I would like to express my support for our county making a statement about a ceasfire in Palestine. I think everyday about the familes, the mothers, the children, the heathcare workers, the volunteers providing aid and so many more who are living through this trauma that will be with yhem forever. As a county who has a history with the indigenous people of this land, it is crucial that we use our voice, however small to speak up. Yes, this isn't local, but this is impacting all of us. We have a duty to speak up, to stand in solidarity and demonstrate beyond just words and saying we support "DEI" initiatives. Let us be on the right side of history.
Please listen to your community and support the ceasefire in Gaza.
It is impossible to keep ignoring the role and responsibility of the US in the death of over 32000 Palestinian lives.
We must not support Israel in the utter annihilation of the Palestinians in the name of rooting out Hezbollah.
The murder, starvation, and kidnapping of Palestinians, the destruction of their land, homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship, is a shameful travesty. We cannot remain complicit by refusing to speak up.
We implore you to do the right thing. Raise our community's call for a CEASEFIRE NOW
Please support the ceasefire. How are we the community supposed to believe in our board of supervisors, if they can’t stand against the genocide happening? Why is it so hard to vote for a ceasefire. Sonoma county and Fort Bragg can do what’s right, let’s have Mendocino County be on the right side too.
I want the Board of Supervisors to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a halt to U.S. military aid and weapons to Israel. Our tax dollars are being spent on funding this horrific war and it needs to stop.
Please listen the community and support the ceasefire resolution in Gaza. After 6 months of the most live streamed and documented genocide in history, will you keep ignoring the role and responsibility of the US in the death of over 32000 Palestinian lives, over a third of which are children? Will you keep quietly support Israel with the starvation and kidnapping of Palestinians, the destruction of their land, homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship? People in the Mendocino community are feeling unsafe by your inaction and are urging you to do the right thing. CEASEFIRE NOW
I urge the BOS to pass a ceasefire resolution regarding Israel's ongoing genocide in Occupied Palestine.
Mendocino County may feel far away from the violence, and our voice may feel small, but I assure you there is great value in every voice and action. Each city, county, or state that publicly calls for a ceasefire grows our collective voice, emboldens others to speak up, and puts pressure on our representatives in Washington to act.
Any action matters. You have the power to speak for all of us and say out loud: we oppose the murder of children and the ethnic cleansing of a people. It is morally reprehensible not to use that power to speak.
I support an immediate permanent, seize fire release of all hostages on both sides and immediate left of the siege so that humanitarian aid can get to the people who are being starved. The board of supervisors needs to stand with the people and amplify their voice for an end to the killing.
We need to call for a Ceasefire now, It is a disgrace that it has not happened 6 months ago and what's worse people are still negotiating if we should have a Ceasefire. What happened to humanity have we become so numb to the horrific images that we are seeing daily on TV. I do not support sending our American tax dollars to be spent on a genocide that is being committed by Israel. You are complicate in the genocide if you don't speak up and put a stop to this war that is killing innocent Palestinian lives. I am a Palestinian refugee from one of Israeli's on going wars, when are we going to tell Israel to stop the Palestinian oppression, discrimination, genocide and apartheid that is going on in Palestine.
Thank you,
Free Palestine
Omaya Sisemore
We need to call for a Ceasefire now, It is a disgrace that it has not happened 6 months ago and what's worse people are still negotiating if we should have a Ceasefire. What happened to humanity have we become so numb to the horrific images that we are seeing daily on TV. I do not support sending our American tax dollars to be spent on a genocide that is being committed by Israel. You are complicate in the genocide if you don't speak up and put a stop to this war that is killing innocent Palestinian lives. I am a Palestinian refugee from one of Israeli's on going wars, when are we going to tell Israel to stop the Palestinian oppression, discrimination, genocide and apartheid that is going on in Palestine.
Thank you,
Free Palestine
Omaya Sisemore
I urge the Board of Supervisors to pass a ceasefire resolution. We should join Fort Bragg and the many other municipalities that have called for an end to the horrors being committed in Gaza with our tax dollars. If Mendocino County truly cares about diversity and inclusion they will stand against the murders of Palestinians. This is a local issue because it is affecting us all locally, especially the Palestinians who live in Mendocino County. Ceasefire now!
IMPLORING the Mendocino Board of Supervisors to hear citizens of our community who wish to send a message to end the bombing and genocide by adopting the proposed Ceasefire Resolution.
Stand in solidarity with us to END THE GENOCIDE! A Ceasefire shall benefit ALL CIVILIANS impacted by this confrontation.
DEMANDING PERMANENT CEASEFIRE
Please ADOPT this important Ceasefire Resolution now!
Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), told the UN Security Council in February that: “Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff, bulldozed our vehicles, hospitals have been bombed and raided. And now for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. This pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence. Our colleagues in Gaza are fearful that as I speak to you today, they will be punished tomorrow…The humanitarian response in Gaza today is an illusion. A convenient illusion that perpetuates a narrative that this war is being waged in line with international laws. Calls for humanitarian assistance have echoed across this chamber. Yet in Gaza, we have less and less every day, less space, less medicine, less food, less water, less safety.”
Aaron Bushnell, who was a senior airman in the U.S. Air Force, doused himself with a liquid and set himself on fire. He had posted a video online saying he did not want to be “complicit in genocide.” He shouted “Free Palestine” as he burned.
Since then we found out that the non profit organization World Central Kitchen has lost 7 of their members. They were killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen said that this is a war against humanity. The Israeli strikes were “carried out in serious violation” of the military’s procedures, according to findings by the Israeli military investigation.
This war is carried out with the use of AI. Israeli forces kill many people when in their homes, killing entire families. Since October 7, 2023, 73% of over 32,000 people killed were women and children. No one questions the results of AI.
Please join the 129 municipalities and 7 states by adopting an immediate permanent ceasefire resolution.
Thanks, Annemarie Weibel
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
501 Low Gap Road
Ukiah, California 95482
Members of the Board:
I wanted to call your attention to two very critical matter facing the future of Mendocino County’s transportation network.
The first concerns the North Coast Rail Authority (NCRA), a group that even Senator McGuire labeled as “the center of controversy on the North Coast [for the past 30 years],” and that has wasted more than $141M of taxpayer money. The NCRA has now been rebranded as the Great Redwood Trail Agency (GRTA), but this name change hasn’t ended any of the controversy. Because while the GRTA plans to leave the NWP’s tracks in place south of the Mendocino County border—so the people and businesses south of that border can benefit from both rails and trails, the GRTA has decided to deny those benefits to the people and businesses of Mendocino County. So, even though there is room for both rails and trails in Mendocino County too, the GRTA has chosen to forevermore cut Mendocino County off from our country’s national railroad network. Even more bizarrely, not only do some of Mendocino County’s political leadership seem okay with that, some are even helping the GRTA accomplish their goal. Isn’t it time for Mendocino County to stop being a doormat, to stand up and demand the same benefits for its people and businesses that the people and businesses of Sonoma and Marin will enjoy?
Second, in order to more easily achieve its plan to cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network, the GRTA has announced that it intends to force the abandonment of Mendocino Railway’s California Western Railroad / Skunk Train. If they succeed, they will have killed a railroad that has served, and bound together, the communities of Willits and Fort Bragg for 139 years; a railroad that even today has customers interested in shipping 400-500 railcars of freight between our two cities, shipments that would remove nearly 2,000 trucks from Highway 20 each year. And this is just one example of the railroad freight opportunities that the NCRA (and now the GRTA) has negligently – or intentionally – prevented for more than two decades now. The NCRA and GRTA have insisted that freight rail won’t work in Mendocino County not because there isn’t demand for it, but solely because they have been too incompetent to carry it out and too jealous of their fiefdom to allow anyone else to do so.
Freight trains move millions of tons of goods and materials across our national railroad network every day, reducing road congestion, improving road safety, and avoiding the greenhouse gas and other pollution produced by trucks. Trains can move one ton of freight nearly 500 miles on just 1 gallon of fuel; not even a Prius achieves that efficiency. Our State Legislature and Governor have mandated that California must by 2030 reduce its GHG emissions to 1990 levels. How is Mendocino County going to do that if our leaders have allowed the GRTA to rip out our county’s only remaining connection to our national railroad network?
And why now? Why cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network at the very same time that the Biden administration has just launched a campaign to reconnect communities that have lost transportation opportunities, creating the Reconnecting Communities Institute, the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Program, and awarding $3.3 billion to help reconnect communities that were divided by past transportation decisions? The GRTA’s efforts to cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network seem to be doing exactly the opposite of what our federal government is seeking to accomplish. The GRTA’s efforts seem especially inexplicable when Mendocino Railway has repeatedly offered to move the bureaucrats out of the way and just fix the NWP’s line in Mendocino County, being just as repeatedly blocked by first the NCRA, and now the GRTA, as they simply don’t want to see the railroad restored.
By building its trail on top of the existing tracks, the GRTA pays lip service to the idea that they are “preserving” rail opportunities. This is a red herring, since out of the thousands of “preserved” lines across the United States, only a handful have ever been reopened. Nor is it likely that the NWP will be reopened after the GRTA has spent up to $1,000,000 per mile to bury them underneath a trail. The GRTA’s slick political maneuver is to hide behind the fictional notion of rail preservation, so the GRTA doesn’t have to return the underlying land to its original landowners, while at the same time ensuring that the land will never be used for railroad purposes again. It’s a lie intended to fool the gullible. And the leaders of Mendocino County should be ashamed if they fall for it.
A trail where 55 or fewer daily users going through Mendocino County costs the county its rail future and its #1 tourist attraction.
Two members of this board are on the GRTA’s board. I can understand why Caryl Hart and Senator Mike McGuire don’t care about the people and businesses of Mendocino County as they live in wealthy Sonoma County. But why is this board, and those of its members on the GRTA’s board, helping them hurt the people and businesses of Mendocino County? If you won’t stand up for your constituents, who will? Why abandon your own constituents in favor of those of Marin and Sonoma County?
Not only are railroads far safer and more efficient than trucks, they are also far more environmentally friendly than trucks. And our company is one of the most environmentally friendly railroads in our nation, winning numerous environmental awards. Our sister company, Sierra Northern Railway, is even now building zero-emission hydrogen locomotives. We want to continue investing in Mendocino County, improve both its industry and environment, something this board, and especially some of its members, seem uninterested in.
I encourage the board to act, to announce its opposition to the GRTA’s plans, to oppose the GRTA’s efforts to force the abandonment of the CWR line so that it can more easily cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network, and to replace those representatives who sit on the GRTA’s board and willingly turn their backs on the people and businesses of Mendocino County for the benefit of millionaires living in Marin and Sonoma County. It’s still not too late to prevent this catastrophe for our people and businesses.
Please support a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. We must not stand silent while our tax dollars are used for killing civilians (many of whom are children), doctors and other aid workers.
Please support a Cease Fire Resolution/proclamation In Gaza now. In the US there are 129 municipalities and 7 states that have passed resolutions. According to the United Nations, not Hamas, over 32,000 Palestinians, 70% of which were children and women, have been killed as "collective punishment" by Israeli Defense Forces by bombs supplied by the US government. This is thanks to more then 13 million US dollars /day, according to the Council on Foreign Relations not including the recently added 2.5 billion. Now forced starvation is happening while food aid workers become targets of our bombs. This is not "national security" or self defense it is immoral.
I would like to express my support for our county making a statement about a ceasfire in Palestine. I think everyday about the familes, the mothers, the children, the heathcare workers, the volunteers providing aid and so many more who are living through this trauma that will be with yhem forever. As a county who has a history with the indigenous people of this land, it is crucial that we use our voice, however small to speak up. Yes, this isn't local, but this is impacting all of us. We have a duty to speak up, to stand in solidarity and demonstrate beyond just words and saying we support "DEI" initiatives. Let us be on the right side of history.
Please listen to your community and support the ceasefire in Gaza.
It is impossible to keep ignoring the role and responsibility of the US in the death of over 32000 Palestinian lives.
We must not support Israel in the utter annihilation of the Palestinians in the name of rooting out Hezbollah.
The murder, starvation, and kidnapping of Palestinians, the destruction of their land, homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship, is a shameful travesty. We cannot remain complicit by refusing to speak up.
We implore you to do the right thing. Raise our community's call for a CEASEFIRE NOW
Please support the ceasefire. How are we the community supposed to believe in our board of supervisors, if they can’t stand against the genocide happening? Why is it so hard to vote for a ceasefire. Sonoma county and Fort Bragg can do what’s right, let’s have Mendocino County be on the right side too.
I want the Board of Supervisors to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a halt to U.S. military aid and weapons to Israel. Our tax dollars are being spent on funding this horrific war and it needs to stop.
Please listen the community and support the ceasefire resolution in Gaza. After 6 months of the most live streamed and documented genocide in history, will you keep ignoring the role and responsibility of the US in the death of over 32000 Palestinian lives, over a third of which are children? Will you keep quietly support Israel with the starvation and kidnapping of Palestinians, the destruction of their land, homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship? People in the Mendocino community are feeling unsafe by your inaction and are urging you to do the right thing. CEASEFIRE NOW
I urge the BOS to pass a ceasefire resolution regarding Israel's ongoing genocide in Occupied Palestine.
Mendocino County may feel far away from the violence, and our voice may feel small, but I assure you there is great value in every voice and action. Each city, county, or state that publicly calls for a ceasefire grows our collective voice, emboldens others to speak up, and puts pressure on our representatives in Washington to act.
Any action matters. You have the power to speak for all of us and say out loud: we oppose the murder of children and the ethnic cleansing of a people. It is morally reprehensible not to use that power to speak.
Please help our district be counted on the right side of history and humanity by supporting a resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Enough.
I support an immediate permanent, seize fire release of all hostages on both sides and immediate left of the siege so that humanitarian aid can get to the people who are being starved. The board of supervisors needs to stand with the people and amplify their voice for an end to the killing.
We need to call for a Ceasefire now, It is a disgrace that it has not happened 6 months ago and what's worse people are still negotiating if we should have a Ceasefire. What happened to humanity have we become so numb to the horrific images that we are seeing daily on TV. I do not support sending our American tax dollars to be spent on a genocide that is being committed by Israel. You are complicate in the genocide if you don't speak up and put a stop to this war that is killing innocent Palestinian lives. I am a Palestinian refugee from one of Israeli's on going wars, when are we going to tell Israel to stop the Palestinian oppression, discrimination, genocide and apartheid that is going on in Palestine.
Thank you,
Free Palestine
Omaya Sisemore
We need to call for a Ceasefire now, It is a disgrace that it has not happened 6 months ago and what's worse people are still negotiating if we should have a Ceasefire. What happened to humanity have we become so numb to the horrific images that we are seeing daily on TV. I do not support sending our American tax dollars to be spent on a genocide that is being committed by Israel. You are complicate in the genocide if you don't speak up and put a stop to this war that is killing innocent Palestinian lives. I am a Palestinian refugee from one of Israeli's on going wars, when are we going to tell Israel to stop the Palestinian oppression, discrimination, genocide and apartheid that is going on in Palestine.
Thank you,
Free Palestine
Omaya Sisemore
I urge the Board of Supervisors to pass a ceasefire resolution. We should join Fort Bragg and the many other municipalities that have called for an end to the horrors being committed in Gaza with our tax dollars. If Mendocino County truly cares about diversity and inclusion they will stand against the murders of Palestinians. This is a local issue because it is affecting us all locally, especially the Palestinians who live in Mendocino County. Ceasefire now!
Dear Board of Supervisors, Mendocino County,
IMPLORING the Mendocino Board of Supervisors to hear citizens of our community who wish to send a message to end the bombing and genocide by adopting the proposed Ceasefire Resolution.
Stand in solidarity with us to END THE GENOCIDE! A Ceasefire shall benefit ALL CIVILIANS impacted by this confrontation.
DEMANDING PERMANENT CEASEFIRE
Please ADOPT this important Ceasefire Resolution now!
With peace and healing,
Laurel Krause
The Allison Center for Peace
Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), told the UN Security Council in February that: “Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff, bulldozed our vehicles, hospitals have been bombed and raided. And now for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. This pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence. Our colleagues in Gaza are fearful that as I speak to you today, they will be punished tomorrow…The humanitarian response in Gaza today is an illusion. A convenient illusion that perpetuates a narrative that this war is being waged in line with international laws. Calls for humanitarian assistance have echoed across this chamber. Yet in Gaza, we have less and less every day, less space, less medicine, less food, less water, less safety.”
Aaron Bushnell, who was a senior airman in the U.S. Air Force, doused himself with a liquid and set himself on fire. He had posted a video online saying he did not want to be “complicit in genocide.” He shouted “Free Palestine” as he burned.
Since then we found out that the non profit organization World Central Kitchen has lost 7 of their members. They were killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen said that this is a war against humanity. The Israeli strikes were “carried out in serious violation” of the military’s procedures, according to findings by the Israeli military investigation.
This war is carried out with the use of AI. Israeli forces kill many people when in their homes, killing entire families. Since October 7, 2023, 73% of over 32,000 people killed were women and children. No one questions the results of AI.
Please join the 129 municipalities and 7 states by adopting an immediate permanent ceasefire resolution.
Thanks, Annemarie Weibel
April 6, 2024
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
501 Low Gap Road
Ukiah, California 95482
Members of the Board:
I wanted to call your attention to two very critical matter facing the future of Mendocino County’s transportation network.
The first concerns the North Coast Rail Authority (NCRA), a group that even Senator McGuire labeled as “the center of controversy on the North Coast [for the past 30 years],” and that has wasted more than $141M of taxpayer money. The NCRA has now been rebranded as the Great Redwood Trail Agency (GRTA), but this name change hasn’t ended any of the controversy. Because while the GRTA plans to leave the NWP’s tracks in place south of the Mendocino County border—so the people and businesses south of that border can benefit from both rails and trails, the GRTA has decided to deny those benefits to the people and businesses of Mendocino County. So, even though there is room for both rails and trails in Mendocino County too, the GRTA has chosen to forevermore cut Mendocino County off from our country’s national railroad network. Even more bizarrely, not only do some of Mendocino County’s political leadership seem okay with that, some are even helping the GRTA accomplish their goal. Isn’t it time for Mendocino County to stop being a doormat, to stand up and demand the same benefits for its people and businesses that the people and businesses of Sonoma and Marin will enjoy?
Second, in order to more easily achieve its plan to cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network, the GRTA has announced that it intends to force the abandonment of Mendocino Railway’s California Western Railroad / Skunk Train. If they succeed, they will have killed a railroad that has served, and bound together, the communities of Willits and Fort Bragg for 139 years; a railroad that even today has customers interested in shipping 400-500 railcars of freight between our two cities, shipments that would remove nearly 2,000 trucks from Highway 20 each year. And this is just one example of the railroad freight opportunities that the NCRA (and now the GRTA) has negligently – or intentionally – prevented for more than two decades now. The NCRA and GRTA have insisted that freight rail won’t work in Mendocino County not because there isn’t demand for it, but solely because they have been too incompetent to carry it out and too jealous of their fiefdom to allow anyone else to do so.
Freight trains move millions of tons of goods and materials across our national railroad network every day, reducing road congestion, improving road safety, and avoiding the greenhouse gas and other pollution produced by trucks. Trains can move one ton of freight nearly 500 miles on just 1 gallon of fuel; not even a Prius achieves that efficiency. Our State Legislature and Governor have mandated that California must by 2030 reduce its GHG emissions to 1990 levels. How is Mendocino County going to do that if our leaders have allowed the GRTA to rip out our county’s only remaining connection to our national railroad network?
And why now? Why cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network at the very same time that the Biden administration has just launched a campaign to reconnect communities that have lost transportation opportunities, creating the Reconnecting Communities Institute, the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Program, and awarding $3.3 billion to help reconnect communities that were divided by past transportation decisions? The GRTA’s efforts to cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network seem to be doing exactly the opposite of what our federal government is seeking to accomplish. The GRTA’s efforts seem especially inexplicable when Mendocino Railway has repeatedly offered to move the bureaucrats out of the way and just fix the NWP’s line in Mendocino County, being just as repeatedly blocked by first the NCRA, and now the GRTA, as they simply don’t want to see the railroad restored.
By building its trail on top of the existing tracks, the GRTA pays lip service to the idea that they are “preserving” rail opportunities. This is a red herring, since out of the thousands of “preserved” lines across the United States, only a handful have ever been reopened. Nor is it likely that the NWP will be reopened after the GRTA has spent up to $1,000,000 per mile to bury them underneath a trail. The GRTA’s slick political maneuver is to hide behind the fictional notion of rail preservation, so the GRTA doesn’t have to return the underlying land to its original landowners, while at the same time ensuring that the land will never be used for railroad purposes again. It’s a lie intended to fool the gullible. And the leaders of Mendocino County should be ashamed if they fall for it.
A trail where 55 or fewer daily users going through Mendocino County costs the county its rail future and its #1 tourist attraction.
Two members of this board are on the GRTA’s board. I can understand why Caryl Hart and Senator Mike McGuire don’t care about the people and businesses of Mendocino County as they live in wealthy Sonoma County. But why is this board, and those of its members on the GRTA’s board, helping them hurt the people and businesses of Mendocino County? If you won’t stand up for your constituents, who will? Why abandon your own constituents in favor of those of Marin and Sonoma County?
Not only are railroads far safer and more efficient than trucks, they are also far more environmentally friendly than trucks. And our company is one of the most environmentally friendly railroads in our nation, winning numerous environmental awards. Our sister company, Sierra Northern Railway, is even now building zero-emission hydrogen locomotives. We want to continue investing in Mendocino County, improve both its industry and environment, something this board, and especially some of its members, seem uninterested in.
I encourage the board to act, to announce its opposition to the GRTA’s plans, to oppose the GRTA’s efforts to force the abandonment of the CWR line so that it can more easily cut Mendocino County off from our national railroad network, and to replace those representatives who sit on the GRTA’s board and willingly turn their backs on the people and businesses of Mendocino County for the benefit of millionaires living in Marin and Sonoma County. It’s still not too late to prevent this catastrophe for our people and businesses.
Respectfully,
MENDOCINO RAILWAY
/s/ R.J. Pinoli
Robert Jason Pinoli
President
Please support a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. We must not stand silent while our tax dollars are used for killing civilians (many of whom are children), doctors and other aid workers.
Please support a Cease Fire Resolution/proclamation In Gaza now. In the US there are 129 municipalities and 7 states that have passed resolutions. According to the United Nations, not Hamas, over 32,000 Palestinians, 70% of which were children and women, have been killed as "collective punishment" by Israeli Defense Forces by bombs supplied by the US government. This is thanks to more then 13 million US dollars /day, according to the Council on Foreign Relations not including the recently added 2.5 billion. Now forced starvation is happening while food aid workers become targets of our bombs. This is not "national security" or self defense it is immoral.