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Valley People (Jan. 31, 2018)

FROM THE COX FAMILY: We wanted to let you know that last night at 5:20pm, Jerry passed away. He had told us earlier that he was ready. It seemed as if his body wouldn't let him. We sang to him for about an hour from 3-4pm, and he fell asleep. A group of people from their church came around 4:30pm and we started doing the rosary in Spanish....Almost at the end of the rosary, he stopped breathing. It was beautiful. The group continued to finish the rosary while my mom, sister and I gathered around him. The funeral will be held next Friday, Feb. 2 at Resurrection Parish in Santa Rosa, Irish Wake to follow.

CLOSER TO HOME, on Sunday (February 4th at 2pm) family and friends of Jerry Cox will gather at the Anderson Valley Grange, Philo. Please bring a side dish or dessert to share.

PATRICIA BEVERLEY of Prineville, Oregon, formerly Anderson Valley,  writes: “I remember awakening, sort of, after ER admission; sore, scared, disoriented— Who’s this? A Protestant Pastor? “You’ve been spared. Do you want to tell me about it?” Yes, I was scared, not spared. Who asked you? In my church God speaks all languages, since Vatican II, so I don’t need you to pave the way! I related the above to Jerry, and he mildly mentioned that he’s had some experience with near-miss counseling. “Anytime you want to talk, Trisha, I’m here.” Just what I needed — no Eternal Rewards cash-in. Just how to get by, one day at a time. I felt like I was sitting on bedrock. Love you, Pater Familias Jerry. Go with God.”

STEVE SPARKS’ 2009 interview with Jerry Cox can be found on-line at avalleylife.wordpress.com/category/list-of-interviews/jerry-cox/

LATEST GUESTIMATE for when the Ukiah Costco warehouse store will open is late July or August.

PATTY SHANAHAN and her partner Carl, lost their house and all of their belongings in a devastating fire in Comptche on January 17, 2018. Fortunately, they weren’t injured. Patty and Carl had lived in their home for over 30 years. But now they have to start over as their entire house and contents were destroyed. Any donation will be much appreciated and go to help rebuilding Patty and Carl’s lives. gofundme.com/8yezuh-patty-shanahan-house-fire

TO DONATE directly send donations to: Patty Shanahan, PO Box 157, Comptche CA 95427

ED NOTE: Patty Shanahan is a really good painter, I mean really good. If you're like me and believe artists get extra props, send a few bucks her way. I so admired Ms. Shanahan’s rendition of the lightning fires of 2008, I keep a small repro of the painting over my desk.

JULIE LIEBENBAUM WRITES: I have received a LOT of calls and want to let as many folks  as possible know that the Boonville General Store will be re-opening this Thursday, February 1st.  We put on the sign on the door that we were going to spend time with family, and that is exactly what we did.  Now we are ready to get back to work making and serving folks their favorite treats.  Our hours will be the same as they were, every day, 8 am until 3 pm along with the occasional pop-up and special event designed to feed and inspire.  Thanks for helping us get the word out!

WHEN TWO EXCELLENT high school basketball teams, with excellent coaches to match, squared off last week in the Boonville gym, the game pitted a tenacious Boonville defense against a potent Mendocino offense. And defense. Coach Jim Young’s Mendocino five prevailed over Coach Luis Espinoza’s defensive wizards, 60-37. Boonville’s consistently formidable Alejandro Soto still managed 18 points while teammate JT Carlin was tough on the boards for the home team, but Mendocino was able to crack Boonville’s tenacious defensive hustle to pull away in the second half for keeps.

THE SWINGIN BOONVILLE BIG BAND, formed in the year 2000 as an AV Adult Ed. class, will return to Laurens Cafe in Boonville on Saturday February 17th.  This is the 18th annual show at Laurens, and the band considers it sort of home base since its first public appearance was given there. The band currently is 20 musicians strong. It features outstanding musicians from all parts of the county. Among the local musicians we have Bob Day tenor sax; Joe Petelle trombone; Mary Aigner piano; Nadia Berrigan piano;  Dave Martin trombone; Kevin Burke drums; and Alice Woefle trumpet. Susan Archuleta, who for many years was a regular feature piano soloist at the Boonville Hotel, returns after a long hiatus to play alto sax.  The band plays mostly classic hits from the Great American Song Book. The show starts at 9:00 PM and runs to 11:00 PM. Admission is $10.00 and all proceeds  for Benefit of AV Adult Ed. Music. Singing sensation Sharon Garner will headline the show. Break out your dancin shoes and join in the fun.

LIBRARY LINES. The AV Lending Library will be closed Saturday Feb. 10 through Tuesday March 6. We will reopen on Saturday, March 10, from 2-4. Come in and stock up on your reading. We are located in the Home Arts Bldg at the Fairgrounds. Hours Tuesday, 1:30-4:30, and Saturday 2-4.

HELP/HOUSEMATE WANTED: Housemate wanted. Convivial single woman in her 60s, non-smoker, wanted to share home in Boonville. Help out in exchange for your own bedroom; Share kitchen, living room, bathroom, dining area, garden, with one older woman. Please call 707-895-3134 for details.

LAST WEEK, the Turkey Vulture wondered in print about the two local Crown Vic automobiles we all see around Philo and Boonville. These vehicles used to be synonymous with police patrols. The Vulch said, the sight of the cars made him, and presumably others, nervous to see  “one of the guys” parked alongside 128.

BUT ONE of the surplus Crown Vic owners told us he was disturbed that he’d been singled out in the ava as some kind of police surveillance operator since he only pulls to the side of 128 to get clear phone reception.  We apologized for the confusion, which was humorously intended, and everyone went away happy.

PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT: Katherine Reddick, deposed last school year as principal at the Anderson Valley Elementary School, successfully sued our school district for (essentially) wrongful termination and was subsequently awarded $60,000 to ease her on down the road, where she is now employed at the Patterson Unified School District.

KERI ST. JOER, former high school principal? Where’s he?

TWO WRITERS appeared at the office Sunday and left us this reason for stopping in: “Two writers would like to talk to anyone who had contact with the Manson Family. Please call 646 221-6009 or writes LegsM@aol.com”

I COULDN’T THINK of anybody around here who would remember the Manson Gang when they were holed up on Gschwend Road in Navarro. They were first-wave weirdos of what became something of a Valley tsunami, pockets of aberrant people up and down Highway 128.

A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT at the Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning. Dramatic, that is, if you’re involved or interested in Mendocino County’s emergency medical and fire services. It began with this short note in CEO Carmel Angelo’s CEO Report: “Emergency Medical Services (EMS) — Coastal Valley Emergency Medical Services and Mendocino County have decided to research other models for EMS delivery systems. We will be meeting with the State to determine options. The timeline for this change is December 31, 2018.”

DURING Ms. Angelo’s discussion of the subject at the Tuesday Supes meeting, she explained that the current “model” — i.e., subcontracting out Mendo’s emergency services administration functions to Sonoma County’s Coastal Valley EMS — isn’t working for Mendo and the problem was made clearer than clear during the Redwood Fire Complex in October when Coastal Valley was unable to do much of anything for Mendo due to the high volume of emergency and disaster activity in Sonoma County at the time.

LAST WEEK the Anderson Valley Emergency Services Committee wrote a pointed letter asking why the Ambulance Service Exclusive Operating Area Request for Proposals was taking so long.

THE UPSHOT? Mendo intends to discontinue its arrangement with Coastal Valley “and go our own way.”

THE COUNTY IS ALSO looking at combining or consolidating the five dispatch operations in the County.

UPDATE: On Thursday the chiefs met with CEO Angelo who essentially told them what she said to the Supes: that she’d be working with them to develop a new EMS management services model. No schedule or deadlines were set, however.

ODD as it may seem to people unfamiliar with Mendocino County Public Radio, but Larry Minson’s public complaints about the functioning of station management is the first public complaint from a disgusted board member since the station’s murky beginnings a quarter-century ago. Two recent hires — between present manager Parker and Coate, both a manager and a program director, simply fled, referring vaguely to a “toxic environment” at KZYX’s Philo headquarters.

YES, there’s the chronic toxicity, a cluster of unpleasant people which has plagued the station from its mercenary  founding by an unpleasant person. But the nut of the problem at the station, apart from a full generation of nuts who glommed on to the enterprise at its non-public founding a quarter century ago, is the closed nature of the enterprise. It’s always been a publicly-funded private club presided over by a rubber stamp board of trustees but run by a cringing claque of station employees and entrenched programmers, many of whom boast that they "speak truth to power." (Note to speakers of truth to power: If power notices you at all it’s as comic relief.)

AS AN at-large candidate for the KZYX board who has no hope of election and thinks the station should move to Ukiah and start all over again as truly public radio, here’s what I would hold out for if, by some fluke, I found myself partially responsible for the station’s cooked books and its recumbent staff:

1. An end to the station’s lengthy blacklist

2. An honest, fully explained budget

3. The combining of the positions of general manager and program director into one position for one salary

4. A morning news hour focused entirely on local matters, thus giving locals a reason to tune in, thus expanding the membership (static for years now)

5. Increased visibility of the station beyond the in-County lib-pwog echo chamber it presently is

6. Term limits for programmers and a requirement that they pay the station $20 a month for air time

7. Prompt, candid replies from management to all inquiries

8. A requirement that each board member bring in at least one new member every month

9. A working person’s membership at $20 a year

10. Basic civility from all employees

DEREK HOYLE brought me up smartly: “Per your comment above, you don’t believe public Board meetings are public, because plenty of KZYX ‘insiders’, also known as programmers, have complained in public for many years about the corrupt dealings at KZYX/MCPB. Or perhaps you didn’t feel it was important enough to cover their board meetings, eh? I can understand that, but you missed some amazing stuff. Illegal Board dealings, slander, double standards, outright illegal behavior, and much more, some of those folks should be indicted for fraud. For a year I shot video of their illegal dealings at Board meetings, and made multiple public comments. It was posted on-line but got little attention. Larry is but one of many who have attempted to raise the alarm about the corruption, law breaking, and huge waste of public funds on the private wine and cheese club, that doubles as a ‘community’ radio station, but isn’t about community at all.”

AGREED. I should have been more attentive. Sheila Dawn covered KZYX for years for the ava and John Sakowicz’s dogged attempts to bring some honest dealing to station management also got a lot of attention from the mighty ava. Sheila Dawn and Sako did a good job pointing up the wrongdoing and, for their trouble, were rudely treated and even ostracized, hardly the first persons to be non-personed and insulted by the dominant persons at Philo but typical of dominant people at the Philo bunker. (Sako was board treasurer but denied access to the books!) I ran for election way back, around 1990, I think. KZYX, natch, hustled out and got a more “appropriate” person to oppose me and, double-natch, he prevailed, later telling me his experience as a trustee was “just about the worst time I’ve ever had doing anything.” Unless a reform slate of station trustees can take control there’s no way to put the public in Public Radio Mendocino County.

RE LEGAL POT, a reader writes: "I hope the black market thrives in Cali. I'm on disability and use mmj. I didn't have the money to pay for it before the taxes were piled on. I sure as hell don't have it now. I have had to grow my supply because of costs. California now has a budget surplus and they keep piling the taxes on. Everyone in the game is driven by greed. The growers as well as the politicians. Nobody really gives a rat's ass about medical, especially now we have rec. It has never been about helping people, just about lining pockets. The dispensary I use is doing rec sales now too. I'm about to go to the black market to get my plants because I am so disgusted with the situation."

AS AN EXAMPLE of the level of delusion at the Mendo level of the pot rules discussion, at last week’s Supe’s meeting, Code Enforcement Chief Trent Taylor, observed, “In Rancho Navarro a number of those folks did apply for permits. The subdivision, some were opposed and some were for it. They kind of wanted to make their own rules and control that and who knows where that's going to go? We actually resolved most of Rancho Navarro and of course now the grow season is over so we are not— That was mostly outdoor, mixed light.”

THE “some for it” were, of course, the growers themselves, some of whom apparently applied for permits, but Taylor didn’t say what happened to those permit applications. And the “some” who were opposed were everybody else at Rancho Navarro.

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