report will also be sent to the Alcohol Beverage Control Board (ABC) for further review.”

THAT'S STRAIGHT from the Sheriff's Office. I know these people, and I know that like many small businesses in the County, Ms. Martinez, co-proprietor of the bar, is co-proprietor of a business that struggles. Mr. Titus is a great guy. He cooks for the Senior Center. I think the cops should have kept on driving through Boonville instead of pausing to do this chickenfeed bust.

DRUNKS DANCING behind the locked door of a closed bar? Where's the harm? If they'd driven off drunk, bust 'em. But that's not what they did.

THIS ISN'T EXACTLY a straight moral line I'm drawing here, but we happen to be deep in Caesar's Wife territory here. Mendocino County, as a political entity, is under federal investigation for drug trafficking, i.e., the zip tie program. Essentially, the Sheriff was selling grow licenses at the direction of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. The Under-Sheriff is being investigated by both the feds and, as I understand it, a friend of the Sheriff's who works next door in Sonoma County because, the allegation goes, the Under-Sheriff lived next door to the property where his father and brother apparently presided over a big pot op. And out on the Mendocino Coast the feds say some of Mendocino's leading citizens are running dope to Kansas.

LOOKED AT from the outside, which is where the feds look at it from, Mendocino County looks like one great big criminal conspiracy. Late night drunk dancing in Boonville is not a big deal. It's not even a little deal.

THE AVA of November 21st reached San Francisco readers on November 28th. Also on November 21st, a letter was mailed from the Republic of Congo to Syria, both of which are engulfed in civil wars. The letter posted in Brazzaville on the 21st reached Damascus on November 27th. I ask you, dear reader, what has become of our Post Office?

FORT BRAGG CROOKS really have to start thinking a lot bigger than twenties, and if they're going to fake twenties they better do a better job of it. The Fort Bragg PD says they've had three phony Jacksons turned into them in a week. All three bills had the same serial number — E48787097B — and were missing watermarks and holograms. The cops say a counterfeit testing pen would have revealed the bills' bogus-ness right away.

ART GODDESS LAUREN SINNOTT of Point Arena has become the first person in modern Mendocino County political history to lose an election to a write-in candidate. The Mendocino County elections office released final election results for the November 6 election Thursday. The results in all other local elections were unchanged by final tallies. According to County Elections Supervisor Katrina Bartolomie, Former Councilwoman Sinnott got 57 votes, losing to write-in Candidate Caitlin Riehl who got 79 votes. (Eight votes were for what Ms. Bartolomie euphemistically called “unqualified candidates” aka Mickey Mouse, Jesus Christ, etc.)

NO SOONER had the final results been posted when Point Arena Town Clerk Hunter Alexander issued a press release: “The newly elected officials for the City of Point Arena will take their oath of office and begin their terms at the December Point Arena City Council meeting, to be held Tuesday, December 18, 2012., at 6pm. City Council is comprised of five Councilmembers: Doug Burkey (currently Mayor) and Terry Hughey (currently Vice Mayor) and the three newly elected members Burfoot, Koogle and Sanders. Notice of Reorganization of the City Council will be released immediately following the Dec. 18, 2012 meeting, during which the new City Council will affirm or re-elect the positions of Mayor/Vice Mayor, make committee appointments and the Mayor will then assign Commissionerships. Please join the City of Point Arena in welcoming our City Officials!”

4 Comments

  1. Mike Jamieson November 30, 2012

    Let’s just say that the heavy fog of Point Arena appears to combine with mental imagery and consequently setting this imagery in stone.

    Too bad about Lauren losing. Too bad also about Jen Iversen falling a tad short, just behind Phil Burfoot (who, along with Koogle, were good choices).

    Point Arena is thankfully in great hands with Hunter Alexander and Mayor Burkey and Vice Mayor Hughey. Brian Riehl is thankfully NOT returning to the council. He had made a brief effort to have Hunter fired. Now his wife becomes Treasurer and I presume that her academic and professional background will assure a smooth and professional relationship with City Clerk/Administrator Alexander. :-)

    • Ivenho December 3, 2012

      All This Time I’ve watched the city council of point arena not follow the city plan we
      adopted for this town? THERE PRIORITY’S do not seem to make it better for people to live here? BUT TO RAISE TAX’S to payoff law suits that seem to be made buy the council ?
      FIGHT like high school teenagers and blame the council members of the past for the wrongs or problems that made our land taxes go form $950 a year to over $ 3,000 a year in the last five years! to pay for a sewer system that had to have a loan to be made to empty out the ponds that have
      not been empty in 30, years in can’t pay for it’s self or improvements to be made or
      hookups for new houses? In if you ask were all the money in the past went
      there is no record ? BUT LETS PAY THE PERSON THAT DID THIS 90,000 and GIVE THEM THERE JOB BACK BECAUSE WE GOT SUED! THEN we will pay $30 a hour for someone to walk around and pickup cigarette butts? lets not give your children a place to hangout or ride skate boards. BUT lets stand out in front of the bar and smoke pot ? lets tell the truth so help me god about this happy town or stoned place to live! Lets put people in position to run your town into the ground and shut the door on anyone that would like to build here or improve this place to live for the people here or others?

  2. Mike Jamieson December 4, 2012

    I haven’t seen the details or even the news reports on the settlement with former City Clerk Claudia Hillary, which includes $90,000 going to her, but someone reading the ICO article on this told me that it seems the city’s insurance will pay for most of that. Am puzzled to see the comment that she is going to get her job back….hadn’t heard that and I very seriously doubt that.

    So far as building and developing……..especially in the approx. 160 acres annexed back in 1991……that is sadly out of the picturenfor the near future. In fact, I think everyone niw ignores the community action plan adopted in 2010 after much community study. Lauren Sinnott and David Ingham seemed more aware of the potential for federal grants for various needs, like upgrading the sewer system. Both individuals also failed to recognize that they weren’t suppose to be open to any ideas Bill Hay may have had, lol.

    Not sure what city employee is being pointed to here, the one raking in the big bucks picking up ciggie butts, but if is J.I. he is doing much more than that. Very visible, very active, doing needed stuff.

  3. Mike Jamieson December 8, 2012

    Wow. Lauren Sinnott, clearly one of the few uncowered persons living in Point Arena, wrote a letter to the ICO re: the city council approving a settlement with the very very popular former City Clerk. She was fired in a closed session (NOTE: which the city attorney then said was legally required to ve closed under the guidelines for that) a couple of years ago. (I have personally avoided sharing my own opinion on this episode…..Lauren, she’s got guts in addition ti being brutally honest…..But, after all is said and done, my own opinion is that the former City Clerk should have been ket go back in 2009 and wasn’t simply because of a very broad network of friendships, including—-by his own admission on the listserv—one with a reporter writing on this story.)

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