Are you superstitious? If you’re a baseball fan, you probably are – a little. I have not written about my beloved NY Mets much because they have been in first place in the NLE the entire season and I didn’t want to jinx it. Gloating in baseball is a sure one-way ticket to the cellar, so this is not a gloat. It’s more of a “Can you believe it?” And now I have probably done irreparable damage to the 2022 season.
Similar with wildfire. Here it is mid- August and we have not had to cancel one single hike because of smoke. Yeah – it’s around, but last year at this time we’d already been stuck inside for a month, unable to see the bottom half of our pasture, running the air conditioner because smoke comes through the swamp cooler. We are thankful and I bet you are, too. Am I jinxing it by showing gratitude? There is still time left in this fire and baseball season, so I hereby withdraw the last two paragraphs.
Smoke approaching our place in 2020. We were enveloped by the next morning.
Rice field after rain – photo courtesy civileats.com
Margaret Long – photo courtesy prenticelongpc.com
Mr. Winter is not impressed with her performance in Trinity and pointed me in the direction of the aforementioned legal battle. He referred me to a series of articles in the Trinity Journal, a fine news source with terrific investigative reporting. Kudos to Publisher/Editor Wayne Agner.
The story begins in January of 2019, when the Trinity Action Association – a grass-roots non-profit which many say are anti-cannabis – sued Trinity County for allegedly not enforcing CEQA rules for commercial cannabis cultivation licensees. A judge ruled in favor of the county, but the TAA appealed the decision.
In early August 2019, two weeks before the court date, Chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors Judy Morris signed an agreement in closed session to settle out of court with TAA for $95,000. We know now the board voted in secret to approve the agreement, figuring they would be saving the county money in the long run. The check was cut, mailed and cashed before the public was ever made aware. County Counsel reported out that “direction was given to staff”, which is exactly what our County Counsel says about almost anything that happens in closed session. Oh right, it’s the same person.
Trinity County Courthouse – trinitycounty.com
David Prentice – photo courtesy prenticelongpc.com
There has been some controversy surrounding the cannabis storefront coming to downtown Red Bluff in the dining room of Carlos Zapata’s Palomino Room. The businesses will be separate and Zapata will not have a direct financial benefit other than half the rent for the space in the building. Some Red Bluff businesses are happy about it, some don’t care either way, but Lynn Moule, wife of County Supervisor Bill Moule, doesn’t want it there. Moule owns Business Connections right next door and doesn’t want cannabis so close. She supports the industry being in Red Bluff, but NIMBY. She believes it will destroy the “family atmosphere” of that block. Um…you mean the block with the bar cum strip joint where every drunk cowboy goes to fight?
Photo – Red Bluff Daily News
I have mixed feelings, of course. I’d like to see as many dispensaries downtown as the town can support – I just don’t want Zapata to benefit. From anything. Ever. My friend Jesse Montgomery said this about the dispensary ~ “Best not to have one downtown. It would bring too much money to surrounding businesses and might accidentally cause economic growth.” Hah.
Liz Merry was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx, then transplanted to the Jersey Shore. She moved to Chico in 1984 and married her comedy partner, Aaron Standish, in 1990. They have lived in Manton since 1994.
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