I was supposed to meet someone Monday at Safeway around 6:45 a.m., right after Jazzercise.

Aside from the fact that early morning worked for us, I liked that location for three other reasons:

1. free wifi.

2. coffee from the store’s Starbucks, a place that starts serving at omg 5 a.m.

3. After Jazzercise we’d be sweaty and rumpled, no make-up, basically looking like crap, but so what? At that hour, who’d see us?

I arrived first, so I sat down at the far end of a long, empty cushioned bench that Safeway designated for people to eat and read and work on computers and do whatever. This area is inside Safeway but across from its in-store Starbucks, a pickle’s throw from the Safeway deli counter. This wifi area is a pleasant, open space, with a few round tables, comfortable seating and little signs that advertise Safeway’s wifi.

Cool.

As I waited for my friend I opened my laptop and logged onto Safeway’s homepage. 

I wondered if my friend forgot about our meeting, or slept in, so I emailed her and told her I was at Safeway, but not to worry if she’d forgotten or was running late. I’d just use this found time to catch up on work.

There’s much to be said for taking a home business elsewhere. No distractions. No laundry begging for attention. No sink of dirty dishes. And should that familiar feeling of restlessness overtake me, the one one that causes me to jump up from my keyboard and do anything else, what in the world would I do at Safeway? Put away my laptop and go grocery shopping? Not likely.

So I worked and I waited.

A little after 7 a.m. a large guy with a somber expression and cafe mocha-colored skin sat down on the polar end of my long bench seat. He opened a newspaper and stared at it.   

A few minutes later a thin woman with long, wispy gray/blond hair strode into the Safeway seating area. She carried a worn, soft-plastic lunch sack with a hand-penned name on its top. She wore a day-glo orange hooded sweatshirt; a dingy vinyl jacket was draped over one arm. She grinned wide when she saw the seated man with the newspaper. She greeted him by name and then asked, ”Any news in there about low-income housing finally being built? God, won’t that be the day! Wouldn’t THAT be something?”

The man with the newspaper said there wasn’t any word about about low-income housing, and yes that would be a great day when low-income housing was available. All the while, he never lowered his paper.

The Orange Sweatshirt lady set her belongings on a small table beside mine. I asked if she had enough room. I didn’t want to crowd her.  She said, “No problem, you’re fine.” Up close I could see that she wore full dentures. Her age was impossible to guess: maybe 45 to 75.

About 1 minute later a heavy-set young guy with a knit hat decorated with a camo pattern joined the two others. Good mornings all around.

I tried to concentrate on writing, but the threesome’s conversation broke through. They talked about a bad fight that happened in South City Park, caused by some tweaker-white-kid. They talked about how the cops looked for the kid, but nobody knew if they’d found him. They talked about “stupid” rules they hated at the mission. They talked a lot about how hard it is to find a place to live in Redding. They talked about money and families and parole and prisons.

Camo hat guy: “I turned 19 in prison, 20 in prison and 21 in prison. I’m 22 now.”
Orange sweatshirt lady: “Wow. You’re young. I know about prison. I married at 16, and I may as well been in prison. I got beat up, told what to do, slapped around, all kinds of worse stuff that I won’t even tell you anymore.”

Camo hat guy: “After I got out, I didn’t know what to do. All that time I was used to someone telling me when to go to bed and when to get up and they had food and everything that I didn’t have to think about. People were like, dude, why did you have your wife wash your clothes and cook for you? I tell them that before, I always had someone to do it for me. I didn’t know how to take care of myself.”

Newspaper reader guy: “I can take care of myself fine. But I can’t find a place to live, cuz I can never get enough saved up for a deposit or nothing. I’m on Social Security and disability, it’s still not enough. I looked into the Rancheria . . . got paperwork . . .” 
Orange sweatshirt lady, laughing: “You’re Indian? Right on! See, you’re lucky that way.”
Camo hat guy: “I’m totally eligible for SSI, but I don’t want it. I want to work.”
Orange sweatshirt lady: “You’ll be sorry because you watch, you’ll get some job and get injured and that’ll be that. I’m on disability. But my situation’s mental. I would never go hit somebody, but if they are hitting me, or holding onto me, or if they’re hitting someone else, they’ll be sorry. I took at oath - I went to college and took Tai Chi . . .”
Camo hat guy interrupts: “Mine’s physical and mental - 5150. That’s what I like about California, you can defend yourself. In Oregon, you defend yourself and they put you away for assault.” 
Orange sweatshirt lady “No you do not want to defend yourself. Not in Shasta County. Then it’s domestic violence and you both go to jail.”
Camo hat guy: “I don’t get that. Like you know that cute little black-haired girl, the one with the baby? Her old man beat her up and stole her purse. But she’s still with him. I saw them together at Wendy’s”

Orange sweatshirt lady pounds the table with one fist: “Her? No way! That’s horrible! You know the one I’m having the trouble with is Mary, she doesn’t know when to shut her f-ing mouth.”
Camo hat guy: “She’s the one who hit me in the nuts. It took everything I had not to hit her in the mouth. But I don’t hit women.”

It’s after 8:30 a.m. when my cell phone rings. The group stops talking and looks my direction. I try to answer quietly. It’s my daughter. We talk for a few seconds when I notice that the woman in the orange sweatshirt is gathering her lunch bag and coat, and the guys are picking up their things to leave, too.  

I break from my call to apologize to the woman. I say I didn’t mean to bother them, or chase them off.

The woman smiled.

“It wasn’t you,” she said. “It was time to go. We have someplace else we need to be. We’ll be moving on now.”

 Shasta County Homeless Statistics 

• 3,316 total individuals representing 1,986 households were homeless at some point during the year.

• 2,332 total individuals representing 939 households were imminently at-risk of becoming homeless.

• 1,092 children were homeless.

• 995 children were imminently at-risk of becoming homeless.
• The total of homeless and at-risk children: 2,087

~ Source: People of Progress website/2007 City of Redding Shasta County Homeless Continuum of Care Council (COC),

Last year POP served 500 homeless people by providing food, clothing, personal hygiene items, motel rooms for those not able to stay in shelters for medical reasons, voice mail, referrals and emergency casework.

So there Bruce and I were Sunday morning at Cafe Roma in Berkeley. We drank coffee, read the San Francisco Chronicle and enjoyed our last bit of weekend in the Bay Area.  

I sacrificed the A section to Bruce and settled with the E - Travel Section - where I read a fascinating piece - “Old France, New World” - about Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, a part of France that’s just a 55-minute boat ride from North America.

As I read the story, I wondered if my mother’s French Canadian/Irish Catholic relatives had ever visited there. Maybe they even lived there. I remember a photo of my mother sitting on a picnic table; her handwriting on the picture’s back side said Saint-something. Was it Saint-Pierre et Miquelon?

It’s the story of my life. I’m always searching for shreds of information about my mother’s family - Walsh on the maternal side, Deanhart on the paternal side. Rarely do I find anything. My mother’s family remains a tightly locked mystery that sends the best genealogy experts running the other way.

On the other hand, genealogists adore my father’s side - the Chamberlains. Eazy Peazy. For hundreds of years Chamberlains (OK, with a few exceptions) were upstanding citizens. They opened and operated businesses, they built communities, they served in the military and they held respectable jobs, Most of all, they even gave their real names on birth certificates, death certificates and marriage licenses. Accurate documentation up the wazoo.

Truth be known, I’m far less interested in my father’s side, and much more interested in my mother’s mysterious relatives. I’d trade my entire Fiestaware collection for even a single photograph of my mother’s parents or grandparents.

Sunday, these thoughts passed through my brain for the millionth time as Bruce and I swapped newspaper sections where I read a great piece - “Ten Days That Shook the City” - the 30-year anniversary of the double-header tragedy of former San Francisco resident Jim Jones’ mass suicide in Jonestown, and the murders of then-Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk at the hand of ex-supervisor Dan White.

If you’re 40 or older, you probably remember those stories that rocked the world and especially San Francisco in November of 1978. I remember both events well. I was 22 and awaiting the birth of my first baby. My father, a radio broadcast personality, lived and worked in San Francisco.

As I read the story and followed the jump to page 11, I wondered what my dad would say today about those two horrible Bay Area-related events, if he were still alive.

That’s when I saw my father, in the huge vertical photograph that showed mourners filing past Moscone’s and Milk’s caskets. There was no missing him: bald head, beard, and that leather jacket he loved.

I’d have known him anywhere.

I attended one of the most beautiful weddings a few months ago. In fact, the photograph above, the one we’ve used of the cake-topper with the two guys, came from that wedding.

The wedding was a somber, yet joy-filled ceremony.

The handsome grooms wore matching shirts. They held hands as they walked down the church aisle. Their eyes were damp, but so were the eyes of most everyone there. Anyone who knew anything about the lives of these men knew what they’d been through together. They’d experienced more than two decades of good times and bad times, sickness and health, travels to far-off places for fun, flights to hometowns for funerals. They’d been together during career changes, raising kids, family losses, joys and sorrows.

Some years back they’d held a commitment ceremony in their back yard, just like a real wedding. But it was more symbolic. Then, it wasn’t legally binding because California didn’t recognize their union.

This time, their second ceremony carried legal significance because it was validated by California.

Consequently, this wedding was completely serious, historic and weighty. No dopey stuff like “Help Me” painted on the bottoms of shoes, no cake-smashed in the face.

A singer performed  “Grow Old Along With Me,” by John Lennon. (A gender word-swap adapted the song to their situation.)

Kleenexes fluttered throughout the church, like white doves released to wick away tears with their delicate wings.

“We’re married, and it’s legal!” said one of the grooms, who wept with joy.

They were married barely two months before California voters chose Proposition 8. Now, they’re depressed that the window of equality was open for such a short period of time before it slammed shut. They’re worried and wonder if Proposition 8 will affect the legality of their marriage.

They’re crushed to realize that a majority of voters chose to deny them the most basic legal rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

When I think of Proposition 8, my mind wanders to many same-sex couples; friends Bruce and I love, respect and admire.

We know one couple who adopted a daughter. These guys are the most doting, attentive, loving parents any child could ever want.

We know an amazingly energetic couple who started an art-and-culture movement that’s taken Shasta County by storm and made good things happen here that defy the area’s typical snail’s-pace of progress.

We know a couple who’s brought dance and performance to thousands of us in a way that’s forever transformed Redding’s entertainment landscape.

We know businessmen and life partners dedicated to making the world a better place, starting with the North State.

We remember Bruce’s sister Mindy, dedicated to her partner for 20 years before Mindy died, but not before she contributed so much to his planet in her short 47 years alive; stained glass, watercolors, volunteer work, and most of all, humor, kindness and generosity.

What gets me is when people who voted for Proposition 8 make absurd statements like, “Personally, I have nothing against gays.”

That’s like lighting citronella candles and then saying you don’t mind mosquitoes.

Some ”Yes on 8″ folks go even one step further and say they actually have gay friends. They say that while it’s true they voted Yes on Prop 8, it’s nothing personal against gay people.

How hypocritical is it to befriend someone, yet deny them basic rights?

I cling to the hope that perhaps one of my friends was correct when she guessed that the majority of voters misunderstood Proposition 8’s true intention.

Maybe its passage was a huge mistake. Maybe voters actually meant to show support for same-sex relationships, but they became confused when they looked at that little No-on-Prop-8 icon, the one with people holding hands. Maybe they saw that happy image and figured ”Yes on 8″ was inclusive, and therefore, it was for same-sex marriage, not against.

I would very much like to believe that.

Meanwhile, oh happy day, the wheels are in motion to overturn Proposition Hate 8.

Even so, some damage is irreparable.

Our married same-sex friends, and our unmarried same-sex friends alike, feel rejected and offended to realize that when the time came for people to give more than lip service to the acceptance of same-sex couples, voters chose to discriminate, rather than liberate.

Grow Old Along With Me

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
When our time has come
We will be as one

God bless our love
God bless our love

Grow old along with me
Two branches of one tree
Face the setting sun
When the day is done

God bless our love
God bless our love

Spending our lives together
Man and (man) together
World without end
World without end

Grow old along with me
Whatever fate decrees
We will see it through
For our love is true

God bless our love
God bless our love

~ By John Lennon

P.S. I signed this online petition against Proposition 8. No telling how much good it will do, but this petition is one way to protest a proposition that turned same-sex couples into second-class citizens.

Veterans are especially in my thoughts this week after I saw an emotional exhibit at Old City Hall Gallery Saturday during an Art Hop reception. It featured artist and veteran Chuck Prudhomme, and his portraits of North State World War II veterans, many of whom attended that night, braving a gully-washing downpour.

Today’s Veterans Day, a time when all veterans are on my mind, starting with my son, Joshua Domke, pictured here with this old water truck a few months ago.

I have plenty of photos of Josh in uniform during his years in the Marine Corps. Any one of those pictures might be more appropriate to represent Veterans Day.

But a veteran’s a veteran for life; long after the uniforms are retired. This photo is a classic example. It was taken in June, when Igo was ablaze and Bruce and I were on the brink of evacuation.

I was a nervous wreck. Bruce was a blur of motion as he packed our belongings.

Josh was a Marine with a mission. He borrowed a water truck (thank you John Buick Construction), filled the truck, drove it to our property, parked the truck and waited, eyes fixed westward, ready for the chance to protect the house he’d help build. Luckily, flames never reached our house, but if they had, Josh would have gladly battled them.

That’s my son, my favorite Marine and favorite veteran.

Especially on this Veterans Day Bruce and I honor and give thanks to veterans in our family, including my father Don Chamberlain, who served in the Marine Corps; Bruce’s father Marko Greenberg, who served in the Navy; nephews Steven Goedert, who served in the Marine Corps, and Brant Edgar, in the Navy.

We thank all veterans who sacrificed so much for the rest of us.

Here on Food for Thought: A News Cafe, we welcome you to share some words about your special veterans.

We honor them. We thank them for their service.

Kelly here, with a few photos from the reception at Old City Hall on Saturday night. (Apologies for the low quality. My ancient cell phone camera is handy but not particularly technologically advanced.) The gallery was packed with people.

Citing an economic downturn and overall declines in the newspaper industry, the Redding Record Searchlight on Thursday laid off 12 employees — about 8 percent of its 145-person work force.

Click here to read more.

This is how someone close to the situation described what happened inside the Record Searchlight Thursday:

 ”Well, apparently the RS has done another cut. Some employees were escorted out the door today with no notice; 5 part-time and 7 full-time folks gone. How very sad. One being “cheerful” Marilyn. No notice or anything—just escorted out. How very sad for all of these wonderful folks. Happy holidays, right?”

Last, the remaining carriers were told to inform their customers that the price of the paper was going up? Guess that explains these notes: “Dear Customer, I am sorry to inform you that after years of having $12.50 as a monthly rate (.41 per day), they are increasing the monthly rate to $13.50 ( .45 per day)

Interesting strategy: Cut employees, reduce content, oursource talent, increase the price of the smaller product. Brilliant!  

——————————–

In related news, the Eureka Reporter, one of Eureka’s daily newspapers, will cease its production Saturday. Click here to read more.

Meet the Obamas: Barack, Sasha, Malia and Michelle, our country’s next First Family, so full of firsts.

Barack Obama will be our first African American president. 

We Americans elected him in record numbers - numbers not seen for generations. He’s the first senator elected to the White House since John Kennedy did the same in 1960. He’s the first Democrat to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter did it in 1976. Obama even earned support from such traditionally Republican enclaves as Virginia and Indiana, states that hadn’t given a Democrat presidential candidate a second look in decades.

(A moment here to pause and thank Bruce Greenberg and Jim Gore for putting up links to local, state and national election coverage.)

I feel such emotion as I write these sentences, words I never dreamed I’d write, a time I never dreamed I’d live to see.  I’m floating on an ocean of elation as I absorb the reality that Obama - this brilliant young senator who believed so strongly in the “audacity of hope” - will be our 44th president. 

I know these things to be true, but I can barely comprehend them. I remain in a state of sleepy shock over this news that still feels fresh to me, and probably thousands of others who worked voting precincts from before sun-up until long after sun-down. 

It was nearly midnight before I got home Tuesday, logged on and saw election results and links on our site. I got misty-eyed as I saw and heard President-elect Obama speak in Chicago.

However, my election elation is tempered.

I’m bitterly disappointed about the outcome of Proposition 8, or as my friend calls it, Proposition Hate. For the life of me I can’t understand why voters would choose to treat same-sex couples as second-class citizens. I think of all the same-sex couples I know in committed, loving relationships. I think of all the taxes they pay and the contributions they make to our communities and it kills me to imagine how they must feel to know that a huge majority of Californians voted against giving our fellow Americans the most basic equal legal rights.

Likewise, I’m extremely bummed that the hyper-qualified Jeff Morris lost to do-nothing Wally Herger, our district’s congressman who sailed easily into his 12th term in office, rewarded for doing what? Nuttin’ honey. 

The only consolation is that Morris’ election numbers were more impressive than any other Democrat who’s run against Herger before. Also, Morris’ shoe-string-budget campaign did a stellar job of introducing this bright and capable Trinity County candidate to the North State. Perhaps during the next four years Morris can do enough fund-raising and friend-raising that he’ll give Herger an even bigger run for his money next time; big enough to win.

Of course, I kept my lip zipped about these things during my precinct work.

All Election Day Kelly and I were seriously offline, out of the loop and out of news-commission as we joined fellow Precinct 770 workers Laurie Tessier (lower right, in the photo) and Chris Uharriet (lower left) at Redding Fire Hall No. 3. This was my second time, and Kelly’s third (and countless times for Laurie and Chris), to work this precinct.

My guess is it’s probably rare to find journalist/precinct workers since most other journalists are busy reporting election returns, not handing out ballots and double-checking voter names and giving stickers to people who voted and offering them candy and red-white-and-blue cookies.

But work at the precinct is is exactly what Kelly, I and thousands of Americans all over our country did Tuesday.

Here in Shasta County, Cathy Darling strictly forbids ”electioneering” at polling places, from workers or voters. No campaign discussions, no election T-shirts, not a word about candidates or propositions, not a whisper or a wink or a hint about political parties. No radios, no televisions, no computers, no news in any form at all. For these reasons, for news hounds like Kelly and me, voting precincts are not the place to be, not for election updates. 

Although this one-day election blackout was torture for some of us, the precinct experience offered highlights that outweighed the campaign-information void.

•Precinct 770 saw more voters in line within the first hour than it sometimes saw in entire election days in other years.

•Precinct 770’s voters included scores of young people, many of whom were barely 18. All were so earnest and eager and engaged. Many arrived with their sample ballots already filled out, so they didn’t need our instructions about how to fill out the ballots with one pen line only to connect both sides of the arrows, because they’d already practiced.

(As an aside, one of the high points of my day was watching young Max Brewer vote, and receive a “My Vote Counted!” sticker from his mother, Kelly. Pass the Kleenex, please.)

•Precinct 770’s voters also included a few first-time voters in their 30s and 40s, and even one woman who looked in her 50s. (They volunteered this information.)

•Precinct 770’s voters included a woman who said she’d just learned her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that day.

•Precinct 770’s voters included the only person who committed an electioneering offense - a young man with an Obama T-shirt, who apologized profusely when told he couldn’t wear that shirt in the polling place. He returned wearing a camo jacket that covered the offending fabric.

•Precinct 770’s voters included a few who discovered when they reached the polling place that they’d received a mail-in ballot at home already, which meant they couldn’t vote again at the precinct. In every case, they left and returned later with completed ballots.

•Precinct 770’s voters included a few who arrived via wheelchair, some who walked with canes, an ill man so weak he brought his own lawn chair in case he needed to sit and wait, a few grown men who brought their elderly mothers to vote, and caregivers who brought in envelopes with their charges’ ballots.

•Precinct 770’s voters included many veterans, whose hats named wars and military branches.

•Precinct 770’s voters included many parents with children, like the mother/gymnastics coach and her daughter, and the man with two boys (their dinner from Gene’s Drive-In waited in the car), a number of people with babes in arms (I would gladly have held them if they’d asked), and a mother with four children, each of whom received a voting sticker.

•Precinct 770’s voters included a woman from the Philippines who came prepared to show her passport, and was surprised that we didn’t even need to see a driver’s license. “Where I lived, we had military waiting outside,” she said.

•Precinct 770’s voters included a man who arrived to vote at 7:59 (and 59 seconds) p.m. He voted, of course.

•Precinct 770 had more than 450 voters, a record for that precinct, by Laurie’s memory. All the voters were as diverse and as interesting as their signatures, gaits, eye contact and countenance as they entered Redding’s Fire Hall No. 3 to vote.

Their votes counted.

Every single one.

Stay tuned for a slide show of party pictures that we’ll post in a short while, and in the coming days as more people add their pix.

In the meantime, I wanted to report back about Food for Thought: A News Cafe’s first birthday Saturday. What a great party. What a joyful relief.

As you recall, I feared extremes: A few dedicated souls would show up and leave us with a humiliation of mountains of leftover food. Or the masses would appear, and leave us with trays of scattered crumbs and a posse of disappointed, hungry guests. (As one friend reminded me, 16,000 potential Food for Thought: A News Cafe readers could have attended. Hot flash.)

Neither happened.

Food Goddess Andrea Charroin baked a combined 1,100 lemon bars, rugelach, nut bars, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and apricot short breads. Of those, 18 lemon bars remained. We ordered 100 cupcakes. Of those, just 15 remained. About 12 gallons of coffee and 5 gallons of apple cider disappeared. Mike and Deanne Boehlert of Lassen Peak Winery poured every bottle they brought, right down to the last drop of wine. (Delicious wine, if you’ve not tried it. And it’s local. And the Boehlerts are wonderful, too.) Too bad we didn’t have one of those clicker people-counters. But by our rough guestimate a few hundred people came and went throughout the evening.

Most guests hailed from the Redding area. But others came from miles down the road, such as friend Jill from San Francisco, and my sister Bethany from St. Helena, and Jeff and Judy Morris from Weaverville, who paused from their campaigning to join the party.

Personally, the biggest surprise guests were Brendan Burns of L.A. and Chic Asturi of Santa Cruz, the best men at Bruce’s and my wedding 11 years ago, and his childhood friends many years before that. Those guys drove in a storm to attend the party Saturday in Redding, as did Jeff Gore (Food for Thought poker expert) of Chico, and Jennifer Jewell of Chico, whose program on KCHO, In a Northstate Garden, is one of my favorites, and whose website’s gardening columns, photos and audio interviews will soon link to our site. Cool! (Stay tuned.) And friends and web gurus Jim and Darcie Gore came from Elk Grove just for the party, too. Those are just the ones I knew about. We missed others too far away to travel for the party, such as son Joe Domke and Doug Cushman, our Paris friend, author and artist.

The Jim Dyar band was in its element. It sounded harmonious and terrific. Some guests (including the Greenbergs) were moved to dance.

For three solid hours, award-winning cartoonists Benita Epstein and Phil Fountain hosted the first-ever Cartoon-a-Thon, an improv-style art event where guests gave the cartoonists a scenario and they drew a customized, personalized rendition of it.  Guests were entranced, and so were we.  They drew for donations to benefit Shasta Women’s Refuge and People of Progress. All our net proceeds will benefit these two worthy causes. (Bruce is still counting, stay tuned.)

Alan Phillips’ year-in-review slide show was an entertaining reminder of how far we’ve come in 12 months from our humble beginnings. Alan chronicled how my son Joe in the Czech Republic (seemed wrong to have a party without him) created a little blog to cheer me up after I was fired from my newspaper job last October. The slide show featured the early months of the website, when techie friend/genius Jim Gore and friend Darcie Gore eased us through the technical labor pains and helped us raise Food for Thought from a modest website into a sixth-generation multifaceted news magazine - News Cafe - featuring local, independent journalism, nearly 50 contributors,  dozens of advertisers and thus far more than 1,000 interesting, engaging stories, cartoons, forums, recipes and all kinds of information that’s relevant to our lives.

Pinch me. I never would have believed a personal blog could grow into such a significant, locally owned, locally interested, online independent journalism site.

Never would I have believed that one year after my newspaper job ended I’d be celebrating the anniversary of a new journalism job, an even better, more fulfilling one.

The party acknowledged all that, made possible by you, the readers, advertisers and contributors.

Of course, no party goes off without a hitch.

We blew an electrical breaker with too many coffee pots on one outlet.

We had some bizarre, pre-party drama when a bunch of button tea-light batteries exploded. (I’d removed them from their packaging and stored a few dozen in a Tupperware container.) Apparently, they conducted energy all pressed together like that, then super-heated and blew up inside the plastic container. That popped the plastic lid and flung broken hot metal discs all over our work room off the kitchen.

A little boy accidentally left the spigot open on the water urn for a good long time.

Some people slipped in a side door without paying.

Oh, and some guests left a few belongings behind: 1 chamois-colored coat, 1 pair of clip-on earrings and 1 camera. (Drop me an email at donig@anewscafe.gmail.com to describe your missing item and claim them.)

Bruce and I blew it and printed some sheets of name tags on the wrong side of the paper.

Plus, it rained hard and left some guests standing in line outside under a pair of tents. I felt really awful about that.

All those things faded in the face of the sad news that Elvis, the Brewers’ handsome, sweet, dog, died a few hours before our party. Even so, Kelly, Steve, Max and Seth Brewer soldiered on, put on party faces and helped host a spectacular bash.

The room was abuzz in conversation. As you can see in this photo above, by Skip Murphy, it was also aglow in twinkle lights and floor lamps (after we’d wisely ditched the overheard fluorescent lights). Magic didn’t make it happen. Lots of friends and family helped before during and after the party.

A round of applause for party laborers Canda Williams, Linda Woodcook, Seth, Max and Steve Brewer, Andrea and Westley Charroin, Linda Gutierrez, Alan Phillips and his adorable daughters. I thank my sisters Shelly Shively and Bethany Chamberlain, son Josh Domke and his girlfriend Kat Fiscus. I thank Jackie Goedert, Jim and Candace Dyar, Joanie Pechanec, Charlie Price, Jim, Darcie and Laura Gore.

Everyone’s work paid off. Laughter. Smiles. Hugs. Eating. Drinking. Being merry. Surrounded by some of my favorite people in the world; dear friends, family, readers, advertisers, contributors and even a few curious people who paid to attend the party, not because they’d read our web site or gave two squirts about it, but because, “We heard it was the place to be.”

I think they heard right.

Kelly and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

We can hardly wait until next year.

We also hope you’ll stick around and continue being part of this “we” site. It’s definitely the place to be.

These are your party favors. Aren’t they cute? Kelly and I spent two days making toffee to go inside each little box. Then a team of friends and family put the finishing touches on hundreds of those boxes. (Special thanks to Bethany Chamberlain, Shelly Shively, Kat Fiscus, Canda Williams and Linda Woodcook.)

We’re so excited about the first birthday party for Food for Thought: A News Cafe.

Jim Dyar’s Band will play.

Award-winning cartoonists Benita Epstein and Phil Fountain will host the first-ever Cartoon-a-Thon, an improv-style art event where you give the cartoonists the scenario, people and story and they each draw their rendition of it. (They’re drawing for donations to benefit Shasta Women’s Refuge and People of Progress. All our party proceeds will benefit these two worthy causes.)

Alan Phillips did a great year-in-review slide show.

Food Goddess Andrea Charroin baked some of your favorite treats.

Lassen Peak Winery will provide wine for the no-host bar.

The party will miss some key people, such as webmaster/son Joseph Domke, who created this web site to cheer me up after I lost my newspaper job. And it will miss others, waylaid by illness, storms or other plans.

We don’t want to miss you. We hope to see you tonight at the Caldwell Community Center in Caldwell Park (the old Redding Museum of Art & History) at 7 p.m. The party ends at 10 p.m. (No more on-line RSVPs or credit card reservations, but you can pay at the door.)

Bring your cameras so we can post the best party photos online Monday.

Prepare to have fun. Happy first birthday to us, our advertisers, contributors and readers. What a wonderful team we have.

I’m off to help set up for the party. Everyone at Food for Thought: A News Cafe hopes to see you there. 

We’re approaching the first birthday of Food for Thought: A News Cafe. I’m sharing our first birthday card with you, a touching keepsake drawing of me and Kelly by Doug Cushman, friend and author who writes his column from Paris. (Thank you, Doug!)

I hope you’ve clicked here to buy your ticket if you plan to attend our party. We’ve bought hundreds of cups, napkins, plates, battery-powered tea lights and paper lanterns. Although the party is an after-dinner affair, you can count on refreshments.

For example, we’ve ordered 100 cupcakes with fall-colored roses. Plus, Andrea Charroin, our favorite Food Goddess, will prepare some of her most-requested treats, just for us. We’ve ordered wine. We’ve rented a room, the Caldwell Community Center (which I’ll always think of as the old Redding Museum of Art & History). We’ve got twinkle lights and table cloths up the wazoo.

Jim Dyar and his band will play. Alan Phillips is compiling a year-in-review slide show about Food for Thought: A News Cafe.

Benita Epstein (omg-famous, award-winning artist and cartoonist, if you’ve read the New Yorker, you’ve seen her cartoons, and I get all a’twitter when she’s left comments on our site, with her REAL name), and her friend and ours, the talented and beloved Phil Fountain, will hold the first-ever cartoon-off. Party proceeds will benefit two great causes: Shasta Women’s Refuge and People of Progress.

Kelly and I have dedicated this week to preparing some delicious, adorable party favors and name tags for those of you’ve who’ve RSVP’d. (Yes, that’s supposed to be incentive.)

We have our party dresses ready. We’ve roped our families into helping with party central, before, during and after.

With few exceptions, I don’t know when I’ve felt more excited about throwing a party. 

I know some of you can’t be there, most notably my sweet son Joe, who saved my life when he created this website 1 year ago after a pipsqueak editor flushed my newspaper career. (I’ll revisit that topic later this week.)

Joe’s in the Czech Republic, and he and wife Marie are keeping their fingers crossed to visit at Christmas, but for sure we’ll miss him and any others of you who can’t make it to the party. But the rest of our Food for Thought: A News Cafe team and their families will be there.

And many of you will be there, too, some of whom were among the original 2,000 readers who joined us that first month. Remember that? And remember this site’s 1-month birthday? What a fun and wild ride this is.

Now there are nearly 16,000 of you. The numbers are growing.

OK, I got a serious hot flash as I typed 16,000. The Caldwell Community Center won’t hold that many people. 

Now I’m thinking about my recurring fear of not having enough refreshments for guests. It’s a holdover anxiety from when I catered my neice’s wedding, and we ran out of food, right down to the last garnish. I’m lucky she still speaks to me.

It’s a tale of two entertaining nightmares:

1. We throw a party and only nine people show up.

2. We throw a party and it’s such a crush of people that we run out of food and drink in the first 15 minutes. I always wake up as the  fire marshall arrests us.

Yesterday I drove to Cash & Carry in a panic and bought a few hundred more cups, plates and napkins.

Help put my mind at ease. If you know you’re coming, please let us know.

Just click here and fill in the blanks.

We’ll talk soon. Right now I need to make a run to the store for more supplies.

Just in case, I’ll save the receipts. 

Here it is, KRCR weather reporter Chita Johnson as she discos with her professional dance partner, Logan Grimes.

Ever since July 12, after Dancing with the Stars Shasta County Style, Chita’s name has been searched every day on our site, sometimes as few as one or two times a day, other days as often nine, 10, 11 times or more a day. 

Search no more, Chita fans. Here’s her disco, complete with the raincoat that she ditches, and the splits. Logan’s something, too. This photo of him above was taken in May. Watching him in this video is like seeing a grown man, not the 17-year-old guy he really is. Maybe he did grow during those months, which would explain pants so snug that there was some concern he might not be able wriggle into them on show night.

I don’t know why I bother writing these words. You’ve all gone, haven’t you? You’ve already clicked on Chita and Logan’s video.  You’re there now, aren’t you?

Maybe afterward you’ll return here to see what you missed. If so, you’ll read this part where I thank Shasta Family YMCA and Shasta Women’s Refuge for hosting such a great fundraiser, and I thank all the professional dancers, most of whom were high school and college students, all of whom put their lives on hold, missed out on summer jobs and dedicated two months to teaching a bunch of non-dancers (like me) how to dance, or pretend to dance for one night. Thank you to the Cascade Theatre staff for being such great hosts in Redding’s most beautiful historic theater.

I also thank Mike Burke for the photos, and Jeff Adams of Adams Productions, who broke out all the dances into 12 segments, exclusively for us here on Food for Thought: A News Cafe (sans the rest of program, which lasted more than two hours). I thank the audience who paid to see this benefit that raised money for a pair of great community causes. I thank Staci Bertagna for inviting me to join the Dancing with the Stars Shasta County Style team. This commitment challenged me to push myself to my absolute physical limit. But most of all, it allowed me to have fun, meet some great people and make new friends, such as my fellow dancers who were such good sports that they allowed me to post their dances on Food for Thought: A News Cafe. Thank you! 

There’s nothing left to say, except watch Chita and Logan’s video. They’ll inspire you.

Welcome to Day 10, Week 2 of the Dancing with the Stars Shasta County Style performances extracted from the DVD by Jeff Adams of Adams Video Productions. The event was July 12, but perhaps you missed it, or maybe you were there but you want to watch it again; this time just the dances by the north state community “star” dancers and their respective professional dance partners.

Last week we played all the waltzes, which were very pretty.

This week we’ll see six disco numbers, which are lots of fun. (Click here for all last week’s waltzes.) We’ll conclude with the disco that’s had the most searches: Chita Johnson. I hate to spoil the surprise but Chita starts out with a raincoat and ditches it a few seconds into her dance. 

Sunday featured Kurt Starman, Redding city manager, and his partner, Sarah Leaver.

Next came Tracy Edwards, Redding Rancheria CEO, and her partner, Matt Armstrong (the contest’s winners, by the way). 

Les Baugh, Shasta County Supervisor, and his professional dance partner, Kathy Babcock were next up.

Today we spotlight Don Burton, Results Radio manager, and his partner, Julie Correia, as they disco.

I met with with Congressman Wally Herger, R-Chico,  dozens of times during the 10 years I worked at some local newspaper where I was its opinion columnist and part of its editorial board.

I don’t recall Herger ever coming alone. He always had a handler (my term) with him; usually Herger’s field representative Dave Muerer, a bright guy who’s also a humor writer, mainly Christian-based books about being a father and husband.

More than once it occurred to me that Muerer should be the one in the congressman’s seat, not Herger, but I could never picture Herger doing Muerer’s job, since it’s pretty demanding.

I often left those meetings shaking my head in disbelief that someone with so little hustle and presence and curiosity and drive as Herger could represent our district. Decade after decade.

Meanwhile, meeting after meeting Muerer sat patiently, mostly quietly, at the ready to clarify something or fill in a blank for Herger, even to the point of supplying vocabulary.

Herger: “It’s not, it’s not … what’s that I like to say, Dave?”

Muerer (as if he’d answered this question a thousand times): “Mutually exclusive.”

Herger: “That’s right. It’s not mutually exclusive.”

Don’t get me wrong. Herger’s a pleasant enough guy. He’s got a golly-gee-whiz earnestness and eyebrows that raise almost as high as his voice as he talks and talks and talks and talks in circles without ever giving a concrete solution or original idea that might benefit our north state and our people.

Herger reminds me of someone’s simple, kindly, retired uncle, a fellow you bump into at family reunions and hope you don’t get stuck sharing a picnic table with him.

I never left a Herger encounter that I didn’t wonder, sweet Jesus, how does this guy stay in office?

Of course, I knew the answer then and I know it now. So do you.

Herger’s a Republican congressman in a Republician-dominated district. Pigs would fly before his party replaced him. Snowballs would survive in Redding’s heat before even the best-qualified, most-intelligent Democrat challenger could win a race against Herger. Traditionally in our district, it’s less about the best person and more about the controlling party.

If you consider the news that even some die-hard Republicans plan to vote for Barack Obama, this election season may bring the precedent-setting voting results we’ve long awaited. This could end up the first time in decades when Herger, one of the most politically impotent politicians around, is voted out of his district, free to limp off into the sunset.

It’s about time. Herger has been in office 11 terms - that’s 22 years, nearly a quarter of a century. What has Herger done for us in that time? I’ll tell you. Pretty much nothing.

Can’t blame him, I guess. Where’s the incentive to bust one’s butt if one is continually handed his job on a silver platter whether he performs well or not. Why bother? He’s enjoyed unwavering job security. Until now.

Jeff Morris may derail Herger’s gravy train.

As my colleague Kelly Brewer pointed out, Morris is one impressive candidate with an equally impressive record.

These were among my thoughts Tuesday night as I watched Morris and Herger debate on KIXE (or KXIE, as it’s known in Hergerland).

By the debate’s end, I was more convinced than ever that Morris is the obvious best choice for our district.

To be fair, Herger showed better during Tuesday’s debate than usual. However, he also sound heavily coached, right down to the “all of the above” Palinisms. But alas, it’s been the same old same old from Herger at these forums and debates with Morris, whether in Chico or Redding.

Herger gave serious lip service to how the north state needs this and the north needs that and we must do this and we must do that. Blah, blah, blah.

Anyone can talk. We need a man of action. We don’t need a dittohead all-of-the-above politician. We need someone with enough brain matter to actually select the right answer and/or invent a fresh solution.

We need someone who will actually do something, especially as we head into some treacherous financial times that could rock our world in every way. We need an alert, quick-thinking, smart, congressman as we face a potential global and international economic head-on collision.

We do not need some old guy asleep at the wheel, running red lights and taking us over a cliff.

Voter-willing, Herger’s talkin’ days are coming to an end.

Hey, look there. I think I just saw a pig fly by with an armload of snowballs.

It’s about time.

Even before Quentin Valiquette turned 2 in June, his mother knew something was very wrong with her only child.

“He went from running and jumping to having spasms and right-sided weakness,” said 22-year-old Jessica Valiquette, Quentin’s mother. “We’d have to scoop him up like a newborn baby.”

He was eventually diagnosed with brain and spinal cancer.

Surgeons removed what they could of the tumor, but they didn’t get everything, which is why doctors started chemotherapy treatments. Although Quentin’s cancer has responded to chemo, total removal is the only cure, something that’s impossible because vital nerves are intertwined with the deadly tumor. 

“The treatments have been horrible on him, but he’s always happy and he’s always smiling,” Jessica said. “Really, you can’t get down, he’s going through so much more than we are. He never fusses, he never cries, he’s the most patient child. He just accepts it as part of our routine. It’s like this is IV night, and this is chemo day and this is lay around and watch cartoons because he feels like crap day.”

Meanwhile, Jessica’s other issues and pressures mount. She left her floral department job at Holiday Market on Hartnell and Shasta View to care for Quentin. And her car suddenly required a string of repairs. 

Jessica says she doesn’t know what she would do without a group called Alyssa Araiza “Wings of Angels. 

The organization sends gas cards to help cover the travel costs for Quentin’s out-of-town treatments, and it sends grocery cards to help keep food on the table.

“They are such amazing people,” Jessica said of Dan and Donna Araiza, who founded the non-profit organization six years ago after the death of Alyssa, their youngest daughter, to cancer.

North Valley Bank has a Quentin Valiquette fund for those who wish to contribute.

And Wings of Angels continues to help.   

Meet Stephen Surtees of Gerber. He’s a 17-year-old Red Bluff High School student-athlete who lives in Gerber with his grandmother Debbie Butcher, who’s cared for him and his younger brothers for many years.

Stephen, a young football player and Little League, first started complaining of pain last November. His grandmother said she took Stephen from doctor to doctor without a diagnosis until an April x-ray finally confirmed osteoscaroma in his pelvis and hip.

“Everyone kept saying it was a sport injury,” Debbie said. “They kept saying sports injuries take a while to heal. I went to like 10 doctors. He was at school on a Wednesday and he called me at home, crying, saying he was throwing up. We took him to the emergency room and they did an x-ray. Pretty soon the doctor says, “I hate to be the one to tell you, but you have cancer and it’s huge.”

Surgeons’ removed Stephen’s pelvic bone and hip bone. 

Debbie, Like Quentin’s mother, Jessica, also faces a mountain of bills and vehicle troubles.

“I’ve had one thing after another go wrong with my car,” Debbie said

She said help from Wings of Angels has been a lifesaver. 

“They’ve been excellent,” she said. “They started sending us food cards and gas cards. It helps greatly.”

Saturday is the 7th Annual Wings of Angels event to raise money to help Quentin and Stephen’s families, and other families like theirs whose children have cancer or other life-threatening conditions.

You’re invited. Expect delicious spaghetti (what else would you expect from Sons of Italy?).

Know that the money goes to a worthy cause, a North State non-profit organization that helps some of our most vulnerable children and their overwhelmed families.

If you can’t attend, donations are still welcome.

What: Wings of Angels & Sons of Italy fundraiser, spaghetti dinner and live auction

When: Sat. Oct. 25, 2 to 9 p.m - (Live auction begins at 7 p.m.)

Where: Sons of Italy, 4850 Cedars Rd.

Cost: $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under

What else: Tickets to enter drawing for a shotgun and 42-inch plasma television cost $5 each or 5 for $20

A portion of the evening’s proceeds will benefit Stephen Surtees and Quentin Valiquette.

Info: Contact Dan or Donna Araiza at 378-2373.

Welcome to Day 8, Week 2 of the Dancing with the Stars Shasta County Style performances extracted from the DVD by Jeff Adams of Adams Video Productions. The event was July 12, but perhaps you missed it, or maybe you were there but you want to watch it again; this time just the dances by the north state community “star” dancers and their respective professional dance partners.

Last week we played all the waltzes, which were very pretty. This week we’ll see six disco numbers, which is a lot more fun. Click here for all last week’s waltzes.

Sunday featured Kurt Starman, Redding city manager, and his partner, Sarah Leaver.

Below is Tracy Edwards, Redding Rancheria CEO, and her partner, Matt Armstrong (the contest’s winners, by the way).

Kurt Starman and Sarah Leavers Waltz

Tracy Edwards and Matt Armstrong Waltz

Les Baugh and Kathy Babcock Waltz

Don Burton and Julie Correia Waltz

Chita Johnson and Logan Grimes Waltz

Doni Greenberg and Jake Carver Waltz

I never pass up the chance to pick fruit. It’s almost free. And in these weird economic times, food that grows on trees is like money in the bank. At least that’s the way I see it.

I got the chance to pick apples recently when i visited my sister were she lives in St. Helena, a place renowned for its vineyards, great restaurants, and most of all, Michael Chiarello, Food Network star chef, whom we didn’t see. Not that weekend.

The day Shelly and I headed home Bethany showed us her little apple tree in the front yard. It was tiny, but it was loaded with apples, like the ones in this bags. I wasn’t able to identify the apple varieties, but I decided to bake with them, which proved a tasty decision.

Here’s an apple cake recipe you can make just in time for fall. Double the recipe and put one cake in the freezer for later.  Money in the bank.

St. Helena Apple Cake

2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

3 cups apples, peeled and diced

1/2 cup apple juice (I buy the kind in little cans)

1 cube butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients (up to cloves) into a large bowl. Stir to mix.  Toss in the apples and mix to form a nice dusting. Add the remaining ingredients. Stir until just blended.

Spoon batter into a Bundt cake pan or two loaf pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test, and comes out clean.

Cool in pan for about 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from pan. Cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar.

____________________

Joel Warner, Haven Humane Society’s former director, is hard pressed to say flattering things about Yvonne Preston, the board member he says created such an uncomfortable workplace that he prematurely retired from the animal shelter he was hired to help.

Warner’s negative characterization of Preston agrees with a host of Haven insiders, donors and supporters I spoke with over the last few months who said Haven’s troubles began in earnest the day Preston walked into the Redding animal shelter a little more than two years ago.

Of course, Preston is just one person on Haven’s board, with just one vote. Her fellow board members share leadership responsibility for Haven’s decisions, tone, administrative philosophy and degrees of public transparency.

Two exceptions

As of this report, Ray John, Haven’s new director, and Monty Hight, Haven’s newest board member who joined last month, have not been asked to sign confidentiality statements. Both men say they value transparency and hope for an open relationship between Haven, which receives public monies, and the public. We’ll address that more in an upcoming story.

Enough credit/blame to go around

While Haven board members may not be directly culpable for everything that’s caused the decline in public trust at Haven in the last few years, those things have happened under the board’s watch, even if passively, by going along with the decisions, or by failing to challenge or question them.

Blame and credit falls at the board’s feet, whether we’re talking about:

• Haven’s perplexing refusal to make board minutes public

• A policy that required the majority of board members and employees to swear to secrecy

• An unwillingness to release information about public day-to-day financial records

• The allowance of Haven endorsements of such traditionally unorthodox, un-animal-shelter practices as hog-harnessing contests and/or dog-weight-pulling events

• High Haven staff turnover; by some figures more than 20 Haven people left the shelter within a few months

• A new no-kill direction, sometimes resulting in ill animals crammed in cages, or relaxed pet adoption and fostering standards

Current Haven Humane Society board

Ray John, CEO
Vickie Marler, chair
Yvonne Preston, vice chair
Nadine Bailey, treasurer
Dr. Jean Huang
Wanda Agostini
Stewart Altemus
Melissa Hunt
Heather Evans
Monty Hight
Peggy McDannold

Two takes on Preston

Although the board comprises the above members, Preston seems a key figure at Haven changes during the last couple of years. While one camp of Haven insiders and supporters cast Preston as the scapegoat and manipulative villain, another praises her as the shelter’s brilliant savior.

Some middle ground would be helpful.

Roger Janis, past Haven board member, and Nadine Bailey, present Haven board treasurer and self-described friend of Preston (Bailey’s also a field representative for  Sen. Sam Aanested, R-Grass Valley), speak highly of Preston. They say she assumed a stressful leadership position at the animal shelter in the midst of emotional upheaval following Norm Ryan’s resignation and subsequent arrest for allegedly stealing Haven funds.

Janis and Bailey said Preston made some tough, sometimes unpopular-yet-crucial decisions at Haven for the welfare of its animals, supporters and workers.

Although Warner does not share Bailey and Janis’ glowing perception of Preston, he understands how a person could arrive at those conclusions.

It’s with some irony that Warner, 68, recalls the first time he saw Preston, a pretty, 30-something, confident north-state newcomer. She was married to Willie Preston, a field representative for Doug LaMalfa.

Yvonne Preston seemed a good catch as a potential board member.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this now but I’m the one who asked her to come on the board,” Warner said in a phone interview from his home in Washington.

“She said she wanted to volunteer. She said she had lots of connections. She said she had money and was willing to put her money where her mouth was,” Warner said.

“You have to understand, when you’re looking for people on a board, that’s exactly the kind of person you want.”

Preston did put her money where her mouth was. That very day she handed Warner a check for $1,000. That cinched it for Warner.

By July of 2006 Preston was on the board. She soon moved up to vice chair, poised as the shelter’s chair when then-chair Janis announced his impending resignation.

“From there, things started going downhill,” Warner said.

He said Preston soon began finding fault with his suggestions, such as when he located a vacant thrift store space in south Redding after Haven’s store in the downtown Mall failed because it wasn’t making enough money. That’s about the time that Janis, then the board chair, announced he’d soon bow out.

“I knew Yvonne was going to be president, and that it was time to leave,” Warner said. “I figured I’d just go, instead of jumping up and down and upsetting the apple cart,” he said.

Warner resigned in May 2007.

A few months ago, after Warner heard about Haven’s troubles (see links, above), he expressed a willingness to return temporarily to help stabilize the shelter, but under one condition. He said Preston — now the board’s vice-chair — would have to go, something he doubted was possible.

“I don’t think the board would ever go for it,” Warner said.

Pants on fire

On a personal note, twice Preston has given me information that clashed wildly with versions of the same stories by her board chair and current animal shelter director, respectively.

Both incidents took place in late July. First, I asked Preston whether she was still unpaid for her work as interim CEO since Ryan’s departure.

“I’m a volunteer,” she said. “I get no money at all.”

I asked how she managed to work for nothing.

“It’s a great organization and we do a lot of rewarding work,” she said. “I look forward to coming to work every day.”

I got an entirely different answer from Vickie Marler, Haven’s board chair, when I asked if Preston worked as interim CEO for free. Actually, said Marler, Haven’s board decided to pay Yvonne after all, retroactively to when Ryan left. (Wouldn’t disclose the amount.)

“The board felt it fair that she be compensated,” Marler said.

A few days later, Preston was overheard at Haven telling someone she worked as interim CEO for no money, strictly as a volunteer.

Second, Preston claimed she had nothing to do with bringing Ray John, Haven’s current director, to Haven. This conversation happened when I’d called Preston to confirm the appointment of a new director. I’d heard from an insider that the board had already selected John.

“I don’t know anything about this,” Preston said.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“No, nothing” Preston said. “I’m the CEO! I don’t know anything about this!”

The next week John was hired as Haven’s director.

A few days later I spoke with John. (We’ve known each other professionally for years.)

He was forthcoming about how he’d become Haven’s director.

“I was recruited,” he said.

“By whom?” I asked.

“Yvonne Preston,” he said.

Who is Yvonne Preston?

Who is this young, energetic woman who walked into Haven’s lobby, handed over a check for $1,000, joined Haven’s board in July 2006, rose to vice chair, then board chair, then interim CEO, and most recently settled back to vice chair?

Shasta County real estate records show that in July of 2004 Preston — Yvonne D. Meyers — bought a house in Gold Hills for $545,000. (That house has been for sale for nearly a year now, and the last time I checked it was listed at $579,000.)

But earlier, February 2004 news stories reported Preston — then Yvonne Meyers –  a Sutter County small-business owner, was the first alternate to the Sutter County Central Committee for Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, and the chair of the Sutter County ‘04 Bush/Cheney campaign, one of 58 Californians to hold one of those special regional appointments.

By January of 2005 she’d married Willie Preston, the former chair of the Lincoln City ‘04 Bush/Cheney campaign, and district director for Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa.

The couple arranged a Washington, D.C., honeymoon where they attended President George Bush’s inauguration and the Democracy Ball.

The backbone’s connected to the rib bone

At 24, Willie Preston was Lincoln’s mayor while he commuted to Chico for his work with Assemblyman Bernie Richter. Willie Preston chairs the Shasta County Taxpayers Association.

It is a small world after all, because Yvonne Preston chose her friend Nadine Bailey, field representative for Aanested, as a Haven Humane Society board member, and Bailey is now Haven’s treasurer. When asked why Preston picked her for the board, Bailey said Preston was especially interested in her fund-raising abilities, which would be much needed when the time came to build a bigger, newer animal shelter.

As an aside, coincidentally, as we reported here last week, the county wants to build its new animal shelter beside Haven Humane Society on Eastside Road in Redding.

For what it’s worth, Aanested and LaMalfa get low marks from PAW PAC, California’s Political Action Committee for Animals.

Fast forward to 2007, when then-46-year-old Norm Ryan of Long Beach moved to Redding with his wife, Cheri, and the couple’s four sons. Ryan was a Long Beach forensic accountant who organized a plan to slash the city’s utility tax. He failed at his attempts to win a Long Beach City Council seat, and likewise, wasn’t selected for a mayoral position he’d wanted. Although he made it onto the board of the Water Replenishment of Southern California, he was not re-elected in 2006.

According to one Haven Humane Society board member, Willie Preston and Ryan first met at a San Diego conference a few years ago where they exchanged business cards, an encounter that opened the door to Ryan’s entrance to Redding.

In 2007, at the recommendation of Willie Preston and Rick Bosetti, Redding City Council member, Ryan applied for a job as the city of Redding treasurer. The city rejected Ryan and chose someone else. Later,  Bosetti appointed Ryan to a city committee charged with looking at ways to pay for a new police station. Ryan eventually quit, disgruntled and frustrated.

Finally, in the spring of 2007, Ryan applied for and was hired as Haven’s CEO, a decision that nearly everyone at Haven, including board members, eventually came to regret, or at least that’s what they say now.

Ryan lasted almost a year in that position before he resigned. Preston immediately took charge. On June 18, nine days later, Ryan was charged with stealing almost $1,400 from Haven. Specific allegations include: charging a personal trip to San Francisco to his business credit card, and for reimbursing himself for a flight to Chicago. In August he pleaded not guilty in Shasta County Superior Court to five felonies, including embezzlement by a public officer, identity theft and grand theft.

Meanwhile, Ryan goes to court this week on those charges. He maintains his innocence and says the truth will come out during his trial.

To paraphrase one board member’s hypothetical question: “Did we make a mistake when we chose Norm Ryan? No shit, Sherlock.”

Check back for the conclusion of the Haven series, including a message from Ray John, the shelter’s director of almost three months, who’ll talk about Haven’s future.

Also, stay tuned for reports on Ryan in court this week.

Welcome to Day 3 of our Dancing with the Stars (Shasta County Style) recap, doing our part to bring a little lighthearted levity to your life, one waltz and disco at a time.
Monday we featured Kurt Starman, Redding city manager, and Sarah Leavers, his professional dance partner, as they waltzed to the theme from “Romeo and Juliet.”

Tuesdaywe watched a waltz by Tracy Edwards, Redding Rancheria CEO, and Matt Armstrong, her professional dance partner, the couple who won the contest, by the way.

Today’s featured couple is Les Baugh, Shasta County supervisor, and Kathy Babcock, his professional dance partner.

Enjoy.

Shasta County owns 8.9 acres of undeveloped land off Breslauer Way that would make a wonderful addition to the City of Redding’s collection of open spaces, trails and parks.

The property, shaped roughly like a slip-on shoe, slopes along the banks of the Sacramento River.

Speaking of Redding, it owns 6.5 acres along Eastside Road upon which Shasta County could build that new animal shelter it’s wanted for so long (Plan B since Plan A to form a joint city/county shelter died of starvation). 

Here’s something interesting about that Eastside Road property the county’s coveting: It’s right next door to Haven Human Society. How convenient would that be?

On Tuesday Larry Lees, county administrator, gleefully shared his creative idea to the Board of Supervisors, a plan he said would move the county closer to building a new, modern animal shelter. (If you’ve seen the county shelter, you know it’s in extremely dire straits.)

Lees called his plan a win-win-win-win-win situation:

•The county could sell Breslauer, perhaps to the city of Redding, or to a non-profit organization that would use the land for parks, trails and open spaces.

•The county could use the money from the sale of its Breslauer property to buy the desired city of Redding property near Haven Humane Society.

•At last, the county could dump its sad, old run-down shelter and construct a bigger, better one on property that has more pasture land and room to grow. 

• Next-door neighbor animal shelters would provide myriad collaboration opportunities. The public could go to one vicinity to search for lost or adoptable pets. The shelter staffers could share information and resources to best care for the animals. (In a perfect world, the shelters would just join forces.)

“I like it!” Lees said of his plan.

Apparently, the supervisors liked the idea, too.

They voted unanimously to authorize two appraisals of the riverside county land. Why two appraisals, you might ask? Well, each appraisal will consider a different potential use for the riverside property. One appraisal would look at the land with open space, parks and trails in mind. The other appraisal would look at the land full, private development in mind. (Though Supervisor Mark Cibula expressed the opinion that his first choice for the land’s future was for parks, trails and open spaces.)

My guess is that appraisals for fully developed land would run higher, thus, the higher the appraisal, the higher the selling price.

Regarding the city-owned Eastside Road land, it’s mostly empty.  The Shasta Cascade Rail Preservation Society does lease part of the Eastside Road land so it can display old railroad cars and tracks there. For that reason, the Rail Preservation Society’s members do not share Lees’ enthusiasm for the land plans.

But they’re getting ahead of themselves.

The Breslauer Way property hasn’t been appraised. And the Redding City Council hasn’t weighed in on this. First things first.