{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Friends remember Joe Louis Wildman","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"April 7, 2021 — Joe Louis Wildman, a longtime union organizer and Democratic activist, died Sunday, not long after retiring. He was the Secretary Treasurer of the North Bay Labor Council, an SEIU representative, and a business agent with operating Engineers Local #3. He was also Treasurer for the Inland Mendocino Democratic Club, and the owner of the Sprinter van that served as the club’s mobile headquarters during the pandemic.\r\nRaul Gardeia is an organizer with SEIU Local 2015. He lost a valuable mentor, one who was steeped in the dynamics of rural politics and encouraged him to go to grad school to get a degree from the University of Massachusetts in union activism.\r\n“He was an incredible resource, someone full of so much knowledge and history of county politics, and the history of the Mendocino County labor movement. It’s not easy to find a lot of the information unless you find someone who lived it,” Gardenia says. “Joe was someone who had a lot of ideals without ideology.”\r\nVal Muchowski, a longtime Democratic activist, worked alongside Wildman for twenty years. “Joe started off as a Green, so we were kind of on different teams for a while,” she recalled. “But then he became a Democrat, and a very active Democrat. He worked for years as a labor representative, and he had a keen wit and a cutting humor, which made him very fun to work with.” She described him as “very effective,” and told a story about how Wildman decided to drum up some money for the Democratic Party by inviting Fiona Ma, the California State Treasurer, to an event at Black Oak Coffee in Ukiah. “I said, sure, let’s do it, if we can,” Muchowski said. “We raised $3,000 for Democrats at that time. That was pretty good, with less than 100 people in the room,” she concluded.\r\nGardenia added that Wildman, who had been counting down the days to his retirement, spent more time than ever at the union hall as a volunteer. “In the last several weeks, I saw him more than I ever had before...I think he...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}