Your Sunday paper: Here is an idea- fire the Idea cooperative and the non local consultants and hire Fort Bragg High students+ mystery critter of the day and do you vote for drones or fireworks?
Reporters Cheeser, Brubaker and Hartzell interviewed all 25 of the people we met on the headlands going back to the car after the Mendo Parade. I found only 5 locals. 15 were from the Bay Area and 5 were from the Sacramento Valley. I counted individuals and groups the same unless two people wanted to talk to me. This happened twice. Cheeser really makes people want to talk to me who would avoid me if alone with a notepad.
Not one of them was brought here by the Idea Cooperative or Visit Mendocino. Their constant assertions that they are responsible for many the tourists who come here is ridiculous.
I was on the World’s Largest Salmon BBQ Board for over a decade. We interviewed people in several years to find out where they came from and what brought them here. We did a lot of advertising, wrote news stories and sent them out. But all of that had little effect. Sometimes it did remind them to come but the people who love the BBQ come year after year and it spreads among friends and very few find out about it online without being told what fun it is. We did nothing one year and attendance went up. Its all about inland temperatures. People know where to go already.
On the way back from the parade, I had a nice talk with Vivaan, a man who brought his big extended family. He works in the hospitality industry and quickly jumped into my tangent.
“This is California! We are all Californians. We know where Mendocino and Fort Bragg are.”
He said these kind of outfits scam the governments and hotels too to give them money for doing stuff that didn’t need doing.
“There are people who do actual work, and these people who want to get money from doing no work,” he said.
“They should give the money to young people for scholarships and to be working in hospitality in the city hall as interns. These firms are a big waste of money. People use Instagram and Facebook now and you can find local groups and videos now.”
He did confess to looking up whether the parade was still free online but many of the rest just came as Mendocino is legend in the office or their parents loved it. And 16 of the people I interviewed were Asian Americans or direct from Asia. I met a group from Singapore (only counted as one as I only talked to the dad guy) How did they get here?
Their family in San Jose told them all the spots to see in California
“We used Apple Maps, it was wrong about some things,” dad said, adding the drive was amazing but one of the kids got very carsick.
Elise Cox at Mendoclocal wrote a story about the habit of all local governments to spend vast amounts of money on out-of-town contractors who make utterly ridiculous and false claims about being responsible for the tourists being here.
The city of Fort Bragg isn’t the main one who wastes a fortune of our money on this kind of outfit. In fact, it would be very difficult for them to break away from the grant industrial complex. I formed a 501C3 non profit, Mendopower Employment Services and employed a lot of workers in a temporary service. But I found my hopes to get the call to play center for the Warriors to be as realistic as thinking, me, a local with a more than qualified local agency doing actual employment, would ever qualify for employment grant funds. We EMPLOYED people but that didnt matter for employment dollars, in fact it was a detriment. We would still like to do this again, if there became a way to not do everything for the simple profit made in any business, and being content to watch all the money go to do nothing grant partners of the city.
A temporary service would still be a great business idea and was profitable on paper. The killer was the way the state regulated it at the time meant we had to tell them months in advance who we would employ and where and PAY THE TAXES ahead of time. We were continuously audited and the audits cost us a fortune even though we passed them all. That is an indicator, but nothing gets us fired up more than reading these absurd claims that this money being spent is paid off because Visit brings us all the tourists! LOL
The city of Fort Bragg should hire locals. In fact, spend this money on a program at Fort Bragg High School to have the students run the website. But what about all those magical things Visit does behind the scenes? The World’s Largest Salmon BBQ and Mendo Parade would not have any less people even if the kids completely got everything wrong. And I bet they would do better. Maybe one with the college and the high school. If the city is truly interested in revitalizing the local economy, giving young people who grew up here the chance to do something like this would make a huge difference. The problem is that scamsters are everywhere, including locally and there is nobody to do this kind of work. The city of Fort Bragg has accomplished an enormous amount with its planning and building staff and leadership. Spending this kind of grant money the right way would require an infusion of human capital and actual capital that just isnt there. But the journey of a thousand miles requires that first step and when I tried them, they werent willing to take any risk. It’s very easy to fall back on these cronies who know how to charge big bucks for everything. Im truly NOT bashing the city here or joining with the critics in Elise’s story but some of them could be the ones to put in the time needed and eventually get rewarded, not with large boondoggle payments, but a salary to run a program like this.
The Grant Industrial Complex is just another form of colonization, along with chains and out of town lumber companies that export logs instead of milling them at their own mills, then leave town and go back to Louisiana instead of doing the hard work of transitioning the lumber industry. They were never from here, so don’t care. Big Green environmental organizations also dont care about us. In fact, some of these organizations are committed to never paying locals but promoting volunteerism, while offering huge salaries to someone in an office in Oakland. Many of them fall in love with our area and some move here. But consultants some hate being here, such as that silly group hired to do circulation studies in the harbor. I went and talked to them two years in a row. They produced nothing of value, did the least work possible and didn’t know anything whatsoever about the town, not knowing the first year there used to be a bridge that connected the two harbors or that an “Indian Reservation” was atop the hill By the second year they had interviewed someone from the Native owned lands, which are crucial to harbor circulation. The one lady knew nothing about the history of the walking stairs from Harbor Lite down to the harbor, right in the middle of the circulation area she was studying, simply that they were there. The big picture of the old Millsite? Huh?
Why would we choose these people? They were by no means more advanced than college students at Mendocino College. Vivan was right, the days of cities needing to advertise and spend on this kind of thing are gone. People like looking for the real, the local discussion, not be sold paid advertisers to a big company. This is easy and the city doesn’t have the staff time to do the hard, so we would need to help them. But historically they have not been open to that and lots of back scratching does on. Not all that is bad, it horrifies the public but its just business to an extent. There needs to be someting doable and people who understand, yes they might have to pay to get into quality regional advertising. This is a great thing for LOCAL students to learn. We are not pedestrian. We think every community shoud be empowered. We don’t want conusltants from Oakland and Oakland should not hire consultants from LA. We need to repower our communities, not send the money out of town. No shopping on Amazon, chose local over chains. People don’t do this because the whole system seems so locked up. We need to get and give hope!
DRONE SHOW OR FIREWORKS NEXT YEAR
There is debate on the MCN listserv and other social media about whether drones or fireworks should be used. We can’t vote in this because we have never seen a drone show. We recommend the city host one to coincide with the terrific Lit Boat Parade, making it one of the best events in town. AND pay Heather, a local person and her new Visit Noyo Harbor organization, not yet another out-of-town money gobbler! The city is US, like
The ironic thing is that grant money is supposed to be our grant money coming back to us! And it does; the city is US, is LOCAL, but then they need to continue circulating that money locally..
CHRIS SKYHAWK
Hello listers last year about this time I posted my intention to get fort bragg to use drone light shows instead of “conventional” Fireworks on the 4th, and many of you responded favorably, I wanted to give you an update on the effort, but 1st; the fact that conventional fireworks cause trauma to animals wild and domestic, is indisputable, and also war veterans and anyone who has experienced gun violence
Further, the chemicals that create the colors are highly toxic! So my thought was/is, its highly hypocritical us, to market ourselves to the world as a go-to place to experience the wonders of nature, and then we annually subject it to such a stressful and toxic activity. Many of you responded favorably to the post, and I thank you!
Now about my progress, I consulted with a number of local orgs, that deal with animals, and ALL responded in favor, So in late fall 2025, I made public comment to the City Council, which resulted in my meeting privately with 2 of them, I personally did the research that showed the cost was about equal, and I thought since we had months before the 4th, that something would be brought before the Council; however I was told the agenda was too full and there was not enough time, and the issue would be brought up next(ie this) year, And I will accept this at their word, However there is also some who hold traditional views on the matter(ex.”we’ve always done it this way”)etc, but I intend to keep pushing the issue and in case , public support is needed to be shown I will reach out; thank you…
I have been reading many locals who say that fireworks are traditional. I think Fort Bragg City was smart enough to read the room here and know an immediate change to drones would be a big mistake. But it would be a good opportunity to try the drone show idea out on another holiday. If consultants are needed, again, lets use somebody local, even if it meant adding a part time worker to the city. We need the city staff we have and they DO generate grant money and all kinds of cool things for the new Blue Economy and the Coastal Trail and the parks. But we need to find ways to empower local firms. Perhaps a firm like Wynny Coastal Planning could help.
CAN YOU IDENTIFY OUR CRITTER OF THE DAY??
