Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

As someone of the following generation who still thought Paul Newman one of the most attractive men in the world but also No. 1 on the all around good guys list, I was really sad this morning to log on to the Internet and find that he had died. His death was not unexpected. It was widely known that he was very sick. Last month New Yorker magazine did a story on him that was clearly a prelude to his obit, but somehow the reality of it is hard to swallow.
The world is just not as good a place today as it was yesterday.
If more people could do what they loved in life, be true to their spouse for decades, raise their children to care about the future and just give away to good causes the money they don't really need, what a world this would be.

Posted by K.C. at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember Chris Stone, the man who is trying to build some housing at the south end of town and getting the runaround from the county? The last time I wrote about him he was awaiting a promised meeting with county officials. Right after that episode it turns out that the county decided it can't talk to him directly anymore because at some point in his addresses to supervisors he said something about having to resort to some legal action if the county continues to jerk him around. So, the county, instead of meeting with him as promised turned around and said, oh no, now we can't meet with you because you are a potential lawsuit.
That is a twisted, stupid attitude and one that just confirms why no one wants to come to this county to try to create jobs, or desperately needed housing or anything else. When someone actually does file suit against the county, then by all means go to your corners, but to cut off communications with someone hiding behind "you might sue us" is cowardly and uncalled for.

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

Although the school doesn't really want to talk about it, on Wednesday some six or seven Willits High School students were sent to the principal's office, reportedly under the influence of pot brownies. Ambulances were called to take them to the hospital for what was termed on the emergency scanner "marijuana brownies overdose." Later it was learned that while the ambulances were called, the students were not sent to hospital and it may be that only one student was really under the influence. One high school student (not one of the seven) asked the next day if he knew what had happened, explained that the pot brownies in question were made with pure marijuana bud rather than hash oil, and commented that "Everyone KNOWS you can't make them with bud, you have to use hash oil."

Posted by K.C. at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's my question. With the State of California telling us they can't spend money, and with no budget in sight, where's Caltrans getting the money to repave miles of Highway 101 between Ukiah and Hopland - which by the way, didn't look like they needed repaving anyway. And doing it at night when you know all those workers are making gajillion-time dollars. I have been traveling all week between Ukiah and Willits and if Caltrans wants to repave something they should have started at Calpella and headed north. The slow lane between the bottom of Willits Grade and Calpella is terrible. (The fast lane is fine but that never means Caltrans skips repaving it anyway.)
But the worst of Highway 101 can't compare to most of the county's roads. This is where taxpayers throw up their hands and say government simply doesn't work: Caltrans has multimillions to repave pretty good roads and the county has no money to repave terrible roads. When you ask why, government officials tell you it's because Caltrans' money comes from some different pot of cash and can't be interchanged with the money from the lowly counties. What taxpayers however see, is their tax dollars being spent with no apparent sense of proportion or need.
You can translate that into just about any sector of government and there's not much secret about why taxpayers get riled up about government waste and inefficiency.

Posted by K.C. at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)