Webs set up a home page for our own Laytonville High School! What you'll find their presently is basically placeholder stuff (I just luv that Java), but that will soon change. Several students have already indicated a very strong interest in this opportunity to do some electronic publishing, and it will be Laytonville High School's publicaton. Owen Stiles is the student advisor and webmaster is technical advisor.

Students will learn basics of Web origin, Netique, copyrights, WWW overview, client-server, and basic programming skills they can apply to compose and layout their ideas, managing graphics, sounds, links, a little java-scrip, and of course imbedding some Java! All students are encouraged to participate, including writers, artists, cartoonists, I. L. M. & Disney aspirants.

Is a form of self-government coming to Laytonville?

The nine-member MAC Formation Committee, which incudes 3rd District Supervisor John Pinches and Long Valley Municipal Court Judge Joe Orr, was created three months ago to study the feasibility of bringing MAC-style government to Laytonville. According to committee chairman Jim Shields, the impetus for forming the committee occurred at a town beautification meeting held last spring.

"At that meeting, I raised the idea of the town coming together in a more organized, structured way in order to better accomplish some of the objectives people were talking about," Shields recalled. "I briefly outlined MACs in a functional sense and pointed out that among other advantages, MACs were excellent vehicles for applying for grants in order to get the money to accomplish many of the town clean-up and beautification projects that people were interested in. John Pinches (3rd District Supervisor) was at that meeting and supported what I was proposing. A number of other people expressed interest in helping to get the ball rolling and I asked a few others to give us a hand. I explained what we were doing to Joe Orr and asked him to come on board. At that point we had a representative working committee which included two key, well-respected elected officials. We all got along, met a few times, did the research and work that had to be done so we could present our proposal to the town. It shows the committee process can be effective when you have people who respect each other's opinions and understand that not every argument is a disagreement over principles. We had one important principle and that was we all believed that Laytonville needs some sort of self-government to give people a stronger voice in the political process. How we get to that objective is just part of the give-and-take process."

Other members of the formation committee are Sheila Larson, Clarence Holmes, Tony Ciotta, Jim Little, Tom Evans and Deber Dodd.

At the August 21 meeting, Orr, Pinches and Shields shared the podium and made the presentation to the audience and fielded questions from the floor. At the two-hour meeting, people were given the basic information on municipal advisory councils as it relates to legal status, formation procedures, functions, operations and selection procedures for council members. The speakers carefully spelled out that while MACs are formally established by state law as governing councils, they are without the authority to tax or enact ordinances (make laws). The bottom line is that a MAC is an advisory body of local citizens elected by the community or appointed by the Board of Supervisors (BOS) with the purpose of representing the community to federal, state and local government. As proposed at the meeting, the council would consist of five members initially appointed by Supervisor Pinches pending an election the following year. The members would be appointed for the first year or so to avoid the expense of a special election since filing deadlines for the upcoming November election have already passed.

Towards the end of the meeting when Pinches asked for a show of hands of those favoring the concept of a MAC, a sea of hands rose in the air.

While everyone at the meeting seemed to agree that an advisory council is an idea whose time has come, there was no clear consensus on the actual boundaries of the council. Since MACs are not directly responsible for services, the boundaries of any existing special district need not be followed. However, MAC boundaries cannot include incorporated cities or cross supervisorial districts. Under the law, the setting of boundaries is left to the discretion of BOS acting in consultation with the MAC.

The committee proposed boundaries which roughly range from Laytonville two miles to the north, south and east, and approximately six miles to the west. As Pinches phrased it, "The boundaries are not set in stone --- they're just a proposal at this point." Orr cautioned that there was a certain linkage between the effectiveness and success of a start-up governing council and the territory under its jurisdiction. The long-time Muni Court judge advised drawing boundaries of a "manageable" scope and then expanding them in the future as the situation warrants. A majority of the crowd appeared to favor the committee's proposed boundaries. However, others in the crowd argued for significantly larger boundaries along the lines of the current Laytonville fire district, an area approximately four times the size as that proposed by the committee. There were also suggestions to draw boundary lines just around the existing town of Laytonville, something that would approximate a territory one-fourth the size as that proposed by the committee.

At the end of the meeting, as a woman walked out of the hall with friends, she commented, "This was the best organized, well-run, most informative meeting I have ever attended. If all meetings were like this one, I would go to them all." Both during and after the public session, numerous people took the time to personally thank committee members for their work and orderly presentatation. As one man put it, "We owe these people a big thanks. They've done a lot of work on this and I think it's a great idea. Let's move forward with it --- a town council benefits everybody." At meeting's end, another man approached a committee member and said, "This was an excellent meeting. I think we're over the hump."

The MAC formation committee set a September 25 meeting at 7 p.m. at the Laytonville Seniors Center to receive more public input on an advisory council, in general, and the subject of boundaries, in particular. Also, next week the Observer will conduct a poll where Laytonville-area residents will be asked to submit their recommendations on boundaries for the proposed MAC. The results of the poll will be released at the September 25 meeting.