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Vol. I
No. 9 Councilmember Groves Wants It Straight Letters to the Editor
Fact No. 1: It is in the public's interest for an elected official to step down when there is a conflict of interest. The individuals who showed up to speak to the council regarding a Police Review Board were clients of my current employer. Fact No. 2: I have nothing to do with whether Randy Mendosa sits at council meetings or not. The press is welcome to pull up a chair and join the stenographer if they so desire. It seems like the only sinking ship here is the truth. Harmony Groves (harmony@harmonyinarcata.com)
(Charles Douglas responds: Indeed it is state law that elected officials should disclose and recuse themselves from participating in any action pertaining to a conflict of interest. Yet Councilmember Groves failed to explain at the time or in this letter how the creation of a Police Review Commission would in any way conflict with her direct interests. Is she a cop? Is she married to or the domestic partner of a cop? If not, then where is the direct connection? To say she works for someone who has a complaint about a third party’s treatment is the height of absurdity, especially since she won’t be expected to represent them in front of this commission, since she’s not an attorney. Does the fact that you own a car, or work for someone who owns a car, prevent you from voting on transportation spending or on appointing people to a transportation committee? After consulting with current and former elected officials -- outside of the Wonderland of Arcata -- I‘ve had to come to the conclusion that what Harmony Groves is attempting to justify is nothing more than a 'false recusal,' a poor excuse to skip out on taking a public stance. In reality, this recusal was an effective 'no' vote when the Council deadlocked 2-2, as expected minus Groves, on the issue of police review. Unfortunately, Groves skipped out on taking a stance on police review while she ran for office as well, so we can‘t say she broke a promise, since she‘s never promised to hold the police accountable for their actions in the first place, although she seems to think she can do so regarding the federal government, Governor Schwarzenegger and everyone in town who owns a handgun -- other than the cops, that is. Also, how can a sitting Councilmember claim with a straight face that they have no influence over the conduct of their own meetings? Before Groves took office, there was a placard on the front table that said “PRESS“ in capitalized block letters in front of an empty chair, one occupied not only by yours truly but by previous reporters for The Lumberjack, KMUD News and even the late Mr. Anderson from The Times-Standard. Now there is an armed police officer in that seat, sometimes Chief Mendosa, and the “PRESS“ have been replaced by “POLICE.“ No journalist has sat at this table since. These facts speak for themselves. -Ed.) A Final Salute: Aloha Humboldt County! I am going to leave this beautiful county once and for all. I will most likely never return. It will be like Captain Von Trapp...Edelweiss...I've met and made some great friends. I've had fun at the Arcata City Council meetings. I came to Humboldt via my father ‘Dr.’ William Nouo Ogata. I had a mother. She married a white dude and left all her Asian ways behind. I will teach her a lesson. She will never meet my wife and kids in this life or the hereafter. Her name is Ruth-less Brown. Even her Haole husband/boyfriend have treated me better. I'm tired and my soul is in mourning. I ask you Humboldt, when is the last time that you were living on the streets till the next job, and you got no support from your family? As George Carlin said NIMBY, not in my back yard. When I first moved from Hanover, New Hampshire in 1970, when HSU was HSC; we lived at Patrick's Point State Park for three months. They bent the rules for us. We had an inside connection with Linda and Fred Betz. Those were the days. For the past three months, I have lived on the campus of HSU, my alma mater. I have been 86'd out of the Alibi, Mazzotti’s, Toby and Jack’s, the Sidelines, Motel 6, Blue Lake Rancheria, Caravan and Beau Pre Golf Course. I suffer from a little-known disorder called attention deficit disorder and bi-polar. It’s funny that Andy Parker has 86’d me from Mazzotti’s when I could pull up receipts from my old Six Rivers and Humboldt Bank, when I had money, and I did volunteer work hanging flyers for Lenny Mazzotti. For Humboldt County I don’t think that anything will ever get accomplished. Except Rollin Richmond will acquire some new sign. For all three signs, how many local scholarships could have sent some students through that mighty prestigious Ivy League institution, the great Humboldt State University? My late Father "Dr." William Nobuo Ogata worked at Stanford, than to Dartmouth, and finally Humboldt State University. Humboldt State University has a long way before it will ever be ranked on the merits of those fine American Universities. When I attended Humboldt State University between 1979-1984, my mother was the department secretary for the Fisheries and Wildlife Departments. They gave her the legendary Golden Handshake Award. Instead of working 25 years, they let her retire at 22 years. I ask for an internal investigation into the Arcata Police Department. Why did Randy Mendoza get an 8 year contract, when all his predecessors got shorter term limits? Why is it that none of his officers that can recite the pledge of allegiance; but don't know their Code of Ethics by Heart? Same question of Chief Douglas of the Eureka Police Department? It seems like in this day and age of rain that Humboldt County could come up with a temporary tent shelter for the “Home Challenged” or “Home Displaced.” How does the Motel 6 in Arcata boot people out of the hotel when they checked everyone in without power? How many hotels booted people out because of the power shortage? Bravo to the hotels that did not force people out in the rain because they were out of electricity. Well I will stay abreast of the latest comedy out of Humboldt County because I intend to get all these papers in the Hawaiian Islands to the libraries, including the Lumberjack. It's sad that they no longer publish the bong tallies. That was one of the highlights of the Lumberjack…take care Humboldt County, I'm still laughing my tail off. Cheers, Bruce Toshio Ogata (bruce_ogata@hotmail.com) Something very strange has been going on with the Arcata Endeavor for several years, ever since it was taken over by HSU academics. They simply don’t care about their negative impact on the larger community. People in Arcata have commented on the Endeavor management’s “we-know-better-than-you” and “we-care-more-than-you” postures at public meetings, and their basic attitude of “closed-mindedness to community concern”.The ultimate source of this unaccountable attitude has to be those who are the ultimate authorities at the Endeavor – the Board of Directors. Way back in 1998, before the Arcata Endeavor even existed in its present location, Eureka’s Multiple Assistance Center (MAC) wrote a draft of operational guidelines. The very first sentence in the guidelines was this: “NEIGHBORHOOD WELL-BEING is of primary concern.” That’s exactly how it was written, “NEIGHBORHOOD WELL-BEING” emphasized in capital letters. The need for this priority was very obvious to all clear-thinking people in Eureka then, and still is. It is perfectly obvious to all clear-thinking people in Arcata too. Unfortunately, that leaves out the Endeavor Board and their academic consultants. Unwilling to think clearly and honestly on this issue, the need to make neighborhood well-being a priority has never been obvious to them. Unwilling to admit their responsibility for the social problems they’ve created, the Board and subordinate staff resort to pompous and self-righteous evasions at public meetings. The “we-care-more-than-you” ploy is quite a brazen hypocrisy. The obvious truth is this: they don’t care at all. Not about Arcata. They care about homeless people, but not about the Endeavor’s negative effect on Arcata. They don’t care about the very community which helps them, the tolerant, generous community which makes the Arcata Endeavor possible in the first place. Board members don’t even care about their own abused staff at the Endeavor. Neighborhood well-being is not of primary concern to the Board, because the Endeavor is not in their neighborhood. Their neighborhood is the HSU campus – credentials for their “we-know-better-than-you” ploy. The Arcata Endeavor is a virtual extension of the HSU Department of Sociology. For several years, all the Endeavor management at all levels, including their academic consultants, have been directly connected with HSU or strongly influenced by it. The neglected Endeavor website lists only the 2004 Board of Directors, but is revealing nevertheless. That Board included two HSU Professors of Social Work, a retired HSU professor, an HSU student in social work, an “Educator” who was a former HSU student, and an accountant who remains the Endeavor treasurer, the only Board member who is not an academic. After years of scandal the two HSU Professors of Social Work appear to have run for cover, leaving the current Endeavor Board of Directors composed of the retired HSU professor, the Educator who is now an HSU graduate student in social work, an HSU sociology graduate student, a psychotherapist, and the treasurer. The Endeavor Executive Director, subordinate to the Board, is a graduate-student intern, working on her Master’s degree in social work at HSU. As the highest visible authority at the Endeavor, the Board of Directors must be held accountable as the authors of the Endeavor’s irresponsible policy of indiscriminate service. This pathology-enabling policy is one of co-dependency between HSU academics and that minority of homeless people who are parasitical sociopaths, those who cause all the problems and attract all the negative attention. The sociopaths get free food and services, and the academics make careers out of serving and studying them. But from a safe distance. Ever since HSU academics took over the Endeavor, most of the Board members have rarely bothered to visit it, spending very little time there when they do. They know very well that their indulgent policy ignores the security needs and well-being of the hardworking staff and volunteers. The Endeavor is a miserably chaotic, stressful place to work, with a frequently miserable atmosphere for the cooperative majority of homeless people too, including children. If the ivory-tower academics actually had to work and live with the results of their own policy, they would change it very quickly. And if the policy were changed there would be no need to relocate the Endeavor, at least as a day-use facility. As it is, since they indiscriminately offer free food and services to abusive sociopaths, psychopaths and even psychotics, the Endeavor Board is therefore responsible for attracting them to this town – many more than would come if the Endeavor did not feed and serve them. Unconditional service attracts ungrateful sociopaths like flies to honey, and encourages them to remain parasitical. Merely relocating an expanded Arcata Service Center to any place within walking distance of town, however, will not solve the problem. Not as long as indiscriminate, unconditional service to abusive and demented people is continued. With the ASC on west Samoa Blvd. or South G there is nothing to prevent these walking chaos vortexes from wandering to the Plaza and all over town every day, continuing the conditions that exist now. Those who are violently psychopathic, drug-possessed and psychotic need
to be institutionalized. It is not fair for the Endeavor to inflict them
on this small town. The streets of Arcata cannot serve the needs of psychotics.
(Except on Friday and Saturday nights, of course, but that’s another
issue.) In the meantime, the only real solution is for the Endeavor to have a
firmly enforced policy which reforms or repels pathological parasites,
discouraging them from coming here in the first place. The continued existence of the Endeavor/ASC should be accepted only on the condition that they end their indulgence of abusive behavior and their policy of indiscriminate, unconditional service. They must replace it with a policy that is responsible to the community. The academics need to pull their heads out of their textbooks and face reality. Board members and their consultants are too up-in-their-heads, too conceptualized, confused and cloned by Academia to admit this simple, obvious, social responsibility. Two simple principles are the antidote to Endeavoritis: 1. Stop tolerating abusive behavior. 2. Stop feeding and serving abusers. These can be translated into brand new, never-before-tried Endeavor policies like these: 1. A strict policy of zero tolerance for unprovoked abusive behavior,
with the muscular ability to enforce that policy by immediately ejecting
abusers from the premises (catapult optional). No doubt the Board academics will whine about how to define “abusive
behavior”. Beyond a few simple, common-sense guidelines that are
easy to define, let the operations manager, security person and front-desk
people make the final determination in each case. They’re the ones
who have to suffer the abuse, and they have a right to do something about
it.The Endeavor staff have never had a security person, as such, and therefore
have never been able to adequately deal with violently abusive people.
In the worst cases they call the police, but they don’t want to
do that too often since it would create more records and statistics which
reveal what a major source of chaos the Endeavor is for Arcata. As a result,
Endeavor staff don’t always call the police when they should, and
therefore have to endure screaming, threatening, abusive people while
trying to “reason” with them. The abusers are thereby encouraged to go out and molest the rest of Arcata too. And of course the Board does not care about that. They care only about denying their responsibility for it. 2. The second essential policy is one of refusing all food and services
not only to such abusers, but ideally to all physically able people who
refuse to give help back to the community which helps them. Those who are mentally unable to give help back need to be in therapeutic institutions, not on the streets. Therefore they should not be attracted to this town by a limited day-use facility. All other able-bodied parasites would benefit from their vices not being aided and abetted. It’s very interesting that in spite of the Endeavor Board’s
encouragement of parasitism, there are always plenty of decent homeless
volunteers willing, indeed proud, to work at the Endeavor and do public
service work around town in return for the services they are given. This
shows that a great many of the homeless are good quality people. They
truly deserve the Endeavor’s kind services. This means creating a public-service work program with supervisors to organize work crews. It would also need community cooperation and participation, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. It would be free labor for the community, and there have always been plenty of decent homeless people who are happy to work in return for the help of a kind community like Arcata. Such work could translate into permanent jobs for some homeless people. It would enable them to make contact with the community in positive ways, creating friendships and a lot of good PR for the Endeavor and the decent majority of homeless people. As for the others: reform or repel. This is the only strategy that will liberate Arcata from the minority who are ungrateful, abusive parasites and mentally ill. And it will stop feeding the careers of irresponsible, co-dependent academics who see them as adult children to be coddled and indulged. Or as lab rats to be studied and reported in theses, professorial publications and grant applications, while they exploit the hapless town as their open-air laboratory. If the HSU-Endeavor Board can’t find it within their hearts to stop inflicting psychopaths on Arcata, there is one thing that will motivate them very rapidly: Put the new Arcata Service Center on the HSU campus. Seriously. Since the Board members “care” so much about homeless people, they should welcome this idea with open arms, and tears of... joy. Imagine the thrilling educational opportunity it would be for everyone. Students, faculty, administration and homeless people would all intermingle day after day, year after year, enriching each other’s lives with the Diversity sociologists champion so zealously. And it certainly would be more efficient for research. Such a bold experiment might even attract national attention, and with it, The Money so desperately coveted by the HSU administration. With any luck at all they could surround the entire campus with a Big White Santa-Barbara-Style Wall, $350,000 Gateways at every entrance. Maybe a few more white towers too. Meanwhile, playing host to the creeps and screaming lunatics who would daily populate the campus (the homeless ones, that is), all the students, faculty and administration would learn firsthand how the derelict policy of the Endeavor Board makes life hell for everyone, homeless and housed alike. There would be a lot of homeless canine visitors to the campus too, and
their human companions would inform their fellow campansinos that the
dogs are not merely pets. Homeless people are far more vulnerable to criminals
and nutcases on the street than people who are sheltered in houses and
apartments. Dogs provide protection in a fearfully insecure existence.
When a homeless person is sleeping outside at night even a puppy will
sound the alarm for approaching strangers in the darkness. “I’m not being paranoid when I say it’s definitely
not safe for the homeless on the streets in Arcata at night. Too many
drugged-out crazies. I’ve been here a long time and this is the
worst I’ve seen.” Dogs provide some protection from criminals and crazies, but simple companionship is perhaps the most important reason dogs are so commonly seen with homeless people. Homelessness can be an unbearably lonely hell on Earth, and a dog might be the truest friend you’ll ever have. And if the ivory-tower academics responsible for the Endeavor’s delinquent policy were as sensible, honest and genuinely caring as the average dog, Arcata wouldn’t have a perennial problem with so many traveling psychopaths and drug addicts who make life hell for everyone, homeless and housed alike. This endless Endeavor problem is causing very serious political damage, and liberals who do nothing to stop it are sabotaging their own causes. (For brevity I’ll use the generic terms “liberal”, “moderate” and “conservative”, although Arcata has many people with eclectic views that defy simplistic categorizations.) Just as the recent Fox News-Attack on Arcata, along with the ignorant hate-email attack, have created a circle-the-wagons effect among many Arcatans who love their town, strengthening the resolve of Arcata’s progressives and liberals, so the problems caused by the Endeavor have long had a politically empowering effect on local conservatives. Similarly, the McKinley statue is a permanent irritant and affront to those with a social conscience, stimulating and thereby strengthening progressive liberals. And the Endeavor provides conservatives with a steadily growing supply of political ammo to fire at those liberals. If the problem is not solved by liberals and moderates in a humane way, by forcing a change in Endeavor policy, it will help conservatives to solve it their way: getting rid of the Endeavor altogether. This is absolutely essential to continue the process of “gentrification” in Arcata. Worst-case scenario: Arcata mutates into a North Coast Santa Barbara or Carmel-by-the-Sea, a bourgeois asylum where property values are the highest values, and the high cost of living is out of reach for most people who live here now. All the scary poor people have been shooed away to other towns, and many are newly homeless, unable to afford rising rents in Arcata. The farmland is gone too, its once-open spaces choked with private golf courses and gated housing developments all the way to the beach. The beautiful mist draped forest on Fickle Hill is just a memory, cut down and crowded out by hundreds of big expensive houses, condos and HSU buildings looking down on the town, and a gentrified, ossified Arcata-by-the-Bay plays host to affluent herds of bovine tourists in starched shorts and sterile expressions, languidly strolling the soulless streets. Today Arcata-in-the-Rain is a relatively democratic, freethinking, creative little town, a human town. That is possible only because Big Money and over-development have been kept out, so far. But capital-craving conservatives will never stop trying to shackle Arcata more firmly to inhuman corporate interests, and the endless trouble caused, and rage aroused, by Endeavor policy strengthens these conservatives. That fact reveals a connection between the new $350,000 HSU gateway and the Endeavor’s irresponsible policy. The money-squandering gateway, though symbolic, is still a blatant encroachment of mercenary gentrification, a warning of things to come. And the strangely unaccountable HSU-Endeavor policy has very effectively and conveniently created a huge social problem for several years which politically strengthens conservatives, encouraging gentrification as a solution. So if the Endeavor Board insists on welcoming abusive parasites and psychotics to Arcata, it’s only fair that the people of Arcata welcome the new Arcata Service Center to the HSU campus. Something tells me though, that Academia-on-the-Hill would soon muster all its credentialed brilliance, working overtime to devise clever ways of repelling pathological people from Arcata. Penniless ones, at least. Brad Thompson (bradgthompson@yahoo.com) Questionable Exemptions in Utility Tax I have recently completed a review of those that are exempt from the Utility Users Tax (UUT) according to PG&E. The examination was initially made in June 2003, reexamined in April of 2004 and most recently this February In the first examination there were 160 pages of exemptions, that jumped to 171 pages just a few months later. It is now at 239 pages. This equates to approximately 3,397 more exemption (SAID) listings. Keeping in mind that there are usually two Service Account IDs (SAIDs) per address, sometimes three and occasionally only one. So it would average out pretty close to 1,694 more addresses with questionable exemption status. Some were reported earlier and taken off through Randy Nickolaus efforts but are back on again. Most are new. As of the 12/31/05 PG&E report 72 questionable names have been removed from our earlier report that was sent to Randy and council. Since then 331 new names have been added. 86 SAIDs on this most recent report are for apparent non profits with a high percentage for drug and alcohol treatment centers and Redwood Community Action Agency. Non profits were discussed in depth with staff and worthy as some may be, we agreed that the ordinance does not exempt them from UUT. Randy sent letters to many, as well as to PG&E advising them of this and notified them that they would have to start paying. One example: Alcohol & Drug entry on page three of the current report was 18 SAIDs on the 2003 report, it dropped to seven after Randy’s efforts and is now back up to 15. Clearly there is something wrong here. If not wrong, certainly not clear. I also am quite sure that there are cases where property managers are claiming exemptions for tenants. Many of these tenants may in truth, be low income and eligible for exemptions. But no matter how true that might be, the ordinance does not allow for this. In some cases where a person has exemptions for more than one address the cause may be due to a move by the person and slowness in PG&E getting the list adjusted. PG&E admitted this in the past, but I feel equally sure that this is a minority of the cases. Too many are duplicated from the earlier report/s. In the past we’ve been able to copy the PG&E exemption list and my last written report to council listed names of questionable exemptions. Since PG&E, understandably, considers the list confidential, staff has not allowed me to copy the list so I have not provided identifiers in this report. I stand ready however, to meet with any council member or staff at your convenience and point out the questionable listings on the city’s copy of the list. You will be able to note some businesses on the list that should not be included, some that Randy or Carolynn wrote letters to some time ago. Additionally I have not been able, at any time since the UUT came into effect been able to cross reference the lists from the other utility companies. PG&E appears to be the only utility that provides the city with the exemption list. Recently you have contracted with a firm that should provide improvements in collections and exemption compliance. I would be interested in the cost effectiveness of this venture. I am aware of some people that are on telephone "Lifeline" that cannot get exempt from Cable TV because of the wording in the ordinance. I feel this should be corrected as many of these people have cable TV as their only form of recreation, due to age, handicapped, whatever. Howard Rien (howdix@earthlink.net) I just looked at the Humboldt Sentinel for the first time and think it looks and reads well. You are covering events and issues that deserve coverage. I am disappointed that the local Eureka Green Party failed to reach a consensus to endorse the Ordinance to Protect Our Right to Fair Elections and Local Democracy. I know it is always possible to damn any action proposal as being insufficiently utopian, and this happens all too frequently inside the Green Party. I to would like to see all corporations, including local ones, prohibited from making political donations. However, the initiative is a big improvement over the current political contribution laws. Therefore, I am supporting it. I live in Mendocino County, where this effort is being closely watched. Many activists here hope to learn from the Humboldt County experience and to pass a similar (maybe even improved) measure in Mendocino County in the not-too-distant future. William Meyers (wmyers@direcway.com) |
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Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
I
think you need to get your facts straight [regarding opinion on 