Phil Baldwin

Phil's friends, family, & students cherished his ability find irony everywhere he looked; and he did not disappoint, when he composed his own (lengthy) obituary just a week before his passing:

Phil Baldwin

I was born to William and Mildred Baldwin, March 25, 1947 in the tumbleweed connection of Bakersfield, known for Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, lesser known for Earl


Warren, Frank Gifford, Pom Wonderful, and dubious air. Added to post war baby boom when dad got back from defeating the Nazis in Battle of the Bulge (as forward artillery observer for General Courtney Hodges) then meeting up with our Ruskie teammates near the Elbe in Germany. Mother waited near Fort Lewis, Washington studying at College of Pudget Sound.


With brother Tim and sis Jane we played as did other kids, realizing then nothing about Kern's Grapes of Wrath, de facto segregation, and looming water crises around the bend. Garnered my Eagle Scout, played BHS wingback for Driller football, then tennis a few years after Dennis Ralston and


somehow got into at UC Berkeley in 1965,


to study history and politics.


Arriving a year after the Free Speech Movement, like many, I learned more outside of class than in. Came to Berkeley as a Lindsay-Rockefeller Republican and supporter of the Vietnam War; that changed rapidly in 1966 due to romance with intellectual Suzanne West who soon had me working for a long shot antiwar Congressional candidate. He lost but my movement to the Left continued. After a nonviolent sit-in arrest at Sproul Hall and enduring subsequent People's Park riots yielding helicopter tear gassings and National Guard marshall law, I fininished my thesis on the pacifist colonial government of Quaker Pennsylvania. Riots continued and we chose to get out of Berkeley with our son, Jesse, and head for the


hippy pastures of Sonoma State where touchy-feely Rogerians awarded me a State teaching credential.


Stupidly taking a first teaching job at a "Model High School" in old hometown we lasted two years before Suzanne justifiably up and left. I lay some blame on my fanaticism for George McGovern's dark horse candidacy in '71,'72 and my corresponding lack of quality family time . Suzanne's decision to split then allowed me to grow and realize I could survive, even thrive as a single individual. Neat concept.


She returned with kids Jesse and Erin to Berkeley, I headed to Santa Cruz to become a beach bumb/substitute teacher. Dreamt of a regular teaching job but as this was the lift off for affirmative action it heralded not well for a white dude seeking comfy government job. So, heck, what to do? Run for County Supervisor. After helping coordinate McGovern Santa Cruz precinct operation then getting elected to an elementary school board, we decided to shoot the moon and take on an eight year incumbent 1976. As he ignored us, we emphasized populist issues and door-to-door, then took the surprise


victory.


Heady time in my life. Could now pay rent on time. We began work on mobile home park rent control and achieving a general plan for the Santa Cruz mountains and unincorporated urban area - Live Oak. As soon as we instituted a land division moratorium during this interim, our speculator opposition decided to launch a campaign "Recall The Santa Cruz Three" which meant yours truly and two other Board allies. By spending $100,000 (a hella lot for mid seventies


local race) and brilliantly latching to on coattails of Proposition 13, they took down two of us.


Now this put a teaching job in Santa Cruz further out of reach so I needed to head out of 'Cruzio.' I took a job in a Fresno desert purgatory village of Coalinga for two years. Got out just before Parkfield earthquake


leveled 15% of that town and I ended up in Ukiah with a genuine teaching job at Potter Valley High 1982.


Supportive PVHS staff, knowing I was single, strongly recommended I get a rental in Ukiah as a key to preserving privacy. I followed that advice then began a 29 year careeer failing to indoctrinate these rural youths in my ideology. Despite my relentless sneers, chuckles, sarcasm, & charisma, the students arriving from home, Republicans invariably, left Room 202 ("Discourse


Central") Republicans.


But we experienced a hell of a lot of fun and valuable debates. (And Phil losing his cool to laughter of class.) The often conservative PVHS administration and school board either ignored, tolerated, or appreciated my curriculum which paid little attention to the stultifying "State Framework" for trivial puruit in social studies. I held that


in-depth analysis of fewer topics was key to better, more long-lasting learning, that is, what we would want students to remember five or twenty years later. Conversely if we cared not that any would be remembered, why would we introduce it to these youth in the first place?


So our favorites in three subjects history became Plato's "Allegory of the Metals" and "Allegory of the Cave," The Puritans "City on a Hill" leading to "Manifest Destiny" and today's "American Exceptionalism") War with Mexico & Polk's false flag to take northern half of Mexico, Teddy's "Big Stick Diplomacy" & "March of our Flag" in Philippines. And we'd finish them off at age eighteen reading orally Orwell's vital book within the book 1984. Each unit planned for a week took twelve days or more. (I am betting much has been remembered.)


I remain flabbergasted and proud that our Potter Valley community trusted me three decades to be professional, to inculcate an interest in precision, and to present differing sides of these amazing stories.


Extra curricular found me coaching tennis, advising our Mock Trial & History Day teams, and somehow getting assigned to "direct" PVHS drama. Rather proud that in 1987 (?) our Paco Juan won 1st Place in the State


History Day Sacramento competition then at nationals took 4th, with his paper "Love


Canal, Technology Gone Awry". We battled Ukiah High to some tense yet fun near victories in Mock Trial, but achieved our greatest success with drama, (aka "Coup de Theatre Potter Valley.)


Circa 2000, we produced Euripides tragedy "Medea," Maxwell Anderson's thriller "Bad Seed," and Aristophanes' Lysistrata (pacifist/feminist" comedy). Add one acts: "An Evening for Merlin Finch" (Charles Dizenzo), "The Dancers" (Horton Foote), "Personnal Effects & Personal Effects" (John McNamara), and the one that broke the camel's back "Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" (Sue Townsend). A brief moment, a super run by standout Potter Valley actors generated packed crowds in our makeshift Little Theater. Our choice of esoteric, thought-provoking, yet fun scripts satisfied the


community but not the mores of incoming Powers That Be.


Meanwhile out of school, some of us became accomomplished barroom dancers


following the Hopland/Cotati jump blue scene. Late eighties a cadre of us formed "Hedonists for Liberty and Justice" and begain producing quarterly dances at the Ukiah Grange Hall. Among the tremendous acts we offered: Terry Hanck, Earl Thomas, Mark & Pat Ford, David Raitt, Stu Blank, Starr James, then my favorite guitarist - Richie Blue who's now played Ukiah at least a


dozen times. Despite our brilliant musicians and superb nightclub venue, the Hedonist gigs faded for three reasos. DUI enforcement went way up, jump blues did not transition to the younger generation, and, heck, too many die hard Hedonists found a mate, began to cocoon, stay home.


And yes, we (don't you just love the "royal we") had a sixteen year run on Ukiah City Council. Seems that if I was on the ballot (1986,1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014) speculator-developer opposition made sure it was a contested race. Several other elections were canceled due to lack of contenders. When I first ran in 1986, we met a powerful team carrying a dossier on me gathered from


Bakersfield and Santa Cruz who asked in


public comment if I had been recalled as


Supervisor there. Yep, was my answer. Case closed. But our closest race (other than two I lost) was 2006 when the opposition ran radio ads actually stating that "if Phil Baldwin is re-elected people in Ukiah will die." My goodness. If the economy heats up sufficiently and valley subdivision sprawl might we see more of that style smearing once again?


With our Council, I am most proud of working over three years to garner a 4-1 vote for mobile home park rent control, for City


acquisition of 37 gorgeous acres in Gibson Creek canyon. Happy we also created the Paths, Open Space, and Creeks Commission, and for planning Perkins Street utitily undergrounding, and for Ukiah CARES


electric bill subsidy to struggling seniors and working families. I remain proud too that I stood with the private property owner of the Palace Hotel who, in my view, did more than the court appointed "receiver" to save this majestic building for restoration. (Yes, a number of liberals have told me this Palace stance guaranteed my 2014 defeat.)


As we wonder if we can achieve economic democracy, let's keep in mind it cannot happen as we prosecute endless regime change wars. And it cannot happen if our public school graduates remain so ignorant of the facts and vocabulary of active citizen partipation. In social studies, the framework, the "Common Core" must be rejected because it dwells in trivia we and our


leaders will never encounter again. Let's


encourage teachers to pursue the love which must be in their individual disciplines and to be excited about their teaching.


In the mood to consider a donation? My favorites are SPACE of Ukiah, Tulsi Gabbard for President, and the following antiwar muckrakers: Caitlin Johnstone, Kim Iversen, James Howard Kunstler, CJ Hopkins, Antiwar.com (Only SPACE is tax deductable.)"