Political Showdown in Inland Mendocino County: Supervisor Candidates Tackle Mental Health, Water, and COVID Mask Protests

Candidates for inland Mendocino County supervisors seats appeared before a packed crowd at the Ukiah City Council chambers Thursday night, to address mental health, water, and who took part in a barefaced protest at the co-op during the height of pandemic tensions.

Jacob Brown, a former Marine, pulled his punches in his first public appearance in the contest against incumbent Second District Supervisor Maureen Mulheren, only addressing her voting record once.

First District supervisor incumbent Glenn McGourty is not running for re-election. The four challengers found themselves largely agreeing on policy and correcting each other on point of fact. 

The forum opened with a question for the second district candidates about the board’s recent unanimous decision to borrow over $6 million from Measure B, the sales tax initiative for mental health services and facilities, to build a mental health wing for the new jail. Inflation and delays have led to cost overruns, and the jail has not yet broken ground.

“One, do you believe this aligns with Measure B’s priorities, and two, how would you ensure that these funds are paid back?” asked the moderator from the Inland Mendocino Democratic Club, which organized the event.

Mulheren said the Measure B funds might not even end up being borrowed, but did not identify an alternate source. “We do need a place for people to safely be reincarcerated so that they can get the treatment that they need,” she said. “Especially people that are suffering with substance misuse disorder, and people that have mental health needs…The Board also did vote that if we use that money, we’re going to pay back interest to Measure B, and I don’t think that in the end it will still be more fiscally beneficial to borrow it from Measure B, so I think it’s likely that we might find some other source of funds.”

- Advertisement -

Brown invoked Measure P, a ten-year quarter-cent sales tax to fund essential services, including fire protection and prevention. “When voters put that trust and confidence in elected officials, we have an obligation to fulfill those requests,” he said. “And I think not having a specific plan of repayment on those borrowed funds, I think it’s pretty status quo for the Board, frankly…If we don’t protect Measure B, what’s to say we’re not going to protect Measure P? Is that next on the chopping block?”

First District candidates agreed that the vote damaged public trust in the board.

When it came to the Potter Valley Project, they mostly disagreed with one another on their levels of optimism over a proposal to continue diverting water from the Eel River into the Russian River after PG&E removes the dams. An initial draft of a plan that has not been submitted to regulators includes PG&E’s proposal to cap and fill the diversion tunnel. It also contains an alternate proposal to continue the diversion without the dams. 

Adam Gaska estimated that the cost of removing the infrastructure will cost as much as it does to rebuild it. “And the risk for Mendocino County is that we don’t have enough money to pay for our portion,” he cautioned. “And so I am afraid that people in Sonoma and Marin, if they pony up the money and we don’t, or if we don’t get state and federal aid, we’re going to lose out like we did with Lake Mendocino.”

Mockel thinks that, with recycled water and groundwater recharge techniques available, the danger of going dry is overstated. “There’s a lot of doom and gloom around this whole situation,” he said. “But I don’t necessarily see it as that is what is going to happen. There is a future where we have the fish passage. We have the water resiliency. We can have it all. We just need to make sure that our state and federal representatives hear us, and fund us.”

Madeline Cline fears that the diversion could be lost as early as 2028, when PG&E might start removing the dams. And she took aim at Mockel’s oft-emphasized connections with state and federal representatives. “We cannot just hope and pray that this gets fixed based off of some cushy relationship,” she declared. “Our existing board has relationships with our elected officials…We still need to be organized, work together, and advocate for Mendocino County.”

Carrie Shattuck said she was relieved that there is a proposal, and hopes there will be another one. She was the last to answer a question that appeared to have been posed with her in mind: “What part did you have, if any, in organizing the December, 2021 COVID mask protests that targeted local businesses like Ukiah Natural Foods and Black Oak Coffee in Ukiah?” 

One by one, the candidates eliminated themselves. Mockel, who was working for the county’s public health department at the time, was bewildered by the question, asking, “What part did I have in organizing it?”

Gaska said the CDC put “the fear of God” into him, leading him to conclude, “We should probably just wear a mask. I’ve watched enough zombie movies, apocalypse movies, it might be too late for me, but hopefully not.”

- Advertisement -

Cline said that at the time, her family was hoping her father would recover from the cancer that eventually claimed his life. “Maybe in another time, I would have been frustrated by a mask mandate,” she reflected; “but at that time, I was willing to do anything to protect my father’s immunity.”

Shattuck was poised when it was her turn to respond. “I did participate at the Ukiah Co-op,” she said, claiming that the store was violating ADA laws by denying people’s medical exemptions for wearing masks. “People were respectful,” she insisted.

The anti-mask protests were widely reported on, including video posted by the Mendocino Patriots, the group that staged the protest. Stacey Sheldon, a reporter for KZYX, was shopping at the co-op on December 11, 2021, when she witnessed the second anti-masking  protest at the store. In an interview she recorded that day, Sylvia Fogel, a co-op stocker, recalled that protesters are “very disrespectful when they come in. They say things like, it’s illegal to tell us to wear masks. You’re discriminating against us. It makes me feel really sad for the people who have actually been discriminated against.” Gray Wolf, another store employee, recalled that, earlier that same day, protesters were “throwing out comments such as calling people Nazis, or asking us if we knew anything about the Civil Rights movement or 1930s Germany.” Fogel added that, “The children were even opening up chip bags and running around the store eating them and puffing their chests out at one of our cashiers. It’s so disrespectful.”

Sheldon wrote that, “the protestors realize that the Co-op will not sell items to unmasked individuals, so the protestors fill carts with food, wait in line to pay, get denied service, and leave the cart and its items behind to be dealt with by store employees. Some of the items had been opened and half-eaten.” 

Two years later, Shattuck’s recollection differed. She concluded her remarks by assuring voters that, “We were absolutely respectful to people.”

The election is March 5, 2024. A full two-hour recording of Thursday’s forum will be available soon on the Inland Mendocino Democratic Club’s website.

- Advertisement -