Ukiah high RELIGION basketball Saturday Faith community news ...................................Page 3 .............Page 6 Jan. 21, 2006 INSIDE Mendocino County’s World briefly The Ukiah local newspaper ..........Page 2 Sunday: Times of clouds and sunshine 7 58551 69301 0 Monday: Plenty of sunshine 50 cents tax included DAILY JOURNAL ukiahdailyjournal.com 16 pages, Volume 147 Number 287 email: [email protected] 100,000 steelhead die overnight at hatchery By BEN BROWN Valley Dam fish imprinting facility. The cause “If we saw indications of this we’d have The Daily Journal of the die-off is currently unknown, she said. done something about it,” she said. More than 100,000 steelhead trout died at “We are trying to find out what led to the Or said the die-off likely will not have much the Coyote Valley Dam Friday, said Maria Or, a unfortunate circumstance of their deaths,” said effect on the program at large but that any loss public affairs officer for the Army Corps of Merle Griffin, park manager. of fish is a big deal. Engineers. Investigators will be working throughout the At the Coyote Dam facility, the fish are The Corps estimated 100 adult steelhead and weekend to determine the cause, Or said, and 100,000 yearlings died overnight at the Coyote would only add that it was sudden. See STEELHEAD, Page 16 Amy Wellnitz/The Daily Journal FOR REDWOOD VALLEY HOMES ALONG BAKER CREEK Laura Hall, a principal at Fisher & Hall Urban Design, speaks to locals at the Smart Growth Workshop Friday at the Ukiah Conference Center. Water still a threat Near-utopian By BEN BROWN The Daily Journal REDWOOD VALLEY – In future mapped McGee Canyon, an outcrop- ping of earth is currently all that stands between 12 homes at workshop on in the Renfro Lane subdivision and 6 million gallons of water. “This is a problem that’s not smart growth going away until we fix it,” By SETH FREEDLAND said Gregg Smith, Office of The Daily Journal Emergency Services coordina- As optimism poured into their hearts and tor. knowledge crammed into their brains, more Crews from the Redwood than 100 local residents peered with a wan Valley-Calpella Fire Depart- smile into their collective future Friday dur- ment and the California De- ing the first official smart growth education- partment of Forestry began al workshop. work in the area Jan. 9 and Four erudite speakers presented a path cleared a new creek bed toward a near-utopian life for Ukiahans -- through the rubble, allowing full of walkable communities, slower traffic for a slow release of water and more prominent from the impromptu reservoir. greenscaping. However, recent rainfall has ‘Learn from But it was the far-reach- raised the level of the water. ing, more intimate impacts Smith estimated there were at the mistakes of smart growth that pro- least 6 million gallons of water duced a series of gasps pent up in the canyon in a 900- made south from the audience. foot by 900-foot lake that is at A cross-sectional crowd least 18 feet deep. In addition, of you.’ of elected officials, public new rain also loosens the soil and private planners, con- Amy Wellnitz/The Daily Journal around the slide area, creating LAURA HALL tractors, builders and other Neighbors Ted Asher and Al Cronkright an additional hazard. concerned citizens took live on the banks of Baker Creek in The fear is that the dirt workshop speaker part of the workshop, co- Redwood Valley. (Left) A man-made fissure holding back the water will sponsored by the city of lets water flow into Baker Creek on rail- give way and dump the accu- Ukiah, Mendocino County and the Ukiah road property in Redwood Valley. About 6 mulated water down the creek Smart Growth Coalition, the citizen group million gallons of water is held upstream and onto the homes below. aiming to translate a general malaise and of this drainage. “We don’t want a wall of fear of the Ukiah Valley’s future into thor- water,” Smith said. “We want ough planning. to control the release.” The coalition’s largest event to date cer- State geologists have been tainly appeared to burrow the seed of smart In the subdivision below the slide, people are tracking the depth of the water growth into the assemblage’s consciousness, still cleaning up and recovering from the daily. Smith said the water was considering the thunderous applause any- down four inches Thursday, time a speaker, starting with Planning floods. Ted Asher said the water rose up but that isn’t nearly enough. Director Charley Stump, orated, “The time around his home quickly, knocking his small He said the problem has is now.” been getting the necessary Paul Zykofsky, a land use director with porch loose from the back of the house, heavy equipment back into the the nonprofit Local Government Commis- area to do the work. So far sion, began the presentations by outlining pushing a wooden shed across his yard and they have not been able to find how smart growth principles aid a city’s sweeping away nearly all of the birds he kept in a way in. growth. All facets of civic life are bettered, “You can see, it’s isolated,” he said, including economic development, a fenced-in area near the creek. Smith said. street design, public transit, emergency For now, the scene is under response, safe paths to schools and others. ‘It was scary, nerve wracking,’ said Asher, who close observation. State engi- Weak or no pedestrian crossings lead to stayed in his home throughout the flood. low qualities of life, Zykofsky said, with the See WATER, Page 2 creation of a sedentary lifestyle. An See SMART, Page 2 CAR FIRE ON COOPER LANE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE Firefighters ex- tinguish a car fire about 7:20 p.m. New CDF station expected Friday on Cooper Lane. The owner pushed the car to be completed by Sept. 1 from the carport By LAURA CLARK were so small we only had an inch on of the apartments The Daily Journal either side of the rearview mirrors,” on the corner of The buildings under construction on Rodello said. “We will no longer have Waugh and the corner of North State Street and to squeeze the trucks in. It will have Cooper into the Hensley Creek Road should be com- drive-through bays so when we come street after the plete and ready for firefighters -- and back (from a call) we can pull in from car backfired and their apparatus -- by Sept. 1. the back of the station and (be ready to caught fire. Ukiah The new California Department of go),” he said, noting the engines had to Fire Department, Forestry and Fire Protection north fire be backed into the old garage. Ukiah Valley Fire station will be more energy efficient “We had to pull the mirrors in, or District, city of than the former facility built in the sometimes people would scrape them,” Ukiah ambulance early 1950s, according to Bob Rodello, he said. and Ukiah Police CDF assistant chief in charge of opera- CDF’s dozer transport and dozer Department re- tions for the Mendocino unit. will also be parked inside instead of sponded to the In addition, the compound, located outdoors, where they were stored fire. in the 2600 block of North State Street, before, he said. Amy Wellnitz/ will offer more office space and larger Firefighters, when exiting the new The Daily Journal apparatus bay doors. “The old doors See CDF, Page 2 2 – SATURDAY, JAN. 21, 2006 DAILY DIGEST Editor: Jody Martinez, 468-3517 The Ukiah Daily Journal [email protected] POLICE REPORTS former planners,” a group he Smart suggested created zoning rules The following were like “orangutans playing with compiled from reports scissors.” prepared by the Ukiah Continued from Page 1 Anderson, like the other Police Department. To approach to public transit that three speakers, slammed the anonymously report amounts to little more than current system of placing indi- crime information, call “loser stands here,” has little vidual plots for places to live, 463-6205. benefit to our cities, he added. work, shop and go to school. CITATION -- Matthew Zykofsky, director of the Instead, “mixed use” and smart Burkhart, 31, of Rancho commission’s Center for growth can create friendly, Cordova, was cited on sus- Livable Communities, empha- walkable communities to inte- picion of driving under the sized that Ukiah’s future will grate all that residents need. influence in the 800 block be shaped by continued growth Lastly, Laura Hall, a princi- of North State Street at and, with budgets under siege, pal at Fisher & Hall Urban 8:43 p.m. Thursday. an efficient use of land can be Design, frowned on a “system Burkhart was released a financial windfall. Using col- run amuck” with dozens of after being cited. orful slides of gorgeous, lush zoning codes. She suggested neighborhoods, Zykofsky sug- six codes, creating a simple gested Ukiah fill its older land gradient from most urban to SHERIFF’S REPORTS first, focus on compact and most rural. This sort of form- The following were mixed uses and creating com- based coding will be discussed compiled from reports munal centers and destinations by the Ukiah City Council in prepared by the Men- easily accessible by walking the next few months. docino County Sher- and biking. Hall’s biggest suggestion iff’s Office: The European model as a was to avoid piecemeal city BOOKING -- Librado timeless example of the bene- Amy Wellnitz/The Daily Journal design, and instead lay out Amezcua Soterio, 26, of fits of compact building A diverse group of concerned citizens attended Friday’s workshop.