- Sweeney's ‘Facts’
- The Smell Test
- We’re #44!
- Bird Day!
- Book Gratitude
- Birkenstock Burlesque!
- Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry, Paul?
- Why Me, Not Him III
- In F-ing Limine
SWEENEY'S ‘FACTS’
Dear Editor,
Regarding the Proposed Fort Bragg Transfer station controversy, MSWMA Manager Mike Sweeney can prove that his “facts” in the 5/28/15 Community Forum are accurate by posting the documents he refers to onto the MSWMA website.
We’d like to see
1. the appraisal for the Russian Gulch State Parks Road 409 property,
2. the appraisal for the Jackson Demonstration State Forest property,
3. the appraisal and toxics reports for the Caspar landfill and transfer station,
4. the 2012 appraisal on asset values and exchange values,
5. a rehabilitation plan and funding for the old Caspar transfer station property,
6. the botanical report for the proposed Caspar pygmy forest preserve,
7. an MOU with State Parks that they will accept a conservation easement on the Casper TS land and the dollar value of that easement,
8. a detailed report on the “huge savings” by transportation efficiency (with actual numbers, not included in the EIR),
9. a report detailing why no environmentally less destructive alternative parcel was included in the EIR. Without these documents neither the public nor the Sierra Club can evaluate his claims.
Each of these questions were submitted in our comments to the Draft EIR, and we await the responses, due out this month. The Dept. of Fish and Wildlife has also submitted comments and questions about the categorization of the pygmy forest into subcategories.
Additionally, the distance from neighbors to the PERIMETER of very large parcels is not the same as the distance to a sited facility on the parcel. Both Leisure Time RV and the Regional Park have plenty of room for buffers within the parcels. Why bulldoze a new site?
Mr. Sweeney’s call-out of my name leading every one of his seven paragraphs tends to make this a personal backlash, but rest assured that many other people are also following this discussion.
Rixanne Wehren, Coastal Committee chair
Mary Walsh, chair, Sierra Club, Mendocino Group
THE SMELL TEST
Editor,
A favor please.
A loyal long term subscriber, from Half Moon Bay, requests the AVA's sage advice on which Anderson Valley wine to purchase as a gift for friends in Fort Bragg. We don't want to patronize a winery that abuses its neighbors with noisy frost fans. Please suggest which vineyards we should make our selection from so as to support your local efforts to financially penalize grape growers who disregard the health and well being of their neighbors. Thank you in advance for your kind assistance and your superb paper.
Clint Miller
Half Moon Bay
Ed Reply: As mostly a beer and whiskey drinker (Pabst Blue Ribbon and Evan Williams), I'm the wrong lowbrow to ask about wine. But the ecological practices of the local wineries? I'd say Boonville's beloved community newspaper is the only reliable source of information going. But for a slamdunk fact the Judson Hale winery out of Yorkville, tasting room at the Yorkville Market, is a sure bet every which way. A friend and I recently downed a bottle of Judson Hale pinot that was very, very good. I can also recommend my old friend Al Green's Greenwood Ridge Winery, and Mila Handley's Handley Cellars. Only a minority of Anderson Valley wineries engage in damaging, unneighborly practices, but they are so destructive (and they tend toward the much larger acreages) their practices tend to cast all our wineries in a bad light. You may be amused that a former manager of Roederer Estates told me that he considered Parducci jug red as good as any wine produced anywhere in Mendocino County. A French national, this guy said he always had Parducci on hand at his house and drank it pretty much exclusively.
Editor,
I don’t think it is right to leave the misuse of private email exchanges RE Frost Fans in your paper unresponded to. There is no doubt that email stuff is not necessarily private but it is also not necessary open to word for word printing and sadly, damaged an important communication process that was for at least one AVA writer’s benefit. If we had planned to air this material in a very public way, we would have sent it to you. What you do by publishing this is destroy any personal process of strategy per your ‘journalistic’ notion of ‘disclosure.’ It is a bad precedence and I think you should avoid it. Also others should check carefully what is in the CC column but sadly the BCC column shares nothing and leaves us vulnerable. I for one will avoid using email this way in the future. I personally do not see any strength in it, nor do I value the paper for this. Frankly just made me angry.
Here is what is missing guys. If you saw something you wanted to discuss, you had our names and could have asked if you comment on it with a direct exchange. Good journalism. I don’t know what the other version is, but it left a very sour taste in my mouth.
The only similar stupid use of private email I have seen was when the CPUC published the breech of the Smartmeter group by the head of the Smartmeter program whereupon that individual was attempting to manipulate change. He was fired by PG&E who were clearly embarrassed and worried. But here is where stupid gets big, the public oriented CPUC redacted any PG members name and left the names of those of us who had written in their very public record. Instead of protecting the victims, they victimized us more. Some Public Utility Commission eh? In my opinion the commission could drop Public from their name, it is the least of their focus.
Greg Krouse
Philo
Ed Reply:
WE’RE #44!
Open Letter to Mendocino Supervisors
Mendocino County Health and Human Services (HHS) ranks at or near the bottom of the 58 California counties on many measures, according to information made public recently.
1. The 2015 Grand Jury Report on Child Protective Services (now called Family & Children’s Services) found that Mendocino County ranks at the bottom for two of three State measures of job performance. CPS/FCS is required by law to provide timely and appropriate services to children at risk. FCS fails to conduct timely investigations and is not in compliance with State-required educational standards for Social Workers handling child abuse/neglect cases. Under-qualified staff, staff shortages and poor management decisions are problems that need correcting.
2. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that Mendocino County ranks 44th in Health Outcomes overall, in infant and child mortality, and children living in poverty; 50th in premature deaths; and 45th in Health Behaviors such as drinking and smoking.
3. The State Mental Health External Quality Review Organization found that Mendocino County provides fewer services than other counties for: Inpatient, Residential, Crisis and Medication Support.
Please talk to informed people outside of HHS staff about solutions to these serious problems. You can create and oversee the corrections needed and that State Government requires. Your constituents want State and Federal government money used according to laws that: protect children and support their parents; and provide accessible treatment and support to people with severe mental illness and addictions.
Please create and oversee a HHS financial system that is accurate, bills properly, and available for all to see.
Sonya Nesch
Comptche
BIRD DAY!
Editor,
Anderson Valley’s third grade students and teachers send a huge thank you for our annual “Bird Day” at the Redwood House in Yorkville. For five years, Val Hanelt and Hans Hickenlooper have hosted third grade birders at their habitat rich land. Their land offers a wealth of experiences both wild and tame for our young ornithologists. Students recognized Tree Swallows zipping in and out of nest boxes, chattering House Wrens, and the handsome visiting Black-headed Grosbeaks. This year we identified 22 species in our bird walks, including one chilling encounter with the food chain-a Red-shouldered Hawk enjoying a meal of Steller’s Jay chicks.
The hit of the day was the exploration of the creek, its residents, and of course, the sandy banks. Students created kingdoms, castles of crystals and their own rambling schoolyards. Play and imagination, cooperation and investigation in a place both wild and safe.
Thank you again Val and Hans for this wonderful opportunity to explore and experience Anderson Valley in all its wealth.
Sincerely,
Julie Rumble & Charlotte Triplett
Anderson Valley Elementary School
BOOK GRATITUDE
Letter to the Editor,
The Unity Club would like to thank its members and community people who contributed monies to the High School Library Book Enrichment Program. We managed to purchase $325.32 worth of books, with $191.83 contributed directly by members and interested community. Our own Mary Darling did a super job with purchasing.
The Unity Club was pleased to work with Wendy Emal, High School Librarian. She is so positive and encouraging about literacy for teens. We also very much appreciated, once again, the generous support by the community. This small success is another example of schools and communities working together to encourage lifetime reading.
Beverly Dutra for the AV Unity Club
Philo
BIRKENSTOCK BURLESQUE!
Editor:
Judi Bari Day. Only in Mendocino!
This is just more evidence that America is way off the tracks. As if any more were needed. One glance at the Huffington Post and it's easy to see the game is over.
From national to local we see the total debauchery of politics and civil service by the pop culture of idiot narcissism and half baked cool fools lost in an orgy of egomania at cuber speed.
The speakers of truth to power of the Pacifica radio type are little more than paranoid preach to the choir loop tape cultists. Delusional in Birkenstocks!
If the FBI wanted you dead, you'd be well dead and quick. And by the way, Oswald did it. And the idea that our dysfunctional government could pull off an attack on New York is beyond ridiculous.
No conspiracy is even needed when a society is administered by and filled with fools, idiots, morons, and venal greedy assholes. It's a miracle there isn't more mayhem than there is.
The whole Judi Bari story reads like some F. Scott Fitzgerald novel teaming with phony radicals and a wife killer and charlatan carpet baggers lulling the leftover Left into bankrolling a new martyr while putting the Feds in their place. Wow, heavy man!
Smells like a Pentecostal tent revival to me. Looks a lot like a bunch of mock Liberals trying to put our fine county on some map for daring to honor such a radical saint.
What writer could even think up such a twisted plot? The husband walks. Some hippies get rich. And now the rudderless jerks who supervise the ruin of our county latch on to this pathetic circus as if it were some high mark of our collective sanity as no offshore drilling is.
How utterly embarrassing. What blatant self-serving drivel. What an insult to those of us who've not been brainwashed by the Bari-ites.
Good Luck,
Marvin Blake
Elk
PS. In my last letter about Geoengineering I said commercial flights don't fly over Northern California. The truth is they don't fly over Mendocino County, those giant jets are military tanker planes; believe it!
HERE’S YOUR HAT, WHAT’S YOUR HURRY, PAUL?
To the Editor:
I read Paul Lambert’s long pompous farewell in last week’s issue. It is good news that “family matters call me and my wife back to Southern California.” Oh dear, really, “Paul”?
My memory of “Paul” will be his KZYX programmic simper, “What’s your first name and where are you from?,” as though these were essential information for human expression and he had the privilege to know.
I recall his playing an extremely heavy devil’s advocate in the freeway controversy, openly broadcasting, though supposedly a journalist, that he could not understand why people here continued to protest (i.e., object to an unnecessary intrusion upon our beautiful little valley, including poisonous and invasive measures in perpetuity).
Caltrans owns a quarter of the valley. Does anyone think they just want to fit in? Lambert won’t care either way. He is gone and leaves his verbal refuse behind.
His farewell advice to us, again via the simper delivery, is “try tolerance and working together.” Tolerance means nothing to power. The governmental bodies were conditioned, intimidated and deceived by the Caltrans approach, and reversing course was never considered for reasons of pride. Enter unofficial citizenry.
The extensive measured efforts we in the freeway study group attempted were dismissed as “discussion on issues previously considered.” In other words, fulfill a shell of formalist democracy and then proceed with said devastation.
I think what Lambert is really orating is: “Be nice, like I am.” To which I must reply, thank God fake-liberals have no power, but only citizens willing to place themselves in jeopardy against institutional force, so that their convictions cannot be ignored. We all remember when Willits was under near military occupation.
That the initial stages of the Caltrans invasion have proceeded despite citizen action is no indication of honor. The meager pro-bypass contingent was no more than identifying with daddy, no honor in that. The state monolith has no human honor or morality, no honor there. Nor really the passive citizens who think obeisance is superior adult behavior. The authorities always define social success and stature for us as politely going along with their interests and desires. (Sound familiar?)
Protesting wrong is honorable in a free society. Nor does conformity to superior institutional force achieve justice or any other kind of honorable conclusion – Lambert’s pallid cliches about “tolerance” notwithstanding.
As far as the KZYX problems, at least he is improving matters by getting out. No organization with paid and beleaguered staff trying to fit volunteers into their scheme is going to escape conflict. The conflict can be resolved – if there is a shared will. Preachments from departing twits make no difference.
Goodbye Paul Lambert, and please get lost on the way.
William Ray
Willits
WHY ME, NOT HIM III
Dear Editor;
Greetings to your readers. Welcome to Part 3 of “Why Me, Not Him.” For those of you who either missed or don’t remember this case, let me reiterate for you how this case unfolded.
This case started on March 12th, 2014 on Highway 20 just outside of Clear Lake Oaks, coming from the direction of Highway 53 and right in front of the motel and restaurant. That was where I was involved in an automobile accident with another vehicle that was driven by Mr. Robert Marcus Turner. Mr. Turner was driving a 1995 Chevy Blazer, I was driving my 1977 Dodge Three-Quarter Ton utility truck, my work truck.
Further up the road, around Suffer Banks Road and Highway 20, I passed Mr. Turner, who took a disliking to the idea of someone passing him. Mr. Turner took to the shoulder of the road in trying to pass me and get back in front of me, so he could try to get me to rear-end him. That was one of the reasons for me wanting to get in front of him. I was tired of the game he was playing. As Mr. Turner was making his attempt to get back in front of me, he turned right into me. My right front bumper hit his vehicle, just behind the driver side left front tire. He gunned his vehicle so it would slide across my front bumper. Where this accident happened, there is a gas station, a restaurant, and a motel, all next to each other.
All three have security cameras that face toward Highway 20 and cover their properties. Their security cameras caught Mr. Turner’s illegal driving practices in action.
Mr. Turner turned his vehicle into mine and caused this accident, from which I suffered a whiplash and shoulder injury. I kept driving because I was also suffering from a flashback from my combat experience. I made it to a friend’s place in Glenhaven, where I started to work on my truck so I could go to the hospital because I was in pain. Another friend called me on my cell phone a few minutes after I arrived at my friend’s place in Glenhaven. He asked me if I was involved in a rollover accident, to which I said “No.” I did not even know the other vehicle rolled over.
It seems Mr. Turner told the sheriff’s deputy that I rammed him and that caused him to roll his vehicle over. According to Mr. Turner I pitted him, whatever that is. Then Mr. Turner remembered his four year old daughter, who was still in the car upside down. Thank God she was not hurt. From the MAV recordings (police recordings), Mr. Turner was more interested in what was in the car than his own daughter. The CHP officers even noticed this and made some comments about it, which were recorded.
On March 12th, 2014, the same day as the accident, I was arrested for Assault with a deadly weapon, i.e., my truck. On March 14th, 2014, I was taken to court and charged with one count of Assault with a deadly weapon and five prison priors, as well as two strikes. My bail was set at $530,000, which I could not meet. It took us from March 14th, 2014 until June 16th, 2014, to get all of the discovery from the DA, which she had before the charges were even filed. This is a delay tactic used in the courts by the DA to prolong a case and get a defendant to plead out.
Then on July 7th, 2014, I had my first preliminary hearing. Yes, there was another preliminary hearing in October. After the first preliminary, my trial was to start on September 3rd, 2014, but my attorney was starting a murder trial on August on August 24th, 2014. My new trial date was moved to October 22, 2014.
But the new DA, who took over the case back on July 1, 2014, had a surprise for me on October 17th, 2014. She had dismissed the complaint, but she re-filed it on October 16th, 2014. She re-filed the Assault with a deadly weapon, but she added a new charge, Vehicle Code section 20001(a), Hit and Run with injury, a Felony. Mr. Turner had one small cut on his right little finger from breaking his own car window before the accident. A scratch on his left elbow and some very small scratches on his back were caused by him crawling in and out of his vehicle a number of times.
Now get this, the DA dismissed the first complaint five days before I was to start my trial. Since she had this case since July 2014, she could have amended the complaint before this, but she did not.
According to the law, a DA can amend a complaint at any time before trial, but the DA cannot re-file a complaint before the first complaint has been dismissed. I believe my attorney, Mr. Mitchell Hauptman, told the court that I was concerned about my constitutional rights on this matter. But the court just ignored this statement, re-arraigned me, and set an October 27th, 2014 date for my second preliminary hearing.
I was bound over to stand trial and my trial date was set for January 7th, 2015. My attorney did not want to start my trial during the Christmas Holidays, but on January 7th, 2015, my trial finally started.
Of course, by now it has been almost a year since the accident and that was without me waiving any time. When I was first charged with this crime I asked for a speedy trial. So much for speedy trials in Lake County.
On Friday January 9th, 2015, Mr. Turner took the stand after he was given an attorney and immunity from prosecution on any charges he may uncover. Mr. Turner testified how I rammed him and performed a pit maneuver on him. He also testified to the fact that my passenger and I were laughing at him. There was only one thing wrong with that statement: I was the only one in my truck. Like most of Mr. Turner’s testimony, it was fabricated, and the prosecution attorney sanctioned his testimony by giving him immunity. The only thing he did not fabricate in his testimony was when he said, “There were no injuries caused by the accident.”
We uncovered that Mr. Turner was driving on a suspended or revoked license with four prior convictions for the same thing. We also learned through his testimony that he received another ticket for driving on a suspended or revoked license in September 2014, after the accident.
Then, on January 14th, 2015, in the afternoon, we presented our case. We only called one witness and that was the reconstructionist from San Francisco, a Mr. Chris Kauderer of Kauderer and Associates. He testified that it was Mr. Turner who caused the accident and caused his own vehicle to roll over by his reckless driving. The DA asked Mr. Kauderer the same question worded about ten different ways, but he gave her the same answer each time – I did not testify on the advice of my attorney. I knew without my testimony the jury would not hear my side.
When the jury came back after its deliberation, they found me not Guilty of the Assault charge, but they found me Guilty of the Felony Hit and Run with injury. By finding me innocent of the Assault charge, they also found me innocent of the cause of the accident. Which made me the victim of this case.
I would like to pose a question to your readers and the general public and see if any of them have the answer. If you do have the answer, please enlighten the ones who don’t have the answer, like me.
Now for the $1,000,000 question. “Where in the United States or the State of California Constitution does it state that if you prove you are the victim of an accident or crime you must go to jail and serve time?”
At the time of sentencing the DA kept insinuating that the accident was my fault and Mr. Turner was the victim, who was vulnerable to my actions as the cause of this accident. I think I am doing the six years in prison for my past, and not for leaving the scene of an accident, a non-injury accident.
Sincerely,
Eric Von Renegar, AW 5650
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA. 94964
IN F-ING LIMINE
Dear Editor,
My humble respects and salutations to all that matters out there and all those who care. Well, I had a trial again for the second time on this bogus case with my ex-girlfriend, my son’s mom. What kind of woman testifies on her son’s father? The spurned kind. “Hell hath no fury like the woman scorned.” I’m not scared to do time for a crime I committed, but this is bullshit.
This last trial was a joke and was a great injustice not only to me but to the justice system itself. This completely destroys the values of the foundation of American Justice. Everything that came out of Ashley’s mouth was absolute and utter bullshit and was completely different from her first testimony.
In the first trial which was fair, given the fact I did not have time to prepare witnesses, District Attorney Jon Hopkins coached the witness to taint the Jury and block the defense from having the fair shot to have a truthful Cross Examination. The Jury was tainted and prejudiced against me with the preconceived notions about the Valdez case I was acquitted of and crimes that never happened.
I left that bitch. She was jealous, controlling, insecure, abusive, and unpredictable. The chick hit me with a coffee cup out of nowhere because I got a text on Facebook from a chick in Frisco I haven’t seen or heard from since 2008. She had the audacity to take the stand and make me look like the controlling and jealous kind. I never gave a fuck; the direct evidence proved she was a goddamn liar. She blew my phone up so much I changed my phone number twice. She was threatening to kill herself if I left her and threatening to call the cops on me and hit herself and say I did it. All of this because I wouldn’t come over and take care of her. Fucking high maintenance bitch.
I really wanted to testify just to get the truth out but I don’t get down like that so I had to sit there and bite a hole in my lip. In motions In Limine were granted to keep her from tainting the jury and she violated every single motion. The last one was she told the jury I had stabbed someone. My attorney then filed a motion for mistrial on these grounds. The Judge admitted we were right but denied the motion. From that point on the trial was over, I could see it on the juror’s faces. It was a wrap. They thought I was a killer. Nothing the Defense could do would change the outcome because the burden of proof changed from the DA’s side to the Defense and the jurors had put down their notepads, even when my witnesses came in. My cell phone had mysteriously vanished off my property. So what could I prove? How does my cell phone vanish off my jail property? If it hadn’t, it would have been a hands-down win for us.
On cross-examination Ashley admitted to being coached the day before taking up the stand, so she intentionally violated those motions set forth In Limine. How could she forget not to speak about them? So she was told what to say on the stand — perjury and deceit to get this piece of shit dishonorable coward Hopkins a conviction. If you were to take the transcript from the first trial and the transcript from the second trial and compare and deduce you would see the obvious. Power and control my fucking ass.
I’ve been in open relationships and closed relationships. I’ve never been the jealous insecure type. Those cut and paste text messages are all Ashley and her little friends doing anything and everything to get me into trouble. The message she sent a lady friend of mine on Facebook shows her true colors.
The fucked up thing is I never cheated on Ashley. I just couldn’t stand the jealous controlling attitude. She still has complete control of my Facebook and my email accounts. She hacked into them. She erased pretty much all the women on my Facebook, crazy bitch. Now all I care about are my sons and daughters who the courts also failed out of competitive greed and shady corruption.
I’m not surprised. You know I’m not perfect. I’m guilty of a lot of shit, and I’m an asshole. But I was raised to take responsibility for my actions with integrity and honor. I grew up playing with rattlesnakes and dynamite, why the fuck would I be scared of anybody or anything, and especially the truth? Veritas, aquitas. I’m innocent of this stupid shit with a spurned ex-girlfriend. This was a helluva manipulation of the system on her part.
And Mr. Hopkins, you will get your fucking day, I filed an Appeal and full on Inquiry and Investigation into you and your part in all this fishy shit. I’ll make sure you never practice law ever again.
I filed the complaint to the appropriate channels and already received a reply and case number. My lawyer will file the appeal. So your win will be short-lived you little pencil dicked coward.
And to all those who matter and have love and respect for me and know me, mine likewise right back, Boomerang!
This is a very, very corrupt county. I had my shit together and this is how the county thinks of people who straighten their lives out. Bureaucratic cocksuckers with their heads up their asses. Can’t stand the stench of a bureaucratic cesspool. Well to all the people who love to hate me, see you next time. I’m out. Meep! Meep!
Respects,
Michael France, Recently Scapegoated
Ukiah
Be First to Comment