Ukiah Daily Journal from Ukiah, California • Page 7

-THE UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL- Ukiah Will Friedman Brothers help or harm local businesses? SUNDAY, SEPT. 24, 1995 A-7 By Jason Jaynes Ron Mlmms Blue Lakes Sales It is good for the community. I don't know if it will help or local businesses, but the needs it. Barbara Land Ukiah Retail Free enterprise is about competition. That's what America is all about.

It'll probably be good for the whole area. Dustin Hlpes Ukiah Courtesy clerk Yeah, because it's right downtown. Friedman Brothers is seen on TV and is always advertised. Lynne Coen Potter Valley Physician Harm, because it will hurt the already established hardware stores. Daniel Wllhlte Ukiah Stockman In some ways it will help because people will come down here to shop more and check out the local businesses.

It will probably hurt the local hardware, stores. Laurie Paeyeneers Willits Homemaker Well, Friedman Brothers is really large and will cause competition and the other businesses will have to compete with prices. Asked at Wal-Mart. fThere's one born everyday Did you ever get a funny feeling there's stuff going on out in the "real" world that you never knew about? v. It's that feeling that somehow forces are at work that have thankfully passed you by, but that leave you feeling somehow gypped for not having been aware of them? Today I got that feeling when I opened a package that arrived on my desk titled "Selected Business and Franchise Opportunities." This is from an organization called Trump Card Marketing.

"Inside: Your View to a More Successful Future!" I opened it right away of course and found a fistful of postcards which I began to sift through. The first one read, "The Most Important Discovery Since the Industrial Revolution." Wow. I read on. "An entire new field of knowledge has been discovered Neo-Tech." Like many such advertisements, it not say exactly what Neo-Tech is, but if you (pay to) learn about it you'll have discovered The Most 'Important well, you get the idea. There's a photo of a totally nerdy guy who looks like a "1950s bank president no, make that vice president witluhe "No one pan.spot the Neo-Tech K.C.

Meadows 0 reporter for The Daily Journal. K.C. HERE AND THERE fhe card goes on and on about the "Neo-Tech man" without really saying anything until the very end: "All except the Neo-Tech man will die unfulfilled." Whoa, hold the phone here, that's pretty strong stuff. Luckily for we women out here, this obviously does not apply. I went on to the next card.

"Control Millions of Dollars of Real Estate for $1 Make Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars." These folks Information Services in Westbrook, least give you an example of how it works: "Option a home for $1 with a value of $150,000 and sell it for $85,000 and make a quick $10,000 profit. Option land for 1 with a value of $200,000 and sell it for $100,000 and make a quick $25,000 profit. Option property worth and sell part pf and keep, part of it free!" Is anyone doing the math here? Real estate agents in the audience will love this advice: "Agents love the opportunity to sell property for half its value or less. They will do all the advertising for you and their commissions will come out of the profits." Sorry, sounds too complicated to me. Next card.

"Build Your Dream Home and Present Income Full or Part Time With Unlimited Income Opportunity No Experience Necessary." Darn, there's goes that Harvard education down the drain. Aha, now we get to the meat of the proposition. This plan requires you to sell Eagle's Nest kit homes. And all you need is a $5,000 deposit. Hmm.

Next card. "How Can You Earn $300 in Just One Day? Become a Mortgage Consultant!" Now this really makes me feel confident about the mortgage consulting industry. And I love it's assertion that you will be "offering 52 million homeowners needed services," while in a box right next to that it says "Cost to homeowner $395. Your profit $300." Really doing the homeowners a favor are we? Uh-oh, $395? That's your "security deposit." Next. Here's one we've been waiting for.

"Stay at Home and Get $60, $90, even 180 per hour recording video tapes." It says there's no pornography or copyright infringement involved. Do we believe that? Next. Ah, here's a promising one. "Retire Filthy Rich Mailing Post Cards." Hey, wait a minute. Mailing post cards is the one thing in life I have consistently been unable to accomplish before returning from vacation.

This isn't for me. Next. Here's one that intrigues: "Earn up to $900 a month for the next few months." Not Earn Up To $900 A Month Forever! No, just for the next few months. This one promises to show you how to file tax returns for other people "even if you have never prepared a tax return in your life!" If that's the case, the IRS wants to chat with you. Next.

This next one sounds like it's me: "Proven earnings! In little-known spare-time home business! No selling! No mail order! No employees! No real estate!" So far so good. To find out about this I have to send away for the Free Audio Cassette and 44-page Report. Want to know what that cassette says? Here's my guess: "Dear subscriber: Here's an advertisement for Neo-Tech. Call Trump Card Marketing about placing this ad in their next bulk mail and watch the cash start to flow! Good luck!" Time to be moving along 1 1- I've spent the last couple of weeks doing the (the) thing I detest the most. I've been moving.

moving. OK, so I'm moving from a small place to a larger, nicer place; the fact is, I'm moving. It wouldn't matter if I were moving from the worst room in the basement of the Palace Hotel to the nicest house in Ukiah's "Westside. It's still moving. Last weekend I moved just about all the furniture, and arranged it at my new home.

What a feeling! -Everything nice and uncluttered, neat and orderly. There's a feeling of accomplishment that goes along with one quickly daunted when I saw what else I had to move. Scattered about the floor at my old house was everything else. Though it took me a day to move the furniture (and there was a lot of furniture), it has taken me more than a week to get the rest. You see, I have the bad habit of collecting things.

"It's a habit that I truly question only on those occa- Randy Foster is the Ukiah Daily Journal's editor. Randy EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK sions during which I move. I have a fist-sized rock that missed my head by mere inches during the 1990 Rancho Chico Days riots in Chico. I have a railroad spike from the first (well, only) railroad derailment I covered as a reporter. I have a page from a log taken from the wreckage of a fatal airplane crash.

I have melted candles burned during a Gulf War protest. I have numerous hats I collected while I was in the Marines, along with a ceremonial sword the Marines made me buy. I have tons of books, from the Harvard Classics (40 volumes, printed in 1916) to my computer manuals I bought six months ago (which unlike my Harvard Classics, are now obsolete). I have a collection of bear fetishes a friend carved for me out of soapstone; a tray full of metal and plastic puzzles I've never been able to solve; various duplicate computer parts and accessories I can't bring myself to get rid of; and dozens and dozens of trash novels I haven't gotten around to reading. I also have piles and piles of old newspapers and newspaper clippings I've collected over the years.

Some I saved lor their historical value the Loma Prieta earthquake extra published by the newspaper I worked for at the time, for example. Others I saved for my portfolio or for the memories. One advantage to moving is the cathartic purging and cleaning it brings about. Nothing is as clean as a house freshly moved into. Never do you have a better opportunity to get rid of junk you neither need nor want.

(Conversely, nothing is as dirty as a house freshly moved out of.) Despite the opportunity, I am quite sure I am not throwing out enough, but I am trying. I got rid of an old couch and suit, and lots of papers. I got rid of some strawberry jelly I've had for three years. I threw away a can of vegetable soup I've held onto since college. I've had 24 different addresses during the past 15 years, which in itself may explain why I hate moving so much.

On the other hand, with all that practice, you'd think I'd get good at it; but no. It gets harder every time, because every time I have more to move no matter how much I threw away the last time. It took my 1978 Ford Fiesta one trip for my first move. I think I'm somewhere around my 20th trip so far, and this time I'm using a van. Still, there's something different about this 25th move.

This time I'm sharing it with someone who, in just under a month, will become my wife. So I'm happy to say that this time, despite all history, moving has been a pleasure. Sitting on the farm gate I spend many of my days in the community of seeing houses, people, cars and traffic. It is not until I leave Ukiah that I am struck by how much farm land and by how much agricultural activity there is in this county. Agriculture is the most basic of industries; in the sense that it has been around the longest and in the sense it is the most important and most needed of all scientific and economic endeavors.

All other human activities, economic and otherwise, depend upon and follow the success or failure of farmers. I think most of us are aware that agriculture does play a large role in our county. However, unless we work in the industry or are in some way associated with the industry, it is not always clear how important it is to our overall economy and to most other econom- activity in the county. Economics has been called the "dismal science." If economics is the dismal science, I wonder what we should call statistics, which is a component of economics? Perhaps, the "dreary science" or the science" or perhaps the "Stygian dark, bleak, obscure, murky nebulous, fog of numbers that masquerades as a science." (Thank you, Roget) Not too long ago the Board of Supervisors received the crop report from Dave Bengston, our agricultural commissioner. It is essentially a report of numbers as to the economic activity of agriculture.

As usual, it gave a fascinating insight into the major industry of Frank McMichael is a Ukiah resident and a member of the county Board of Supervisors. Frank FRANKLY SPEAKING this county. I am going to attempt to give you some of the information from that report. Hopefully, you will find it as interesting as I do, and not just deep, dark, numbers. In 1994, the total gross agricultural values for commodities produced in Mendocino County was $235,791,500 or almost $236 million.

This was actually a decrease of almost $24 million from 1993. The reason for that decrease was primarily from three things; a smaller grape crop, reduced pear prices and forest products reductions. Part of the commodities produced by agriculture is forest products. Most of us would not consider timber production as part of agriculture but it is and has been considered that way for decades. All of the crop reports reflect timber production and its changes over time.

The leading category as far as economic value was forest products (log production) with a value of $158,706 000 or almost $159 million. This came from a log production of 227,422,000 board feet. In 1993, the dollar value for logs was $174,063,000 with a pro- duction of 254,900,000 board feet. 1994 numbers reflect a decline in production of some 27 million board feet but a tilt toward increased prices. These values for timber reflect only the gross dollar value of the logs delivered to the mill.

It does not reflect the mill activity and its added value in creating lumber products, nor other secondary and tertiary manufacturing of products from timber or lumber, nor the effects of economic activity for suppliers to the mills, trucking industry, etc. Excluding timber, the total for other agricultural production was a tad over $77 million, exactly $77,055,500. This is a decrease from 1993 of $8,413,200. There were actually nine crops that grossed a million dollars or more in the county. They are: winegrapes, Bartlett pears, cattle and calves, pasture, milk, nursery, apples, and range, $1,198,000.

Some of our state and national rankings for production by county are as follows; Timber, No. 2 in the state; winegrapes, No. 10 in the state and No. 16 nationally for tonnage produced and No. 12 acreage in production; pears, No.

3 in the state and No. 7 in the nation; sheep, No. 14 in the state, No. 99 nationally butNo. 12 for wool; apples, No.

15 in the state and No. 36 nationally; all fruits and nuts No. 41 in state in 1992; cattle, No. 23 in state. For 1994, Mendocino County organic farms declined in number from 162 to 118, but total acreage for organic farms went to 3,020 from 2,878.

The primary production of organic farms is winegrapes fol- lowed by apples, then pears, and finally miscellaneous vegetables and miscellaneous fruit and nuts. These numbers reflect the "farm gate" prices for these crops. It does not reflect additional "value added" processes or other economic activity that follows the production of these crops. For example, wine making, distributing, marketing, trucking, secondary suppliers to the farmers, etc. It has been said that for every dollar brought into a community, that dollar will circulate as high as seven times before it leaves the community.

That circulation means retail stores and service providers are able to be in business. Using a conservative "circulation" number of four would mean that resource industries caused over a billion dollars of economic circulation in Mendocino County in 1994 just for their "farm gate" or "mill gate" commodity value. This is not counting "value added" increases which have an additional circulation effect. As you can see, if we add the circulation effect of those basic commodity dollars once they arrive in the community, and add in the value added dollars for those commodities, plus all the secondary and tertiary economic effects of our resource and agriculture industries, it has a powerful economic effect on all of our community businesses. Next time you see a farmer or a forester, give him or her a kiss.

Your paycheck may depend on it..