[Kzyxtalk] Development for development's sake.

[John Sakowicz]

John Sakowicz
JULY 21, 2022
To the Editor:

In Mark Scaramella’s excellent piece, “Grand Jury Aims at Measure B Again. Misses Badly”, the people of Mendocino County should also note that the grand jury report was released by none other than Kathy Wylie, perennial foreman of the county grand jury. As foreman, Ms. Wylie also served as chief apologist and sycophant for recently retired Carmel “Boss” Angelo. Investigations were killed or derailed by Wylie. Reports were watered down, or sugar coated, by Wylie.

This is same Kathy Wylie who set up false Facebook pages purporting to be the official pages for each of the county’s five supervisor districts. She was the administrator for each of those pages.

In truth, the county’s five districts do not have official pages.

I reported this deception to the Hon. Jeanine B. Nadel, the judge who oversees the grand jury –and who also owes her judgeship to Carmel Angelo — and, not surprisingly, heard nothing.

Then I reported the deception to Facebook and the pages were removed. Ms. Wylie had been using the pages to disseminate false news, conduct false voter polls, and to anonymously attack her many critics. As administrator for those pages, Ms. Wylie also silenced critics by blocking them from her pages or censoring their content.

Ultimately, a few alternative district pages were created by honest, well-meaning citizens. These are true community pages. No one is censored. No one is blocked. These pages celebrate free speech.

So, who is Kathy Wylie?

I think I’m beginning to put the pieces together.

Kathy Wylie, perennial foreman of the Mendocino County Grand Jury, may be the realtor fronting for the Skunk’s Train’s acquisition of the 320+ acre Georgia Pacific mill site for only $1.5 million. If she, in fact, represented either party in the Georgia Pacific-Skunk Train transaction, we have a smoking gun. Kathy Wylie should have made a full disclosure.

Here’s my working theory:

Carmel Angelo, perhaps advised by Mike Sweeney, who now lives in New Zealand, put the deal together.

Cathy Wylie brokered the Skunk Train deal as a realtor, then suppressed grand jury investigations into the deal.

Judge Jeanine Nadel rubberstamped all the necessary permits, easements, variances, and approvals, or otherwise gave backroom legal advice.

What do we know for sure?

What we know for sure is that Ms. Wylie is definitely pro-development and pro-tourism.

We also know there is the direct connection between Georgia Pacific stockholders (Koch Brothers) and Mendocino Railway.

>From looking at the State of California corporate filings of all the known associated corporations to Sierra Railroad, the executives of those companies get shuffled around regularly. As an example, as of this year, Robert Pinoli is no longer CEO of Mendocino Railway…Mike Hart is the current CEO and Pinoli is only a director. But yet, his business address is the same as Sierra Railroad. This type of shuffling is continuous, so there is never a responsible party for accountability.

We also know it is more likely than not that Koch’s sold the millsite property to themselves using their corporate spiderweb…if for no other reason than to tangle things up in court for another 10 or 20 years.

We also know California Western Railway was sold in bankruptcy as stated and that sale can be overturned with the proper diligence. With Mendocino Railways lack of responsible action since the acquisition the properties, it would seem to be the clearest path forward to ending this takeover of our community. More research is needed though as well as finding an attorney or group of attorneys that would take it on.

And we know Sierra Northern Railway is a sister corporation to Mendocino Railway and an active participant in the takeover of our community. They have been used as a cover to purchase certain properties that are of value to Sierra Railroad and related entities…the most significant being a property out by Sherwood Road, directly over the collapsed tunnel that was purchased last year from Mendocino Land Trust.

As I said earlier, Mike Hart is now CEO of Mendocino Railway. Meanwhile, Chris Hart has moved his family to Fort Bragg to be closer to the action. He is heavily involved with Sierra Energy and the FastOx gasification process …the Mike Sweeney connection. Mike’s dream was to burn the Bay Areas’s trash right here in Mendocino County and FastOx is the next generation of waste gasification. FastOx gasification uses heat, steam and oxygen to break down waste at the molecular level. Organic materials turn into an energy-dense syngas. Inorganics melt into a non-leaching stone and metals. Waste turns into tar-free syngas suitable for conversion into high-value salable end products with no waste by-products created.

However, I’m not certain FastOx is something that Mendocino Railway really wants to bring to Fort Bragg. It may be more false news, more corporate misdirection. If we look at what Mendocino Railway is currently doing, it all revolves around the tourist industry. I don’t think burning trash and tourism can coexist. Buying up properties as they come up in estate sales and before they hit the market to turn them into expensive getaways seems more their speed. While at the same time keeping the millsite in perpetual court battles to avoid the necessary cleanup that Koch has left. California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has already stated that they aren’t letting GP and Koch off the hook no matter who owns the property, so it is to Koch’s advantage to keep the legal battles going perpetually. Besides, with the $1.5 million acquisition, by Sierra, Koch gets to claim a $50 million loss on their taxes from the forced eminent domain proceeding. Both sides benefit from it. The 70 acres of Pudding Creek watershed has no toxic implications and Sierra is already moving forward to “carnivalize” that area.

Finally, we know Kathy Wylie is a snake. She needs close scrutiny and certainly shouldn’t be in charge of determining what cases come before the grand jury. Just the fact that she is a real estate broker puts her in conflict.

Here’s Ms. Wylie’s realtor license info:

Name: Katharine Dawn Wylie
License Number: 01058901
License Type: Real Estate Broker
License Status Licensed: Active
License Effective Date: 17 September 2016
Address: PO Box 441, Albion, California 95410-0441

John Sakowicz
Ukiah



> On 07/21/2022 5:25 PM Marco McClean <memo at mcn.org> wrote:
> 
>  
> Re: the mill site controversy. I just went to Costco in Rohnert Park to 
> get my eyes examined. The prescription doesn't change from two years 
> ago, my old glasses are good enough, because no more can be done for my 
> vision until I have cataract surgery, which of course I can't pay for, 
> and the insurance won't pay enough for, so like millions of others I'll 
> have to wait until I get social security and Medicare and all that. I'm 
> still safe to drive, and I can still do my radio show, thank Christ.
> 
> Anyway, I went to Home Depot to get heater filters for my mother, and it 
> occurred to me to mention here that if you want a cheap filter for ash 
> and smoke inside your house, for the wildfires coming rather sooner than 
> later this year, now would be the time to buy a $10 box fan from the 
> thrift store and a flat furnace filter to tape to it, while they still 
> have stacks of filters in the store for like five dollars each. Because 
> once the fires start, those all go really fast. A bedsheet will work but 
> not well; it's like the difference between a real surgical breathing 
> mask and the crappy ones people were knitting for themselves and sewing 
> together out of old t-shirts and tablecloths.
> 
> And it took awhile to get between Costco and Home Depot because of the 
> casino traffic, even with all the new lights and intersections and road 
> widening they put in to deal with it. As I understand it, white 
> developers cobbled up a Chinese puzzle of a legal deal that let them put 
> up an Indian casino here a few years ago. And there's a lot of cheap 
> frame particleboard and plaster hotels and stuff going up everywhere, 
> you know, for the ancillary prostitution and drug deals and private 
> meetings and art theft and ransom negotiations and so on. Before you go 
> along with development for development's sake on those hundreds of 
> millions of dollars in prime vacationville oceanfront real estate in 
> Fort Bragg, because you think anything's better than nothing there, and 
> wouldn't if be nice if Junior had a character-rounding sheetrock job for 
> a couple of months, get a look at Rohnert Park lately, and compare it to 
> the Biff-caused future in /Back To The Future 2/, because it's getting 
> there. It's almost there. It took hardly any time at all.
> 
> Back-To-The-Future-2 casino king Biff was modeled on Donald Trump, even 
> then. I don't know if you knew that.
> 
> Sierra Railroad Corp. wanted all that Fort Bragg land to make a fortune 
> for themselves. So far, they seem to think all they have to do to get 
> away with it is stick to the plan and sue or ignore or simply shout down 
> anyone who puts up a fuss. Here's an idea: Apply the law, make them 
> clean the poison out of the soil and plant a nice park of native 
> vegetation, and then eminent-domain it right back from them, for the 
> same pennies on the dollar they got if for. And when they go /Ow! It 
> hurts! You're hurting our obscenely rich bosses monetarily! They've 
> already counted their chickens!/ then, dang-it, that's the breaks. They 
> gambled and they lost, fair and square. Know when to fold 'em.
> 
> -- 
> Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org
> https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
> 
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