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Off the Record (Dec. 28, 2016)

Anne Shapiro

SEVERAL READERS have pointed out that the remains of Anne Shapiro, 33, of Little River, washed ashore near Fort Bragg about a week before the Montana maniac, Nicholas Merrill, broke into a sleeping woman's house north of Fort Bragg late at night and commenced stabbing her — just walked in out of the night and attacked a woman he didn't know, the creepiest kind of assault imaginable.

MS. SHAPIRO did not have a car but had made her way from where she was last seen in Willits to the Fort Bragg area. Presumably, she hitchhiked to the coast. Merrill had a car and had made his way west from Montana, where he was wanted for felony vandalism. Presumably, investigators noted the proximity of the dates Ms. Shapiro was found, and Merrill's midnight rampage. (Merrill's victim managed to get away from the lunatic to a neighbor's house. Merrill was soon found by police crouched in nearby bushes, not willing to take on the male neighbor who'd scared him off.)

Merrill

MERRILL, clearly a dangerous person, but a person whose doting parents paid for a lawyer to defend their bad seed, was sentenced to 14 years and 4 months in state prison. He got off way too light, but is one more example getting the justice you can pay for.

FORMER THIRD DISTRICT SUPERVISOR John Pinches made a surprise and very welcome appearance at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Everybody was happy to see the popular cowboy — especially, as Pinches noted, since the Third District isn’t being represented by a functioning supervisor at the moment. Pinches was on hand to propose that now that the Willits Bypass is open, Caltrans should be pressured to install an emergency access ramp. (Pinches is not the first to notice that the bypass alongside Willits is essentially inaccessible except for the two entries/exits and the far north and far south of town.) “You can’t get easily to the hospital via the bypass,” Pinches pointed out, suggesting that a southbound emergency-only exit be added for quick access to the new Howard Hospital.

PINCHES ASKED THE BOARD to ask Caltrans to start the process. “It could be done cheaply,” insisted Pinches. “No structures to build, no water crossings, just a southbouind exit and then loop back to Eastside Road. It’s a piece of cake. There are no issues. It might save somebody’s life. Hell! I rode the ambulance a few months ago — it might be me.”

PINCHES SAID THE RAMP should not be funded outside of Caltrans’s normal but cumbersome budget process, but instead it could be done with “safety funding” which, apparently, Caltrans has plenty of in reserve. “It does not have to be open for traffic,” insisted Pinches. “Emergency vehicles only. It would save 10-15 minutes for an ambulance.”

THE WOODHOUSE-LESS BOARD AGREED and a letter to Caltrans will be drafted. Pinches said he expectrf a similar letter from the Willits City Council. There was a meandering discussion about who, specifically, in Caltrans to send the letter to having to do with what Supervisor Dan Gjerde said was a semi-secret Mendo-Lake transportation planning group that they should try to get it to. “I’m not saying they owe it to us,” but I think they’ll oblige us if we ask. But you don’t want to bash them. You always get more money if you talk nice to them.”

SUPERVISOR JOHN McCOWEN gave a Doug Bosco style update of the dispute between the NCRA/NWP and SMART at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, implying that SMART’s stated safety concerns are really just a thinly veiled ploy to avoid paying for some track maintenance. Nevermind that the issue could probably have been resolved if NWP had supplied the requested storage and movement safety plan that SMART originally asked for.

McCOWEN, IN TURN, implies that if the issue ends up being decided by the Surface Transportation Board, “there are risks” — presumably to SMART because McCowen and his NCRA mentor (and NWP owner) Doug Bosco probably think they’ll get a friendly ruling from the STB.

McCOWEN OPENED THE UPDATE REPORT with an unexplained remark about the status of the Ukiah Depot. The depot, also owned by NCRA, is being sold to the State of California so that the Court/judges can build an entirely unnecessary and wasteful new courthouse a few blocks away from the existing downtown Courthouse. McCowen, speaking more as an NCRA board member than a Mendocino County Supervisor, seems to think that the sale is a good thing because NCRA will benefit, when in fact the whole deal is a way to shift some state money from the Courts to the NCRA at a price that is probably way too high because NCRA/Bosco probably knew they had the only viable location for the unnecessary and ugly new courthouse.

TOWARD THE END of his “update,” McCowen mentioned the financial condition of the NCRA and the NWP — never mind that the NCRA has never and will never release its books for pubic scrutiny and is doing just fine as long as there’s no real shipping activity besides the occasional small load of feed grain on top of the LPG tanker cars.

McCOWEN WRAPPED UP with the NCRA party-line fantasy about the Democratic Party’s choo-choo someday running into Mendocino County where there isn’t even any feed grain or liquid propane to ship/store. This fantasy must be maintained so that the NCRA and the NWP can continue to pull down track maintenance funds from CalTrans as if a train could or should ever run on the oh-so-desirable shipping link from Cloverdale to Willits.

McCOWEN: “There is a detailed status of the Ukiah Depot. That is still moving forward. I will have the County Clerk distribute copies to all the board members so you will have that information. You may have read about a controversy between the North Coast Railroad Authority and our hauler, Northwest Pacific Company and SMART, Sonoma Marin Area Rapid Transit regarding storage of liquefied petroleum gas tank cars on a siding owned by NCRA near Schellville 9 miles from the SMART tracks. SMART raised this as a safety issue which [shrugs] these cars are — there are probably thousands of them in the Bay Area on railroad sidings. They are moving through the populated areas all the time. [Waves arms.] That aside, there are discussions under way about possibly reaching a global settlement. I think SMART is using this as leverage to address a dozen or more issues by which they could resolve issues with NCRA and NWP Co. that could obligate SMART to spend money to restore rail sidings and a number of other issues. So potentially, all these outstanding issues could be resolved in consideration for NCRA and NWP Co. clearly having the right to transport and store these LPG cars. The alternative is to have the Surface Transportation Board issue a ruling. As with any litigation there is risk and I encourage both parties to seek a resolution. If this is resolved in a way that recognizes the right of NCRA and NWP Co. to transport and store the LPG cars, that alone would more than stabilize the financial condition of NWP Co. which would then improve the relationship between them as the designated operator and NCRA and potentially result in a financial benefit to NCRA as well, thereby stabilizing its financial condition. So potentially there is a landmark step forward that could occur. And then, if you can get NCRA off life support we could start serious discussions about how do you restore rail service to inland Mendocino County and potentially eventually to Willits which, although there is a big step between Redwood Valley and Willits, if you coud get to Willits it makes a lot of sense to hook up to the Skunk Line as well.”

MORE DETAILS emerged today in the Joshua Ruoff murder case as deputies disclosed that it was Timothy Sweeting’s dog that returned to the pot pharm on Charlie Hurt Highway, Covelo, and dug up her murdered master’s remains.

THIS REPORTER had mistakenly understood that it was a cadaver dog that found Timmy’s remains (everyone called him Timmy except his killer). Timmy's dog had been missing a few days before and after the murder when Sweeting, his master, was listed merely as a missing person. But on June 2nd Jack Overend heard dogs fighting in his backyard — apparently Sweeting’s dog was fighting off the others — and when Overend went out to break it up he saw Sweeting’s dog and a human hand protruding from under the sod where the dog had been digging. The hand belonged to Sweeting. His dog had come back to find him.

ALSO REVEALED were the text messages from Joshua Ruoff to Jack Overend reading, “Eternal sleep is the cure-bird, and this fucking kid is a leech.” Ruoff sent a picture of the murder weapon, a baseball bat, and Overend, the owner of the property where Sweeting was found, who was in Lake Tahoe, sent back a text that read, “Let the babe sleep.”

THE SHALLOW GRAVE where Sweeting was found was only five or six feet from the deck of the house the pot pharmers shared. When Sweeting's body was exhumed it was taken in for an autopsy, attended by Detective Matt Croskey who told the court that not only had the forehead been “severely battered” but also there was “a wide slash or gash across the throat.”

SWEETING'S mother identified her son’s remains by a tattoo on his left breast.

WHETHER Timmy Sweeting’s dog was named Lassie or not, she pretty much solved this horrendous pot-related murder.

DETECTIVE LUIS ESPINOZA testified that he’d been at the scene on May 19th and walked around (he and other investigators must have walked right over Timmy Sweeting’s grave near the deck) and that he saw what appeared to be dried blood puddles in the lawn and traces of spatters and smears on the deck and threshold of the door.

DETECTIVE ESPINOZA interviewed Brock Rodgers (who had been seen dropping Ruoff off at the U-Haul business in Willits) in the driveway to the Overend house and learned that he’d been helping with the tarps used in the light-depravation grow.  Mr. Rodgers told Espinoza that Jack Overend had called him from Tahoe and asked him to go check on Sweeting just after 8:15 on May 18th and that when he got there about five minutes later, the deck wet and there was no sign of Sweeting or his vehicle.  He could see Ruoff inside, through the windows, “frantically throwing things” and packing up.  He asked Ruoff to help him take a tarp down from the greenhouse, and Ruoff told him no.  When he asked where Timmy was, Ruoff said he was out looking for his dogs.

AFTER RODGERS got the tarp down he called Overend back and was told to go in the house on the pretext that he needed to wash his hands, and look around.  He did so, and said he found the place abnormally clean, and smelling strongly of bleach.  He said Ruoff offered him some marijuana but he turned it down.  Then he told Rouff that Jack said he needed to leave.  After that Rodgers left but wasn’t gone more than 20 minutes when Ruoff called him “begging” for a ride to the U-Haul place in Willits.

THE PRELIM was postponed again, and set to resume after the first of the year.  There didn’t seem to be any hurry, so the process of the law was proceeding at a pace set to accommodate the schedules of the witnesses.

— Bruce McEwen

A READER comments on that grisly find of the mummified woman in Fort Bragg: "Everybody's been pointing fingers at Cindy, the manager at Duncan Place. Let me say, for the record, that I'm a tenant here and Cindy is one of the most informative, caring, thoughtful managers that I've ever had. She doesn't just think of us as tenants, she really does care and does do welfare checks!! Lori [Fiorentino, in home care worker] had all of us fooled. She ran games all over this place and as far as the smell in the hallways, there was none except a strong urine smell off and on. I was running up and down the stairs on that side visiting friends for a couple months over there and I smelled nothing!! So before you start casting stones find out the full story!!"

AS IT HAPPENS, my disabled sister lived at Duncan Place for a number of years. Duncan Place is on Cypress in Fort Bragg virtually across the street from the police department. I know that building pretty well. The tenants are mostly elderly, mostly disabled. The structure is rather labyrinthian and tomb-like, I'd say, in that it's well-carpeted and apparently so well insulated sound does not carry, not that I ever heard so much as a squeak emanating from any of the many lonely doors. There are long halls and absolute silence, even in the mostly empty, austere recreation room where I never saw anyone recreating. My impression was that everyone in the place could have been dead for months without anyone knowing. But that unhappy circumstance would be unlikely since there's an on-site manager who, in the years I visited, were efficient and accommodating. And Fort Bragg's emergency services and medical people deserve double whatever they're paid, as I know from the superior level of care rendered my sister in her many hours of need. If it is known an elderly or disabled Fort Bragg person is imperiled, FB's emegency people will for sure be there.

READING between the lines of the sparse accounts of this poor woman's sad end, I would guess that her in-home person was primarily committed to go-fast powder, but probably intended, in her perpetually fevered state, to do the right thing but never quite got around to it. She probably had other priorities. I know a lot of in-home people do a great job under difficult circumstances, but the near-minimum wage work does not require a license or, it seems, much in the way of background checks.

THE REAL STORY here is that millions of people are adrift, estranged from their families and without even a chum to look in on them regularly. We grow weak, the wolves circle, and if you don't have someone keeping the fire lit to keep them away, the wolves will surely devour you.

THE NOW NOTORIOUS FORT BRAGG elder abuse case of Lori Diane Fiorentino: she was arraigned in Judge Ann Moorman’s court, despite what “District Attorney officials” told the Press Democrat over the phone. Ms. Fiorentino shuffled into the courtroom like the most pitiful of invalids, and you had to wonder how she could even take care of herself, let alone anyone else. Judge Moorman appointed the Public Defender’s Assistant, Carly Dolan, who immediately began asking for Fiorentino’s release on her own recognizance. The judge cut her short and suggested she read the probable cause statement before going any further. Well, we all make mistakes, but if the lawyers at the OPD were not proscribed from reading the AVA online, Dolan would have known she had been handed a no-bail case. (Bruce McEwen)

JEFF COSTELLO WRITES

I've been on a search for children’s books, the season you know. But I wanted to find books that I liked as a kid. The Little Engine That Could is still available, but I'm stumped on my favorite, the Topsy Turvy book I had in the early 50's. People have taken the term and run wild with it, and the one I want still isn't there. It was an early introduction to the absurdity of society and family, everything backwards and contrary to what we were taught. Dad buttered his napkin and wiped his mouth with the toast. Thanks to this book, I suspect I encountered fewer surprises in the "real" world than many other kids did. I don't suppose you've ever seen it?

REMEMBER MEASURE V? The initiative Mendo voters passed last summer to declare Mendocino Redwoods Company’s “hack-n-squirt” tree-poisoning practice to be a public nuisance?

SINCE THE INITIATIVE PASSED MRC has declared itself immune from enforcement of the Measure on grounds that logging is agriculture and agriculture is immune from nuisance complaints.

ON TUESDAY the Board of Supervisors consent agenda contained an item from County Counsel Kit Elliott: “Request Direction from the Board of Supervisors for County Counsel to Seek a Legal Opinion from the Attorney General on Whether Mendocino County Code, Chapter 8.400, ‘Declare Intentionally Killed and Left Standing Trees a Public Nuisance’ (‘Measure V’) is Legally Enforceable Against Timber Operations.”

SUMMARY OF REQUEST: “Measure V was placed on the ballot as a Voter Initiative and was passed by 62.29% of the voters on June 7, 2016. This measure became law on July 22, 2016. There have been continuing questions from County departments and the public on whether the County will take any enforcement action regarding this measure. Before that question can be answered it is necessary to determine if Measure V is legally enforceable and to determine if the specific silvicultural treatment referred to as ‘hack and squirt’ or ‘frilling’ is legally exempt from County Code nuisance enforcement. California Government Code section 12519 mandates the Attorney General issue a written opinion upon any question of law once requested by the County Counsel. Once that opinion is issued, it is citable authority and is afforded great weight by the courts.”

BUT WHEN THE TIME CAME to vote on the consent agenda Ms. Elliott pulled the item, saying she didn’t need direction from the Board to bounce the thorny question off her desk and up into the legal puzzle palace so she was going to ask the Attorney General’s office on her own.

ANTI-CLIMACTIC? Sure. Now the voter-approved measure will languish indefinitely in the backwaters of the Attorney General’s office.

AND WHO IS ATTORNEY GENERAL now that Kamala Harris has been elected California Senator to replace Barbara Boxer, you might ask? Governor Brown has appointed (presumably; subject to confirmation) LA-area Congressman Xavier Becerra. If confirmed, Becerra will become the state's first Latino attorney general — until the November 2018 when the position will be up for election.

Becerra

CONGRESSMAN BECERRA has been most recently Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and a career Dem. He’s the son of Mexican immigrants from Sacramento who grew up in a one-room home with three sisters before getting his Stanford law degree. He was Deputy Attorney General in 1987-1990) under John Van de Kamp.

IF MR. BECERRA’S new crew ever gets around to issuing an opinion on Measure V we suspect he’ll rule that MRC is exempt from pesky public nuisance declarations.

MENDO’S NEW ANIMAL SHELTER HONCHO Richard Molinari told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that the Shelter:

Loaned several crates to the Ukiah Homeless Shelter to hold the Shelter’s residents’ dogs overnight.

Adopted out 112 cats and 110 dogs over the period of September through November.

Returned 117 pets to their owners

Transferred 91 cats and 47 dogs to rescue organizations and/or animal care partners.

Had a “live release rate” of 90.5%

Gave 48 kittens and 9 dogs new homes at discounted rates for the holiday.

And they officially recognized all the volunteers for their very important contributions.

IF YOU EVER LOOK at the animal shelter website, (www.mendoanimalshelter.com) you will see just how many dogs and cats are waiting for homes. Just the other day, at 5:00 p.m., 25 dogs entered the system — 17 of them puppies. Shelter staff can't afford to laze about, as surrendered and found animals arriving at the agency never stops. The Sisyphean service performed by the employees at the shelter is astounding; this is not a job for the pampered or faint of heart. They ask for little praise, they deserve a lot.

THE SUPERVISORS HAVE scheduled a special meeting/workshop to consider the subject of “Cannabis Facility Business Licenses” for next month. Supervisor John McCowen said that since, for the purposes of pot regs, the “Board” is just McCowen, Dan Gjerde and Carre Brown (Hamburg has recused himself on grounds that his daughter is in the pot biz), there’s no real point in having the General Government Committee (i.e., McCowen and Brown) go through the process only to have it reconsidered again with Gjerde.

(INTERESTINGLY, even though (ex?)-Supervisor/Mental Health Patient/unindicted cop biter Tom Woodhouse’s attorney says Woodhouse is doing better and might be back to work next year, McCowen seems to be assuming he won’t.) So it looks like the Board will hold the workshop on January 27. McCowen said that County Staff has a draft reg and it should be circulated to the public in advance and that the workshop would be better if scheduled earlier than January 27.

BUT OUTGOING BOARD CHAIR Dan Gjerde said that it first had to go through the Planning Commission’s January meeting and that the material won’t be ready until January 27.

THERE’S ANOTHER complicated and potentially very controversial draft being worked on for pot cultivation which will also come up for consideration next year which will present the Board with numerous conflicting issues, not least of them medical versus recreational and the election of Donald Trump.

THE POT REGS DISCUSSION reminded us of what Superior Court judge-elect (and former hotshot pot defense attorney) Keith Faulder told us last year during the campaign: Signing up to cultivate marijuana is tantamount to confessing to the commission of a federal felony. At the time, Faulder recognized that the risk of federal prosection was low — under the Obama administration. But now that Trump intends to appoint Reagan-era pot warrior Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, that risk no longer seems so low.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/jeff-sessions-coming-war-on-legal-marijuana-214501

(EXCERPT: “With little more than the stroke of his own pen, the new attorney general will be able to arrest growers, retailers and users, defying the will of more than half the nation’s voters, including those in his own state where legislators approved the use of CBD. Aggressive enforcement could cause chaos in a $6.7 billion industry that is already attracting major investment from Wall Street hedge funds and expected to hit $21.8 billion by 2020. … ‘If we don't take action and hold President-elect Trump accountable,’ said Representative Jared Polis, Democrat from Colorado, ‘in one fell swoop, the federal government could damage state economies, and discourage entrepreneurship—placing some of our innovators behind bars, all while eroding states' rights’.”)

AT THE END OF THE POT REG DISCUSSION, McCowen noted that he will be Board Chair next year — “unless there’s a coup.”

BLACK AND WHITE RELATIONS being what they are, only a black person, specifically a black man, could have written The Sellout. It made me nervous just reading the review, like maybe I should have a special permission from the NAACP to even consider what was being said by the approving black writer, Darryl Pinckney.

PINCKNEY sold me on the book by Paul Beatty. I found the excerpts from the review funny as hell, though it's a hellish experience that produced them. It's satire, which is always risky in a country whose colleges turn out thousands of people who not only can't read with full comprehension. Anything outside the PC catechism, satire or not, will be painful going for them.

ONLY A BRAVE WRITER, satirist or not, black writer or not, would dare write this about Maya Angelou's oppressively sentimental, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which Beatty's narrator says, he got from his school as a gift”

“I made it through the first couple of pages or so before a strong sense of doom overwhelmed me and I began to get very suspicious… I ventured another paragraph, growing ever more oppressed with each maudlin passage. My lips thickened. My burr headed afro took on the appearance and texture of a dried out-out firethorn bush… My eyes started to water and the words to 'Roll, Jordan, Roll,' a Negro spiritual I'd never heard before, poured out of my mouth in a surprising sonorous baritone. I didn't know I could sing. Quickly, I tossed the book into the kitchen trash. For a black child like myself who was impoverished every other week while waiting for his mother's bimonthly paydays, giving me a copy of ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ was the educational equivalent of giving the prairie Indians blankets laced with smallpox or putting saltpeter in a sailor's soup. I already knew why the caged bird sings, but after three pages of that book I now know why they put a mirror in the parakeet's cage, so he can wallow in his own misery. Thank goodness they didn't send me her poems.”

EARLY IN ‘THE SELLOUT,’ the narrator tells us that his father warned him "to stay away from bitches who love Nina Simone and have faggots for best friends" because they are the kind of women who hate men.

THIS BOOK is a scorcher, for sure. Demand that the County Library order it up. Failing that, you can borrow my copy as soon as I'm ready to part with it.

‘THE SELLOUT’ is unlikely to sell well in Mendocino County, where the film version of the Color Purple is  regarded as a documentary on black life, but I doubt many black readers will be too keen on it, but in a country drowning in untruth, knee jerk piety and pure mawk, Paul Beatty is definitely a go-to guy.

I'M SO FUCKING TIRED of black women always being described by their skin tones! Honey-colored this! Dark-chocolate that! My paternal grandmother was mocha-tinged, cafe-au-lair, graham-fucking-cracker brown! How come they never describe the white characters in relation to foodstuffs and hot liquids? Why aren't there any yogurt-colored, egg-shell-toned, string-cheese-skinned, low-fat-milk white protagonists in these racist, no-third-act-having books? That's why black literature sucks! — The Sellout, by Paul Beatty

COPS ALL SEEM to have gone to the same prose school. Their reports are stuffed with "perpetrators" and “suspects” and "victims," but without the embellishments that might spice up the ordinary, non-cop narrative. Of course all police reports go to the DA who sorts them out for prosecution or no prosecution. Our DA, fortunately for Mendo taxpayers, does not drag everything into court. Most DA's, given the deluge of criminal behavior, are in triage mode anyway. But this report from the Richmond District police in San Francisco, is the prose equivalent of, say, radio bleep-outs. As if SF cops, of all people, have to resort to crude Victorian avoidances not to describe what this particular pervo-rama consisted of:

Appalled citizens called 911 reporting that a male suspect was engaging in lewd conduct in public. The suspect made no effort to hide his inappropriate behavior, which could easily have been seen by children in the area. He was openly engaging in the behavior when responding Officers arrived on scene and interrupted him. Officers detained the suspect and ran a criminal history check. Not surprisingly, he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. This deplorable individual was booked at County Jail on his warrant and indecent exposure charge.

THE SCENE, a convenience store at a service station, early morning Healdsburg, jolly Pakistani, at the cash register. A stocky, thug-looking character — baggy sweat shirt, sags, neck tat. He's looking around in a way that prompts the clerk to look nervously at me, as we might be together in what happens next. It's Healdsburg. Nothing bad happens in Healdsburg, except for..... I linger near the coffee, as if at my age and advanced decrepitude I could be of any practical help if thug boy does something "inappropriate," in Mendocino County's elastic pejorative. Thug boy is just standing there, looking around, smirking to himself. There's the clerk, there's me, and there's him. "Marlboros!" he says suddenly and, throwing a ten at the clerk, says to me, "Merry Christmas, Pops!" He walks out the door chuckling to himself. The clerk sighs. "You never know, do you?"

WHERE'S FATHOM?

Fathom/Graham

Captain Fathom {Alan Graham} has been MIA for a Week!

His last known whereabouts: Low Gap County Jail, where he was taken in after attempting to get Rx drugs from CVS with a SQUIRT GUN! No news since his release LAST WEEK!

PLEASE: ANYONE seeing, hearing from, or otherwise obtaining knowledge of his whereabouts: Please call FastPac: 964-0120

He can use All of our Prayers in this, the Darkest, Coldest Time of the Year!

THE UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL’S syndicated economic's writer, Robert Samuelson, included the newly published Herbert Hoover biography called "Ordeal of the Presidency" in his selection of best books of 2016 having to do with economics. Former Journal staffer, Charlie Rappleye, is the author. (For you youngster journalists starting out in what may seem like the inescapable journalo exile of Mendocino County, Charlie made it out. Post his photo over your bedstead and, every night, pray to his image, chanting, "I can escape, I can do it. Charlie did.")

MENDO GOURMANDS are raving about Roland’s Bakery & Bistro in Evergreen Shopping Center, South Willits. "Definitely best bagels in Mendocino County; they are real East Coast style bagels. Don’t know about best on the West Coast, though I couldn’t say they weren’t. Small place; they have good lunch too, not really a deli, no. They were trying dinner, too, not sure that they still are. Delicious baked goods. Ray and Phil Roland, two brothers from the East Coast, I forget which city. Phil the baker; Ray the chef. Phil Roland used to (many years ago) have the old bank building on corner of Commercial and Main (now Brickhouse Coffee) and sold bagels and baked goods.

Hard being a 'bistro' on the south end of town, but a business like Rolands might be one of the few that benefits from the Bypass, as those of us on the north end wont’ say anymore: too much traffic to go all the way down there for lunch…"

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