Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

There's a new group out there called the Second District Voters Union which has been formed to find a candidate to run against Jim Wattenburger for supervisor next year. According to a press release put out by the group last week, they have met five times and have developed a platform and identified a strategy for raising campaign funds. "We now want to invite potential candidates to come and talk to us about their qualifications. We especially want to invite people of integrity who otherwise would not consider running to come forward," the release states. "Our platform contains specific measures to provide for ecological sustainability and economic self-reliance in Mendocino County."
The chairwoman of the group is Estelle Palley Clifton and she can be reached at 462-6620 or estelle@pacific.net.

Local resident and videographer Jimmy Rickel is trying to get the Truckers Light Parade reestablished in Ukiah this Christmas. he has been working with the City of UKiah, which has dictated along list of requirements and rules which Rickel feels he can contend with, but will need 40 volunteers from the community to help with traffic control during the parade as the city says it can't lend police staff to do it. These folks would help make sure intersections are traffic free as the truckers proceed up State Street and probably help too with the posting of no parking signs and other things that will need to be done. Rickel also of course needs truckers to sign up for the parade. The cost is $20 plus a suggested donation of $20 worth of canned goods for the Christmas Effort food drive. If Rickel's plan succeeds, the parade will kick off at 6 p.m. Saturday Dec. 1 from the Ukiah airport and travel north on State to the Truck stop on KUKI Road.
If you're a trucker who wants to be in the parade (motorcycle contingents are also invited) or if you want to volunteer to help with the parade logistics, call Rickel at 485-7915.

Posted by K.C. at 06:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got a call from a local resident who read our story on the historic farmhouse that's being dismantled and put into storage until someone comes along that wants to move it somewhere. You can see the house from Highway 101. It's just north of the Mendocino Brewing Company building. It looks pretty sad to tell the truth.
Anyway, the gentleman who called me is Eddie Vinson, who lived in that farmhouse as a kid. Born in 1929, Mr. Vinson's Dad worked the Dutton Ranch, which is what that parcel of land used to be before the highway. He says the Dutton Ranch used to range from the top of the Western Hills to the Russian River. Mr. Vinson's family moved into that farmhouse in November, 1942, just days before gas rationing went into effect. He says he remembers the adults around him were talking about the rationing program. He says the ranch had a 2,000 gallon gas tank on the property near the house so they didn't worry too much about gas.
His family stayed on at the farmhouse through about 1947. The old farmhouse you see now, he says, is just the home's four bedrooms, two downstairs and two upstairs. He doesn't know what happened to the rest of the farmhouse but it used to have a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom on the front, as well as a garage in the back. Part of the farm work was picking pears, which he helped with during the harvest season, and he recalls one year, as he and others were picking pears, an airplane was landing at the Ukiah airport and had some trouble. They all scattered as the plane came careening right toward them and stopped just before it crashed in the orchard where they were working. He also recalls that there was no Coyote Dam or Lake Mendocino flood control project at that time and in the winter, the Russian River came within 10 feet of that farmhouse each year- but luckily never flooded it.

Posted by K.C. at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a photo of the third place winner in the Pumpkinfest Scarecrow contest. The Scarecrow is dipping Barbie Scout into a glass of milk. Got cookies?

Posted by K.C. at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new debate about medical marijuana will be brewing starting today as the American Society of Anesthesiologists issues its study in which it concludes that smoking marijuana in large does not only does not ease pain, but may increase it. The study concludes that a "moderate" amount of marijuana does reduce pain in healthy volunteer subjects, but pain increases with the marijuana dosage.
The study is featured in the November issue of the journal of Anesthesiology.
According to a press release from the ASA:
"'Our study suggests that there is a therapeutic window for analgesia, with low doses being ineffective, medium doses resulting in pain relief, and high doses increasing pain,' comments lead author Dr. Mark S. Wallace of University of California, San Diego.
"Dr. Wallace and colleagues evaluated the effects of smoking cannabis on pain responses in 15 healthy volunteers. On different days, the research subjects smoked low, medium, or high doses of cannabis (based on the content of 9-delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active chemical in cannabis), or an inactive placebo. Pain was induced by injecting capsaicin, the "hot" chemical found in chili peppers, into the skin. Capsaicin injection is a standard technique used in pain studies.
"Five minutes after smoking, none of the three doses of cannabis had any effect on pain responses to capsaicin. However, 45 minutes after smoking the moderate dose of cannabis, pain was significantly reduced - approximately six points lower on a 100-point scale, compared with the inactive placebo.
"In contrast, 45 minutes after smoking the high dose of cannabis, pain scores were increased - about eight points higher than with placebo.
"The low dose of cannabis had no effect on pain scores. None of the three doses affected the extent of secondary hyperalgesia - that is, the spread of pain beyond the area injected with capsaicin.
"Levels of THC measured in the blood were significantly related to reduced pain scores at the moderate dose of cannabis, but not to the increase in pain with high-dose cannabis. The volunteers' sense of feeling 'high' increased with each dose of cannabis, even though the pain-relieving effects did not."
The ASA calls for more study of the use of pain and marijuana but concludes that given these findings, ASA cannot recommend marijuana for pain relief.
Go to www.anesthesiology.org for more info.

There's a hearing in Washington D.C. today on a bill coauthored by Rep. Mike Thompson to expand the boundaries of the protected ocean area known as the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell National Marine Sanctuary north to Point Arena.
According to the Defenders of Wildlife, who support the legislation, "The Point Arena upwelling source, one of only four mid-latitude coastal upwelling systems that naturally occur worldwide, brings nutrients from the deep ocean to surface waters where they form the basis of a rich marine food chain. Although these four global upwelling centers occupy less than one percent of the ocean, together they have historically supplied approximately one-half of the world's fish catch. The Point Arena oceanic upwelling system supplies nutrients to the federally protected marine ecosystems of the Monterey Bay, Gulf of the Farallones, and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries. These nutrients help maintain important commercial and recreational fisheries as far south as the Monterey Canyon."
Resolutions of support for HR 1187 have been adopted by the Boards of Supervisors of the California counties of Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino and San Francisco, in addition to the California Coastal Commission. The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations also supports the legislation.

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

I got an email letting me know that former Ukiah resident Richard Vernon Hacke
had died Oct. 19 in Grass Valley. He was 86 years old. He moved away from Ukiah back in 1974 but some local residents may remember him from Boy Scouting. Known affectionately as ‘Dick’ to three generations, Hacke was an leading member of the teams that purchased and built the summer camps of Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties, where he served for the majority of his long career as a professional Scouter. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout, an award given to fewer than one in 10,000 Eagle Scout holders in recognition of more than 25 years of outstanding service to the community and nation. In that he stood among a select group including former Astronaut Neil Armstrong, former FBI director William Sessions, and film director Steven Spielberg.
Hacke was born in 1921 in San Francisco and from his early boyhood days he was drawn to Scouting, having started as a cub scout in San Francisco in 1929 at the age of seven, After WWII Hacke returned to California, and helped found and build Camp Tamarancho in Fairfax, Marin Sierra in the Tahoe National Forest region of the northern Sierra, and Camps Noyo and Navarro in the redwood groves of Mendocino. He moved to Ukiah and to the Sonoma Mendocino Council (now the
Redwood Empire Council), where he built and directed Camp Navarro. In 1974
he returned to Marin Council and resumed his position as Camp Director of
Marin Sierra, a position he filled for all but two years until 1990.
In line with Hacke’s requests, no memorial services are to be held. His
family requests that all contributions made to Scouting in his name be sent
to The Dick Hacke Foundation, an endowment whose sole purpose is to support
the maintenance and development of the Boy Scout summer camps in Marin and
Sonoma-Mendocino scout councils. For further information, please see
www.dickhacke.org

Posted by K.C. at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Local residents John Graff and Sage Sangiacomo (John of UDJ and Employers Council and Sage of City of Ukiah but both working in this case on their own steam) are getting together to try to have a Fourth of July fireworks show for 2008. The Ukiah Speedway folks tried it one last time this year and say they still lost money, so they won’t be doing it again. John says he and Sage are reaching out to local community groups to see how much interest is out there in keeping the tradition going and how best to have fireworks without anyone going broke. I suggested awhile back that perhaps the fireworks is really the only thing anyone's interested in and perhaps some money could be saved by eliminating the entertainment portion of the evening. I know lots of the entertainment played for free and that's a good thing but it still costs money to have sound systems, and to provide for having an audience. This year I was working late at the Daily Journal on July 4 and was on my way home just as the fireworks were going off. I thought to myself, well, maybe I'll just drive a little closer to the fairgrounds and see if I can see anything. I didn’t have to go far. I could see the fireworks clearly from anywhere on Perkins Street. So obviously, people don't need to pay admission to see the fireworks. And that's kind of great, I think, except that someone has to pick up the tab. If we scale the whole thing down to fireworks at the fairgrounds, that would save some money, but we're still talking probably about $15,000 for just that. Asking people to pay to see it at the fairgrounds won't collect enough. So why not make it a free, first come first served event at the fairgrounds and then let the rest of the community watch from the valley as they have been doing for years, At least there'll be a good audience at the fairgrounds. So, $15,000. We might be able to come up with some if it by putting donation cans all around town in stores. When you think about it, if every Ukiah resident gave one dollar, we'd have the whole amount. Anyway, now is the time to start thinking about it.

The Ukiah Valley Smart Growth Coalition is using an email marketing campaign system known as Constant Contact to send advisories to its members to keep up the chatter in the press against the idea of a retail mall at the old Masonite site. The latest message that went out advised people to send letters to the editor to the Daily Journal, the Press Democrat and the Willits News. They suggest people log on to their web site to get ideas on what to write. You could also call it 'smart growth,' How to grow your organization's impact and membership with a cheap and easy tech system which widens your reach and creates grass roots buzz,

Posted by K.C. at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There was talk at Schat’s this morning about whether the county Clerk or county Assessor jobs can be made appointed rather than elected positions now that Marsha Wharff is retiring. One person said he thought the Assessor job is mandated to be elected by state law, but the Registrar of Voters position may be something that can be pulled out and made an appointed position by the supervisors. I’m not sure yet how I feel about that except that having one group of elected officials decide who will get the position that counts the votes makes me nervous. There was also an opinion that when Wharff retires, the supervisors will have to appoint someone for the completion of her term (2-3 years left, I think), not just until the next county election in June.

A really angry group of Robinson Creek Road residents were at the recent meeting of the criminal justice subcommittee of supervisors (Jim Wattenburger and Mike Delbar) discussing pot growing regulations. The residents are really angry that pot growing has taken over their neighborhood and they want something serious done about it. I think these folks are probably expressing fairly typical views of lots of property owners in this county who are getting more and more concerned that the pot growing industry is taking over the county and that the county is more interested now in making its own money off it rather than stamping it out. I think it’s time for someone to start a petition drive to put a repeal of Measure G on the ballot. That will eliminate the excuse for supervisors like David Colfax who contend that the county must allow anyone who wants to, to grow 25 pot plants. Once Measure G is repealed, the county can move to limit pot growing to six plants per medical marijuana patient, limit the number of patients one caregiver can grow for (I’d suggest two as the limit) and prohibit any marijuana growing for medpot patients outside the county.

I am told that the five other sex offenders kicked out of the Ramada Inn several weeks back have found places to live and are no longer wandering the streets. The one man who got rearrested because he revealed to me and this blog - and therefore to his parole agent - that he had been hanging out in a park - has also now been released again.

A woman who regularly goes to Plowshares to eat tells me that she thinks Plowshares is indeed suffering from the lack of groceries it used to get from the Food Maxx and Albertson’s (now Lucky’s) stores and the menu at Plowshares reflects it. She says she’s concerned that the menu is getting heavier on starches and has less protein in the form of meat.

Posted by K.C. at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I got my mail-in ballot from Marsha Wharff the other day and I find several tings upsetting about it - other than that I am really, really angry that she has eliminated my polling place in Hopland. An entire town now has no place to vote.
So the first thing that comes to my mind is this: I am picking up the mail. My ballot and my husband's ballot are both there. What's to prevent me from simply voting for my husband - or he voting for me - and sending them both in? How would Marsha know he hadn't voted? She'd say, oh, but we would look at the signature. Well how many husbands and wives have signed checks, paychecks, IRS forms, credit card applications etc for each other and know each other's signatures? Or, how many husbands and wives will simply sign something the other says to sign. I could say to my husband, honey, sign this envelope or you won't be able to vote this year. I could say I'm submitting our mail-in applications. He'd sign it. It's not a ballot, it's an envelope. How would he know that I am now going to take his ballot, fill it out my way and mail it in. If he was a Republican about to vote in a presidential election, hey I'd be considering it.
And, on the subject of signatures, there's a woman who lives in Ukiah who checked back with Marsha's office after she voted in the last election to see if her ballot was received and her vote counted and she was told that her vote was not counted because her signature didn't match what they had on record. They didn't look at any of the many signatures she had placed on the polling place check-in sheets when she had voted in all the recent elections. No, they compared her signature to the one they had on the voting registration card she had filled out some 15 or more years previously. Whose signature at age 25 is the same at 40 or 45?
It's ludicrous and proves once more that mail-in voting has lots of pitfalls.
Next, how about the fact that your ballot goes into an envelope and you sign the back of the envelope and mail it in. Therefore, your signature and your name and address are sitting out there for anyone to view and copy throughout the process. Identity theft experts tell you these days not even to sign the back of your credit cards any more because someone who got hold of one could copy your signature. But let's all sign our ballots and send them through the mails to a public office where any number of people can look at them. Also, the ballot requires you to put an actual address on the public space of the ballot envelope, a PO Box is not allowed even if that's your official mailing address. Ask any police officer or sheriff''s deputy how he or she feels about that. Not to mention the thousands of people everywhere who use PO Boxes because they don't want their address out in public. I suspect thousands of people do not submit their vote because they don't want to put their physical address on an envelope that is going to be milling around out in public.
And since when do I have to pay to vote? It used to be free for me to go to my polling place. Now it's going to cost me 39 cents to vote. Sure Marsha says I can drop my ballot at her office at her convenience during her office hours any old time. Thanks.
Then, let's look at all the ways this mail-in ballot can be voided by Marsha because you didn't exactly follow the directions:
1. She doesn't agree that this is your signature.
2. You didn't use black ink.
3. You didn't fill your circle in entirely or you filled it in too much. At a polling place that ballot would automatically be rejected in time for you to do it over. Not with a mail system.
4. You "cut" the receipt at the top of the ballot off instead of tearing it at the perforated seam. Keep in mind that there's a dotted line across the top of the ballot that is the international symbol for "cut here."
5. If you want to write in a candidate you have to do it on a line that requires you to write letters no higher than 1/8 of an inch. Good luck with that.
6. If you make a mistake and need a new ballot, you have to call Marsha's office and use a special phone code that is nowhere on the ballot or even on the envelope you will use to send your ballot in. No, the special phone code is printed only on the envelope the ballot came in, which you probably threw away long ago.
7. Then, even if you have that number and want a new ballot, you have to mail your spoiled ballot to Marsha in time before the election for her to send you a new one. So, if you're filling out your ballot the day before the election and make a boo-boo, you're sunk.
8. You sign or initial the ballot itself by mistake.
All in all, this is a bad system, which should be available only for people who really can't get to a polling place. Marsha, thank goodness, is retiring at the end of the year, and I hope that whoever replaces her in the interim will go about reopening polling places for the 2008 presidential election and I guarantee that whoever runs for County Clerk in the next election will not get my vote unless they are willing to reopen polling places throughout the county.

Posted by K.C. at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm heading back out to Pumpkinfest in a minute but wanted to log in to say I thoroughly enjoyed this morning's PumpkinFest parade. I think it was the best yet. The weather totally cooperated and it was a sunny, crisp autumn morning. It's wonderful to see a parade made up almost entirely of children. Children in costumes, carrying balloons, on floats, in police cars, on fire engines, singing, dancing, laughing and tossing candy to the crowds. I also loved the Incognito horse poop collecting car with the clowns at the wheel. Very cute way to perform an essential function.
After the parade I was arrested by the Ukiah Rotary Club for my many misdemeanors and was able to avoid a long jail term by getting a few friends to be generous enough to help me with my bail. You know who you are and THANK YOU! (My mug shot is attached - I hope)
Now, back to School Street and funnel cake! (I spent seven hours at the Fresno County Fair last wekeend searching for funnel cake to no avail. Like Dorothy says, "There's no place like home..." for funnel cake!)

Posted by K.C. at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

City Councilman John McCowen, who was the person who mentioned a Wattenburger recall effort to John Graff at the Daily Journal and whose intent was to say that he opposes a recall effort - see his letter to the editor and his comment posted here - says that he believes this blog is a place where I deliberately "publish" things that would not normally go into the newspaper because they are on shaky ground accuracy-wise and then by publishing the blog on Sundays in the print version I get around the normal bars to publishing things that I don't know are absolutely true. He says that anyone can just whisper in my ear something they know to be untrue and it will likely end up in the newspaper through this blog. I told John that's just not true and as I said in the blog earlier, I will judge the source. Also, if John had been reading the Daily Journal over the years I have been writing the Commerce File or my Sunday column, he would know that I have passed along tidbits heard around town I believe to be interesting and as a way to get people talking about them. Very often that does produce more information, which is the idea. I think McCowen understands that. I have a copy of an email McCowen recently sent to Ukiah Mayor Mari Rodin in which he says "This is a warning shot that people should be checking her blog and posting comments. As long as the comments get accurately posted it can be another method of providing information to the community. The same goes for letters to the editor. I do believe they play an important role in framing the debate and elevating public awareness."
Since the recall blog item came out and the comments have been noted, here's what I believe: John McCowen did indeed tell John Graff about discussions of a recall. He later told Graff (and says to me too) that every time he's asked, he refuses to get involved with it. Every time? McCowen has since told me directly the Smart Growth Coalition had a recall discussion a few weeks back and rejected the idea because Wattenburger's up for reelection next year anyway. (The betting is that McCowen will run for the seat.) McCowen also told me that local activist Beth Bosk is the person who continues to raise the recall issue and did so at another Smart Growth gathering recently, but the idea was rejected again.
Speaking of Wattenburger's seat, Jim Mulheren the Ukiah planning commissioner who favors a retail mall at Masonite, says if Wattenburger doesn't run and McCowen does, he will throw his hat in the ring against McCowen. Mulheren's actual place of residence is still in question by the way. He maintains he lives above his cabinet shop on Waugh Lane and not at "my wife's house" outside the city limits, but no one really believes it. Seems that at neither the city nor the county level does anyone actually check to make sure that people holding offices actually live in the places they say they do.

Posted by K.C. at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As our regular readers know, we recently devoted a Sunday edition of the Daily Journal to memories of the Masonite factory in its heyday. We did that because it is now under demolition in 2007. Part of that effort was asking local residents who worked there for their memories and many of them responded. More are coming in and we will continue to share them with our readers on Jody Martinez's popular history page which also appears on Sundays. We also are continuing to interview former employees for multimedia slide shows, a new one of which went up this week so you should check it out.
One written memory came to us hand written by a woman who started to work at Masonite in 1977 at $4.90 per hour. She would not let us use her name and she makes some specific allegations that we cannot confirm and so we didn't publish her piece. However, she raises an issue - as one of only about five women working in the plant itself as a machine operator - that no one else has so far: sexual harassment. According to this woman, it was fairly rampant at the plant. In 1977 that would certainly not be surprising. She says she eventually quit her job because she could not get Masonite supervisors to take her seriously. But she got a little of her own back a few years later when she was able to provide information in the case of another woman who sued Masonite for sexual harassment and who this former employee says won her case in federal court in San Francisco.
And, even though this woman believes she was mistreated in her effort to get some action on her harasser (she cites the "old boys club" more than once) she still maintains that her job at Masonite was a really good job, that as a single woman she was able to support a family of six on her Masonite salary and that she remembers "great company picnics, great safety dinners, and safety prizes and really good pay in later years."

Posted by K.C. at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John McCowen said he was unable to get a comment uploaded to this site and asked me if I would post this comment for him. It is the text of a letter to the editor we published this week:
"Contrary to your recent blog entry, I am not involved in any effort to recall Supervisor Jim Wattenburger. In fact, when approached on the subject, I invariably argue against it. Recall should be reserved for specific circumstances like corruption and incompetence. It should not be used just because someone has voted the "wrong" way. If that were the case, we would have an endless cycle of elections followed by recalls. It is ironic that your report links me to a recall effort when I have argued at every opportunity that a recall is not warranted. Thank you for the opportunity to set the record straight. John McCowen"

Posted by K.C. at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Greater Ukiah Localization Project and the Ukiah Certified Farmers Market have come up with a new annual award they bestow on a local restaurant that is especially dedicated to the use of local products. The idea is to promote the growing of much more of our own food locally by expanding the markets for farmers. The local farmers who sell their goods at the Ukiah Farmers Markets were asked to vote on which restaurant they believe is doing the best job of promoting local products. The businesses themselves were also asked to fill out a questionnaire about their practices in that regard.
Winning the first of these awards is Patrona, the restaurant at Standley and School streets owned by Bridget Harrington and Craig Strattman.
Patrona's has been in business since September of 2004, and a sampling of the effort they make to use local products includes; 75 of the 126 wines on the Patrona wine list are local, coming from roughly 48 local vineyards. It regularly purchases from the following local farms: Allegra Foley, Boont Organics, Chestnut Ridge Ranch, Cinnamon Bear Farm, Elk Creamery, Shamrock Goat Cheese, Loretta Rampone Herbs, McFadden Farm and Mendo Mushrooms. It uses seafood suppliers Caito Fish and North Coast Fish. All of its bread is provided by Schats. In addition, Patrona recycles all of its vegetable oil through Yokayo Fuels and they offer up composting materials to anyone who would like them.
According to Bridget, "Patrona's menu is dedicated to and based on nature's seasonal offerings. We talk to our local purveyors regularly to determine what is in abundance at their individual farms. We then create our menus, which change daily, to
best showcase these local farm's produce. We proudly promote these vendors to our customers and catering clients. Our goal is to use 100 percent local products."
The award was given out at the Aug. 25 Farmers Market but there's going to be another celebration of the award at Patrona's coming up this month. For more information about that you can contact GULP's Scott Cratty at 463 7377.

Posted by K.C. at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A reminder that as we do at each local election, the Daily Journal, the American Association of University Women and the National Women's Political Caucus will be hosting a forum of candidates on Thursday. We will present candidates for the boards of Millview Water District and Redwood Valley Water District and candidates for the Mendocino College board and the board of the Mendocino County Office of Education.
It will be at Ukiah's Civic Center (city hall) at 6;30 p.m. If there are questions you'd like to suggest for any of these board candidates feel free to post them here. I will check the site up through Thursday afternoon. If course, if you're at the forum itself you can also ask questions as always. I don't know whether this one will be broadcast and they are not countywide positions, but they are still pretty important and the issue around water and education and certainly uppermost in lots of minds these days.
Anyway, that's the invitation.

Posted by K.C. at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every day when I drive to work I pass another of those awful homemade "memorials" to someone who has died in a crash along that section of road. This is one located on the east side of Highway 101 just where the road switches from two to four lanes as you go north. As I recall, the accident happened when a truck driver hit a deer and lost control. I am very sorry that he died in the accident. But whoever his family or friends are that put up that memorial to him have seriously neglected it for a long time and now the American flag they erected there who knows how long ago is faded and in tatters. I find that disturbing every time I drive by.
I wrote a column about these macabre road markings several years back and got an earful from a couple of people who think they are essential to their own memories of the dead person. But I haven't changed my mind. I don't want to share your grief every time I drive down the road. I don't want to see the ugly plastic flowers, the crosses, the tattered American flags, none of it. I think it's time that Caltrans promulgate some kind of rule along state roads - and the county ought to do the same - prohibiting these kinds of displays. They certainly do not inspire safer driving as far as I can tell (and I would bet that anyone claiming they do would hear from families of accident victims objecting to the implication that their loved one died from unsafe driving) and they are just unsightly and unnecessary. They are not, after all, grave markers. Let's put an end to them or at least allow Caltrans or someone to take them down when they get to look like the leavings of a decade-old Memorial Day parade.

Posted by K.C. at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Members of the Ukiah Valley Smart Growth coalition have put out a notice, several copies of which were forwarded to me by email, saying that my blog entry last week about a meeting of UVSG members to discuss a recall of Jim Wattenburger was false. A couple of members emailed me personally to accuse me of recklessly (a la Joe McCarthy no less) spreading false rumors.
Here's what I say: If they are concerned about false rumors they should look to the people they interact with. Someone who is close to that group (they don't have official "membership") told a UDJ employee right here in the office about the purported meeting, saying it was being organized by a subgroup of UVSG. This is a source I trust, a source that has always been truthful with me.
This blog is a place where I am indeed to going to continue to pass along things I hear from reliable sources. The easiest way to respond to things is to comment directly to the blog. I don't pass things along that I know are false and I don't pass things along simply to make people mad. But If I hear something I think is true depending on the source, yes I am going to let people know about it. The fact that we are printing the blog in the newspaper on Sundays to let people know it's out there (something many people have said they like) has perhaps given it more gravitas than it deserves, but it's still just a blog. A blog is a place where I am going to feel free to say things I think are happening, things that people I trust tell me are happening and expressing my feelings about them.
I will undoubtedly sometimes pass along things that turn out not to be true, or turn out to be partially true. This may be one of those cases.

Posted by K.C. at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was talking to Chris Brown, the head of Air Quality Management District about the Masonite demoliltion project and the talk going around that there's toxics, asbestos, all kinds of dangerous stuff being unleashed from the site. Brown says that not only is his department monitoring the air quality along the borders of the site extensively, but the demolition is being watched over by at least a couple of professional demolition health teams that are dedicated to making sure that any unsafe materials located are dealt with immediately and that workers are protected too. Asbestos seems to be the biggest worry people have and there has been talk that asbestos particles are escaping into UKiah's air. Brown points out that not only are there monitors upwind and downwind around the site but that demolition workers wear special badges that have alarms in them that go off if any airborne asbestos particles are detected. Those badges are sent to a testing lab in Sacramento every night for further analysis. Brown describes the process of dealing with old particle boards and other materials that may contain asbestos. First they are watered down so that when torn they do not spread dust, then the pieces are bagged, sealed, bagged again, sealed and then sealed again into special dumpsters. As for toxics, the demolition isn't going into the ground of the site, it is only dismantling the buildings. No foundations are being disturbed. Ukiah Mayor Mari Rodin is thinking about putting together a public forum on the subject to, ahem, clear the air. She says she believes part of the problem is that the demolition was approved and underway before a lot fo local residents knew anything about it and that is one reason rumors are flying.

I understand that Supervisor Jim Wattenburger said during an interview on KZYX the other day that he is getting death threats from people upset with him about his potential vote approving a mall at the Masonite site and his views on limiting medical marijuana growing. He apparently also said he carries a concealed weapon as a result. We called him to ask him about this fairly interesting development in local politics, but he said he didn't want anything in the paper about it. Then why say it publicly? Hmmm.

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

I got a call Wednesday from a woman who was sad to find out that you can no longer make a phone call to find out what time it is. She is the second person this week to let me know that dialing "popcorn" will no longer give you that wonderful automated operator telling you exactly what time it is.
Where I grew up in NYC you dialed "nervous" to get the time. I don't know if you can still do that either.
This really is too bad since lots of people still depend on such services after a power outage or when daylight savings time begins or ends. I know that your cable or satellite TV menus will give you the same information, but it doesn't, somehow, seem quite as authentic as the information that came from The Phone Company.
And again, what if there's a power outage? Of course my phone no longer works in a power outage since, like most Americans I have the new sort of cordless phone in which the main phone body is plugged in. So it's useless in a power outage. Is a cell phone time set by the satellite, or by the user? Believe me, even though I carry a cell phone, I don't know. I can barely collect messages from it.
Anyway, does anyone out there know when the "popcorn" time service in California began? Anyone know why it has been discontinued? And any advice on the best place to look for the correct time anymore?

Also got a call this week from a woman who wanted the public to know that she believes that a lot of the people collecting money in front of our major supermarkets on behalf of Christian missions of one sort or another are often taking that money out of town to places in the Central Valley and Southern California and that the money is not helping anyone locally. She says she always asks and though she gets dirty looks, she feels it's important that the limited dollars local residents have to give to charity should be saved for the people who need it here.

Posted by K.C. at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Got a call from Mari Rodin that someone had seen a previous blog item about whether she lives in Deerwood or not. She says that's "absurd," that she lives at Oak Park and Clay streets in Ukiah as she always has and has never lived in Deerwood nor owns a home there. Mari says the woman who wrote the thank you letter to the Daily Journal is a good friend of hers who did not not mean to list Mari among her neighbors, but among her helpful friends.

Posted by K.C. at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I forgot to mention over the weekend that the Sunday comics were going to be in black and white. I got one call about it, but unfortunately the caller did not leave a name or number for me to get back to him. Here's what happened. The company that prints our Sunday comics lost our palette of comics last week and so they were not delivered to the Lakeport printing plant. The only way they would reprint them was if we paid them $3,000 which we could certainly not afford. So we asked them if they would be willing to send us digitized versions of the pages that we could print ourselves. At first they said no. Then we told them that it might, after all, be a good test of whether the expensive Sunday comics are a popular feature. We would go without the comics one week and see how many calls we got. If we got few calls maybe we didn't need the Sunday comics after all. Well, that changed their minds and they sent the digitized version. We printed them ourselves which even in black and white was an extra expense for us but it was the best we could do.
And that's why the comics were in black and white last Sunday.

Posted by K.C. at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got a press release the other day from the local Democratic Party which outlines some informal polling among local Democrats about who they favor thus far for president in 08. Here's what it says:

"Results of three straw polls taken by the Mendocino County Democratic
Central Committee give a glimpse into who local voters are supporting in the
Democratic presidential primary. MCCDC chair Jim Mastin shared the results
for public interest.
The unscientific straw polls were taken at the Democratic Labor Day Picnic
in Ukiah as well as at booths at the Redwood Empire Fair in Ukiah and the
Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show in Boonville.
Of a total of 359 people who participated, the top vote getter was Senator
Hillary Clinton, who received 119 or 33% of the votes. Senator Barack Obama
came in second with 96 votes (27%). Former Senator John Edwards was third
with 67 votes (19%) and Congressman Dennis Kucinich came in fourth with 41
votes (11%).
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson received 23 votes (6%) and Senator Joe
Biden came in with seven votes and former vice president Al Gore received
three votes total.
The next opportunity to join the poll will be at a Straw Poll Dinner on the
Mendocino Coast on Election Day, November 6. For more information the
contact number is 937-3142.
The Mendocino County Democratic Central Committee meets monthly around the
county on the second Thursday of each month. Other upcoming events include
the Democrat of the Year Dinners, which take place in December at the Wharf
in Fort Bragg and the Broiler in Redwood Valley.
In addition, the Ukiah Valley Democratic Club, the Mendocino Coast
Democratic Club and Democrats United for Progress on the south coast meet
regularly.
For more information on the MCDCC and to get involved in the upcoming
elections call 463-6377, email jwmastin@pacific.net, or visit
www.mendodems.org"

So, is there any information out there about Republican leanings thus far?

Posted by K.C. at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)