C.T. ROWE of Upper Peachland Road has successfully (and expensively) defended himself against a bullying complaint by the Anderson Valley Land Trust that the Rowe property was somehow in violation of the Trust’s lofty preservationist standards. Rowe was found not in violation of his agreement with the Land Trust, and here’s hoping Judge Nadel will award him the considerable attorney fees he had to spend to defend himself against utterly false charges.
THE DEATH of a 55-year-old Rancho Navarro woman on Friday, the 1st of February has been recorded but her name and cause of death has not yet been revealed.
THE ANDERSON VALLEY GRANGE’S 28th annual Variety Show is on Friday March 8th and Saturday March 9th, and we will make room for you! That means YOU, or your funny/weird/talented friend or ANIMAL. We have had dogs, cats, horses, sheep, alpacas, cattle, iguanas, goats, pythons, doves, turtles, but never parrots, llamas, wombats...what kind of animal do YOU have, and what can it do? We want to see it!! Please contact Captain Rainbow at 895-3807, or Robyn at 272-2127 (you can text her, too) if you have a talent, skill, animal, joke, or anything else you'd like to put onstage for all of us to enjoy. We have rehearsals the weekend before the show, and we can illuminate and amplify anything. The best part is the A.V. audience, we're the most enthusiastic folk found anywhere. You won't find a better place to strut your stuff!
I'M VERY SORRY to learn that Diane Hering is quite ill and presently confined to a Ukiah nursing home. A smart, capable person as only a person affiliated with the Boonville newspaper can be, Diane worked with us way back at the dawn of the enterprise. And over in Lakeport, where he’s resting after suffering a stroke, we find Andreas Alvarado, a long-time resident of Boonville where his military bearing as he walked through town has always made him unmistakable.
DON’T know the author, but this is what it pretty much boils down to: "We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom — the soap box; the ballot box; the jury box; and the cartridge box."
HARVEY READING comments on Boonville’s proposed sewage system:
“’Although the engineers continue to insist that treated effluent is not very smelly, some locals are still skeptical.’ I would agree with the engineers.The small town (+/- 650 republicans) where I live has its treatment facility less than half a mile from where I live. Others live even closer. I have never noticed any odors from it. There was a time though, shortly after my residency here began, when the town fathers, who had not long before approved construction and operation of a mushroom growing and processing plant that was VERY odoriferous, would tell us that what we were smelling was the treatment pond! The original owner of the mushroom plant, a crook of renown, who had been run out of California for his sloppy management, went under a few years later and the plant now is run by a more environmentally oriented engineer, using techniques that avoid the odor problem. Even so, the town now has a grant for putting its treatment plant underground, which is probably better in the long run anyway. Now, if some two-bit-wide-spot-in-the-road of a town in Wyoming can do that, surely a small town in brilliant California can do as much. Doncha think?”
STARTLED TO READ this headline in this morning's on-line Press Democrat: "It smells like farts if you open your window’ — pollution from Mexico fouls border city." If you included this vulgarity in a letter-to-the-editor of that or any other paper your letter would either be tossed or the fart edited out by the old farts who edit the thing. Another odd headline from the PD: “Ted Bundy’s murderous charm still polarizes.” Huh? There are people for Ted Bundy?
INTERESTED in learning about Zero Waste? Come hear about what is happening in Sonoma County and discuss what we might do in Anderson Valley on Weds. 2/20 2:30 - 4:30 at the Boonville Firehouse community room. Potia Sinnott of Zero Waste Action will introduce Zero Waste and Sonoma County’s new ZeroWaste initiatives followed by a short discussion of how we can start Anderson Valley moving toward ZeroWaste on Feb. 20, 2019 from 2:30 to 4:30, Boonville Fire House. More info: Donna, 684-0325.
STAN PESKETT’S “Valley Swan Song — Pop Up Exhibition of art created in Mendocino County since 2002” packed ’em in Sunday afternoon on the ground floor of the Farrer Building downtown Boonville where Stan’s art is on exhibit. The award-winning BBC2 documentary called ‘Rags to Riches’ shown at Sunday’s event featured Stan whose New York gallery first exhibited the now famous Jean Michel Basquiat. Stan is soon headed back to his native England after a long and productive stay in the Anderson Valley.
A PACKED HOUSE also assembled at Lauren’s Restaurant to enthusiastically sign up for and generally support the Anderson Valley Village, a collective effort to maintain the elderly in their homes. Lauren herself being the prime mover, and a large swathe of us not getting younger, all praise to Lauren for taking this much needed initiative.
WHY THERE'S A HOUSING SHORTAGE, a reader writes:
"This first home is apparently not for sale or rent, but it has a Zillow listing. It's been vacant for at least a couple of years. Prior to that it looked like some shady dudes were using it for a "business" of sorts. Now it's just totally empty.
zillow.com/homedetails/32900-Gibney-Ln-Fort-Bragg-CA-95437/19203439_zpid/
This one in Rancho Navarro has also been vacant for at least 2-3 years. It's apparently going thru foreclosure, but not very quickly. A local real estate agent, Vivian Reese (813-7430), is connected to the property, but she's pretty cryptic about the status of it.
trulia.com/p/ca/philo/18300-appian-way-philo-ca-95466--2197747766
Like I said, I think someone could find a 100 similar examples in this county with the same probable story line: weed prospectors bought these properties at the height of the market (prior to 2009 recession) and tried to float payments on black market sales. Now that strategy isn't viable anymore so these buildings sit empty for an indefinite period since they are so far under water. It's a lame situation"
YORKVILLE MARKET REMINDER
Bring your loved one(s) for our gourmet Valentine’s Day multi-course dinner on Thursday, February 14th. Sue, our local piano legend will be playing love songs for the evening: $50 to $55 per person, $70 to $75 with wine pairing
Reservations Required, seating is limited and will be on a first come first served basis. Please call the Market at (707) 894-9456 or stop in and let us know.
R.D. BEACON WRITES:
We have lost a good friend, a long time resident to the community of Elk. Eddie McKinsey was a longtime resident and passed away last Sunday in his sleep after a short illness. In the early years he worked for Daniels and Ross Lumber company. Later on he worked for Greenwood Lumber Company and then he went to work for the Mendocino County Department of Public Works working out of the Point Arena yard. We will miss him greatly.
NEWS FROM THE BEWILDERED PIG. Our first weekend open after a month off was exciting! Finding the “rhythm” with all new entrees is always a bit daunting, but it was really fun, and our guests really enjoyed all of the new dishes! We are excited to be able to offer our Chef’s Tasting Menu without reservations now! Too many good choices meant that we needed to offer guests all of it! We offer 5 courses for $99 and two menu supplement options. Wine Pairings are also optional. (Janelle Weaver) 707-895-2088
JUST SAYIN' but I don't see the value, nutritional or instructional, of Girl Scout Cookies. Mass manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky, the Girl Scouts are selling them all over the place, including Mendo where I bought my negative food value nuggets from the daughter of a friend. If the Scouts could home bake a sugar-free cookie as a real-life lesson in the joys of free enterprise I'd be first in line and much more enthusiastic about the annual sales.
THE VALLEY HUB is a local facebook page. A colleague says I've been banned from Valley Hub or, in facebook-speak, unfriended from it. I didn't know I'd been friended in the first place by the Baxter Winery of Philo, creators of Valley Hub, and neither entity known to me before Valley Hub kept popping up on my own blank but often visited facebook page. And now it doesn't. Unfriended. Boo hoo. I don't post stuff on my page but have managed to accumulate friends I never knew I had. Everybody and his bro seems to have a facebook page, me included, although mine’s inactive and I can't remember why or how I got one.
BOONVILLE WATER-SEWER PROJECT PLANNING & FINANCING NOTES:
According to a transcript of last week’s “Boonville Planners” meeting with interested locals and county and state officials, Community Services District Board Chair Valerie Hanelt said that “At this time our financing situation looks good. We have been assured that the private laterals for the sewer system will be paid for. We have also been assured that between Ground Water Funding and Prop 1 funding we will probably be fully funded for the infrastructure for Sewer project. We are close for the Drinking Water. We are looking for a grant for private hook ups to the water meters from the Community Development Block Grants. We are looking to very little outlay of expense from parcel owners for the cost of infrastructure.”
ANOTHER INTERESTING COMMENT was from AV Health Center Director Chloe Guazzone-Rugabregt: “One important perspective is renters who are not in charge of the systems in the places they rent. Landowners do not always take care of their systems and we see the repercussions.” Is Ms. Guazzone-Rugabregt implying that there’s a demonstrable link between poorly maintained septic systems and some of the illnesses being treated at the Health Center? Apparently so. Health Center Nurse-Practitioner Luiza Savin added, “A lot of people can’t afford to maintain their water systems. It’s hard to put that responsibility on someone who can’t afford it. There are a lot of disparate outcomes in Boonville, and especially the Latino population definitely suffers from not having access to safe public water.” Ms. Guazzone-Rugabregt continued, “It’s hard for us to know on a statistical level when there is an outbreak whether we can attribute the health issues to the water; but for us if we have a couple of kids with gastroenteritis or colitis and the stool testing comes back positive for E-Coli bacteria – there are many factors – but definitely water could be a source of it.”
THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE DISCUSSION of the possibility that the local water table is subject to contamination because in some areas it is fairly shallow and in some cases the water table is close to septic systems, whether “functional” or not.
IT APPEARS that the Boonville Planners and the engineering consultants have abandoned plans for an underground disposal site for the treated sewage outflow. Although the engineers continue to insist that treated effluent is not very smelly, some locals are still skeptical. Sewage system engineer Dave Coleman said, “If you go right on top of the wastewater treatment plant (a 12x12x50’ box) you might smell a musty smell from the aerated wastewater. It’s not the same smell as a septic tank because it is not anaerobic; it is not septic. When you are 100’ away you would not smell it.” Nevertheless, the planners are now looking at sites on the south end of town, pending agreement from landowners at that (higher) end of town.
AT ONE POINT, Roy O’Connor from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control staff was asked about the smells emanating from the AV Brewing facility: “Brewery wastes are 300-400 times as bad as household,” replied O’Connor.
AS FAR AS WATER SOURCES GO, Water system engineer Jack Locey said, “Because of the high ground water (in the Boonville area), all the wells developed for private residences tend to include only 20’ sanitary seals. This is inadequate for public water systems. The Water Board considers a seal less than 50’ to be under the influence of surface water and the mitigation for that is essentially you tack on extra treatment process that assumes the water could have the same constituents in it that you would find if you were drawing directly from a creek. In each of these cluster locations we will bring the raw water to a centralized small treatment facility. We consistently noted elevated levels of manganese, sometimes iron in the groundwater. Both of those elements can be treated by a simple filtration process. So that process would be provided at the front end of the treatment train, then followed up by simple cartridge filtration. There are inexpensive large-scale cartridge filters that can accomplish the surface water treatment requirements at the tail end of the filtration process. Final treatment would consist of disinfection [typically chlorine] before that water is discharged into the distribution system.”
THE ABANDONMENT of the original leach field area near the airport means that the Environmental Review will have to be revised to address whatever new site is selected which means the EIR will be pushed back to later in 2019. At that time the engineers will estimate what they think the monthly service fees will be for water and sewer. Previously, the Community Services District officials have said that because Boonville is classified as a low-income area the cost of the monthly service cannot exceed 2% of average monthly household income as determined by the latest census.
CSD TRUSTEE Larry Mailliard (of Yorkville) concluded, “If we don’t do it now with the money that’s available…It was first started in the 50s, and then the 70s. I knew about it in the 80s. Here you have the opportunity. I don’t live in the district, I live eight miles thataway. If you don’t take advantage of the opportunity now when it is virtually free [i.e., construction], it [the grant money] won’t be available and the water situation will be 10 times worse.” (Mark Scaramella)
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