Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

I think it's a shame that the supervisors decided to reject campaign finance reform after asking staff and interested citizens to put all that work in. It seems to me that Hal Wagenet's concerns about the definition of the election season missed the point, which was to LIMIT the amount of time incumbents especially can collect campaign contributions. For instance I understand Mike Delbar's campaign coffers continue to collect money even though he isn't even up for relection for a couple more years. Seems to me that we have to start somewhere.
I have tried to decode to campaign finance reform measure on the state ballot - Prop 89. The only thing that has me worried is that it limits corporate spending but not union spending. I am told that I may be misreading it. What's confusing is that while I'm told the teachers' unions are against it because thety believe it limits them too, the nurses union helped write it. Does anyone know what the facts are about union giving?

On the Costco deal, the city is not saying anything right now but already the rumors are flying that the city is negotiating some tax deal for them.

Check out the Web site of our sister paper the Fort Bragg Advocate-News this week to find the Q&A from the DA candidates. Both Meredith Lintott and Norm Vroman answered a series of questions ealrier this summer. After Vroman died, Lintott's campaign manager - Terry Price of Sonoma County - heard that the Advocate-News planned to run the Q&A as they received it from both Lintott and Vroman. Price called the newspaper and insisted that Lintott wanted to change her answers now that Vroman was out of the race. They refused and Price apparently got very upset about it, insisting that Lintott was withdrawing her original answers. I read her answers and i don't know why she would want to change any of them. It's a good read, check it out at www.advocate-news.com.

Posted by K.C. at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a story from our AP wire today. What do you all think about this? My initial reaction was that a pastor should be able to speak out against war, but then when i read the details I wasn't so sure whether his sermon was more in the way of political activity. I'm not sure what documents the IRS could possibly want from the chruch and the story doesn't say.

Church fighting IRS over anti-war sermon won’t give up documents
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The leaders of a Pasadena church battling the IRS over an anti-war sermon delivered before the 2004 presidential election voted unanimously Thursday to resist an order to turn over documents related to the case, the congregation’s senior warden told The Associated Press.
“We’re going to put it in their court and in a court of law so that we can get an adjudication to some very fundamental issue here that we see as an intolerable infringement of rights,� Bob Long, senior warden of All Saints Church told The Associated Press.
The church scheduled a news conference for 2:30 p.m. to formally announce the unanimous vote of its vestry.
The action sets up a high-profile confrontation between the church and the IRS, which now must decide whether to ask for a hearing before a judge. The judge would then decide on the validity of the agency’s demands.
Terry Lemons, a spokesman for the IRS, did not immediately return a call for comment. IRS officials have said they cannot comment on specific cases.
According to the IRS, the only church ever to be stripped of its tax-exempt status for partisan politicking was the Church at Pierce Creek near Binghamton, N.Y., which was penalized in 1995 after running full-page ads against President Clinton in USA Today and The Washington Times in 1992 during election season.
Before this fall’s congressional races, the IRS warned that it would be scrutinizing churches and charities — important platforms, particularly for Republicans — for unlawful political activity.
The dispute centers on a sermon titled “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush� that was delivered by guest pastor Rev. George Regas just two days before the 2004 election. Though he did not endorse either President Bush or Sen. John Kerry, he said Jesus would condemn the Iraq war and Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive war.
“I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry: ’War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq,�’ Regas said, according to a transcript.
The IRS reprimanded the church in June 2005 and asked that it promise to be more careful. Church officials refused.
Last week, the IRS demanded documents and an interview with the rector by the end of the month.
On Thursday, the church’s 26-member vestry voted unanimously to resist those demands, Long said.

Posted by K.C. at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of you may have noticed that we now have a UDJ community bulletin board on line where anyone can go and blog on their own topics, post photos of local events and generally communicate with their neighbors. We encourage everyone out there to use it, keep it clean and civilized, and enjoy it.

We have also created new links at the bottom of our news and sports stories for comments from the readers. You have to look all the way at the bottom of the page for a link that says Comments/Trackback. Click on Comments and it will bring up a screen for your to fill out. As comments are submitted, the number of comments will show in parentheses and you can click on Comments to read them even if you don't want to submit. MAC users may have some difficulty with this and we are trying to figure that out. As always, we want meaningful comments that are to the point and on the subject of the story, and we do not want to see personal attacks.

Posted by K.C. at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's talk some more about housing. PJ made some really good points about the problems low and middle income home owners face from unscrupulous lenders and the need to constantly monitor activity of that kind among these subsidized property owners. Spending $100,000 to monitor 600 such homes is only $165 per home. That doesn't seem like much to me if that's per year. And I agree that lower income home owners may not have as much dough on hand for upkeep as their richer neighbors. But let's pretend we set up a system where there's help for mortgage and lending come-ons, upkeep, and even selling the home when it comes time. I'd be willing to bet that the money you spend for that will still be much less than the money we spend now planning for and building more and more low income housing because the housing we built before is now at market prices. I think if we make sure that low and middle income housing built in ecnomically mixed neighborhoods stays available in perpetuity for those potential home owners you get a better community and you don't lose that housing over the years. I think the housng formulas we've been using don't seem to work.
As for Eric's comments about ghettoizing low income people, what I mean is the tendency - like in the Wagenseller neighborhood in Ukiah - to keep building more and more low income housing in the same neighborhoods, crowding more and more low income people into the same corner of town. I was disappointed to hear RCHDC at the recent planning meeting defend the idea of refusing a park in their latest venture because it would cost too much. I think that kind of thinking - that because they're poor and we're doing them such a favor as it is by building them some housing - that we can dispense with the niceties we would certainly demand of higher income housing developments. That's why I prefer the idea of planning your low and middle income housing within your higher end housing so that the lower income folks get the same amenities and feel as though they have a real neighborhood, not a crowded plot of land from which they must escape to have barbecues or neighborhood get togethers. I know organizations like RCHDC work under limitations dictated by law but that doesn't mean we have to continue to do things the same old way forever. Why not challenge laws, create something new and exciting and use the millions of funding we do get to provide real homes, not just roofs and walls. And Eric, I don't know of any program that provides money for rehabbing - that was my idea, that by keeping low and middle income housing available, we would need less money for building more and more and could use the construction funds for rehabbing. By the way I have to say that my first experience with RCHDC - the clearing for no good reason of all the many roses and individual gardens the seniors at Walnut Village had lovingly planted - sort of set my opinion of the organization and the kind of rigidity I still feel exists there.

As for Mark Scaramella, his column, whether it also appears in the AVA, is still just his personal opinion. Other Sunday columnists also are tagged only as local residents even tough Tony Anthony sometimes writes for others and is involved in a number of local activities and Valerie Holm Warda is a Ukiah High School teacher. They all write as individuals and so that is how I present them.

For the person who wanted a local bulletin board, it is about to go live, we have it built it and are testing it now.

Also, I have an idea for another blog. I think it would be fun to ask local students who are away from home at college if they would be willing to blog on our site about what it's like out there, what they're doing, how they like it, is it hard, easy, what's the social life wherever they are etc. Ideas anyone?

Posted by K.C. at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I certainly don't claim to be able to simply reverse Marsha Wharff's plans for mail voting and I believe Katie Mintz has done a couple of stories about this since the last election. Nonetheless, I know there's still a lot of feeling out there about it - with which I heartily agree - and so I promise that the UDJ will do more. Let's get some letters to the editor going too - that usually seems to get the attention of local officials. Marsha is, predictably, very prickly about the subject, but she also refuses to budge since she is convinced it's the only thing she can do and feels the attacks on her system are unfair. I do think that going to the polls to vote is something any voter ought to be able to do. Voting by mail is something that is a convenience for people who can't get to the polls either because they will be out of town or, say, are handicapped in some way. If we insist that the handicapped have a poll to go to - which is why Marsha says she had to close down so many small local polling places without paved parking lots, etc. - why doesn 't that right extend to all voters? Why do a majority of voters have to vote by mail so a small minority of handicapped voters can go to a poll? And just to get us all seriouly riled, Marsha is also leading the effort to get all voting done by mail in the future.

Posted by K.C. at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At Schat's this morning there was conversation about housing. A local developer was on hand to talk about what the county ought to do about the way developers are encouraged - or forced - to create low and middle income housing. One way he likes is density bonuses - where the developer gets permission to build more houses per acre than the zoning allows, if he is willing to sell those homes in the low and middle income ranges. The developer, he says, essentially breaks even at best on those homes since they will be sold for less than market value. He said, however, that the county stands to gain from such a routine because under the law the difference between the selling price for, say a middle income-priced home at $200,000 and the real market value of the home, say $300,000, creates a formula by which the county gets paid when the home is sold later. In the example above, the price as developed is two-thirds of the market value. That formula kicks in when the home is later sold at, say, $450,000. When that happens the county collects one-third of the price, or $150,000. The home owner gets the two-thirds. This is intended I guess to keep people from quickly flipping low and middle income housing. The rules do apparently give definite time lines during which low and middle income housing must stay that way. In some cases its 5-10 years, in others 20, in some as much as 30 or 50 years. I suggested that homes built specifically for low and middle income residents ought to stay that way in perpetuity. That way the economically mixed neighborhood will always be economically mixed. The developer was incomfortable with the concept of forever, saying that the homes would wear out. I said, well then let all the housing agencies like Rural Community Housing Development Corporation, which tends to build "ghettos" of low income housing, use its money instead for rehabbing housing in economically mixed neighborhoods, while developers continue to build with mixed income requirements all the time. The developer also argued that it would be unfair for a low or middle income person to be forced to sell his or her home at the deliberately depressed price, that this homeowner when income permits ought to be able to reap the same profits anyone else does. I would say that's fine, let the seller get what he can and the government pick up the tab to make up the difference between the new low or middle income buyer's ability to pay and the market value, just as we are now.
At the end of the conversation my head was spinning - as yours probably is now if you are still reading - but it seems to me that it makes no sense to keep building low and middle income housing and then letting the housing drift to market value, creating the need for more and more low and middle income housing to be built.
Just a thought.
Some of you may have noticed the by-line Zack Sampsel in our pages recently. He is an intern working with us for the next few weeks for college credit and we think the world of him. He's got lots of energy and enthusiasm and has brightened the newsroom considerably.
If you haven't seen a copy yet, go to dig! music or a downtown restaurant and pick up a copy of our new Day & Night, Night & Day entertainment magazine. Our features editor Richard Rosier did a bang-up job creating a brand new product for the younger gen with, for example, restaurant review by James "I'll Eat Anything" Arens, along with other fun pieces written by newsroom staffers and others.
Check it out.

Posted by K.C. at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don’t know how a local tribe got involved in this slaughterhouse thing except to say that people interested in the idea simply couldn’t find anyone else willing to locate it near them.
What a surprise.
I do think a regional slaughterhouse here in Mendocino County would be a good thing. I’m not surely frankly that locating it on River Road is the best idea. There will be a lot of big trucks coming and going and that road isn’t really built for that.
I can’t believe there isn’t some better ag land available for something like this nearer Highway 101.
And yes, not only do beef ranchers have to ship their beef across many miles to get them USDA-approved slaughtered but I’m told that Jim Lawson has to ship his buffalo all the way to Idaho to get them slaughtered.
And we wonder why local meats are so expensive by the time they reach our stores.

We are, as I write, working on getting a local BSS on our site so that people can talk to each other and have a community wide conversation. But anyone should feel free to raise topics here too.

I am bummed that the governor is vetoing the universal health care bill (SB 840). Those of you who heard my show on KZYX last Thursday may have come away as I did thinking this was a pretty darned good idea. Instead the insurance companies have had their way with us as usual. Arnold’s telling us that we’ll find other ways to cut health care costs and improve health care is just a bold faced lie.

Posted by K.C. at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)