KZYX News

July 8, 2022 — Kevin Murray, the former Ukiah police sergeant facing seven felonies and one misdemeanor, pled no contest to one felony and one misdemeanor at a pretrial conference late Thursday afternoon. He has not been sentenced, but he is facing anywhere between what the judge hinted would be the likely outcome of two years felony probation or the possibility of three or four years in jail. The...

July 7, 2022 — After seven years of standing vacant, the Hopland Superette is under new ownership, set to reopen as Geiger's Hopland Market, possibly as early as Labor Day. Ken Molinaro, a Sonoma County developer who purchased Geiger's Market in Laytonville three years ago, says he expects the Hopland store to have a full-time staff of about ten people serving local grocery shoppers as well as tou...

July 6, 2022 — As the cannabis market plummets, the state lifted its cultivation tax of $161 per pound of product, effective as of July first. Cannabis advocates say that’s an important step, but far from being enough to make the market sustainable. And with Mendocino County’s final election results in, the assessor-clerk-recorder’s office is already looking forward to November’s general election....

A reproductive rights protest took place in front of the Ukiah courthouse on July 1st, 2022. A group of 150 residents gathered with signs and rallied in solidarity with states who have had the Roe v. Wade supreme court decision overturned.

July 4, 2022 — The last year has not been kind to the arts, with classes just starting up in person again, patrons hesitant to attend performances and events at galleries, and not a lot of discretionary income available to most people. But on July 2, 2021, Medium Gallery in Ukiah’s Pear Tree shopping center opened its doors to the public — and left them open so fresh air could circulate among the...

July 1, 2022 — Fort Bragg bid farewell to Police Chief John Naulty and Interim City Manager David Spaur this week. At Monday’s City Council meeting, the Council also passed the 22/23 budget, with the assurance that it can be amended as labor negotiations proceed. The city labor union, SEIU Local 1021, is advocating for a 5% COLA, or cost of living increase, but the city has budgeted 3%. Union lead...

June 30, 2022 — After seven years of fundraising and scouting for a location, the Friends of the Long Valley Public Library are close to opening a branch of the county library in downtown Laytonville. The Friends have raised about $40,000 since 2015, and just last week, the library got the green light for a USDA Rural Development Grant of $64,200 as a 75% match to buy furniture, books, and other m...

June 28, 2022 — About a hundred property owners in the town of Mendocino have received a letter from the State Water Board’s Division of Drinking Water, asking them to complete a questionnaire to determine whether or not they are operating a public water system. It’s the first step in regulating businesses that may be serving water to the public without the inspections and treatments and permits r...

Ukiah residents went to the streets to protest the SCOTUS overturn of Roe vs Wade

June 23, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors approved the final $355.8 million budget on Tuesday, though some key information is still unavailable. Supervisor John Haschak took up the union’s question before the final approval, when he said, “So, we’re passing the budget without really knowing what those numbers are, about how many are funded but not filled.” The county appears to be budgeting for 400...

June 22, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors took a drastic change of course on a proposed water and fire tax at a meeting that erupted once in the morning and then dragged on until after 6:30 pm. The proposal at the beginning of the day was for a three-eighths of a cent sales tax, with 40% going to fund water resiliency projects and 60% going to fund fire services. The tax was projected to generate $...

June 21, 2022--

June 20, 2022 — The first annual urchinfest took place this weekend, with opportunities to learn about urchins and their environment, and to eat them raw on the beach at Van Damme State Park in Little River. A woman named Juanita described the flavor as “someone sweet and buttery. It just slides down really easily. Maybe it’s a softer texture than raw fish, but I love it.” She had just sampled som...

June 17, 2022 — Noble Waidelich has been fired from his position as Ukiah Police Chief, effective Friday. He was placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday, after city management learned that he was the subject of a criminal investigation into an allegation of an assault on a woman. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the charge. The press release from Friday afternoon quotes City...

June 17, 2022 – Victor Palomino joins the KZYX News team as its first fully bilingual News Director. He will collaborate with Program Director Alicia Bales and news anchor Sarah Reith to develop a daily news program in English and Spanish. The goal of the bilingual news program is to serve listeners with continued news reporting on issues relevant to our rural community, and to expand news coverag...

June 16, 2022 — The Ukiah City Council took two actions in response to drought and climate change at its Wednesday night meeting, when they unanimously approved a climate emergency resolution and agreed to participate in a voluntary water sharing agreement with other water users on the Russian River. The city has a sturdy groundwater basin and holds durable senior pre-1914 water rights to flows in...

June 15, 2022 — Ukiah Police Chief Noble Waidelich is on paid administrative leave, pending the results of a criminal investigation into an alleged assault on a woman. Waidelich is facing a jury trial in September over accusations of domestic violence and financial abuse by his ex-girlfriend, Amanda Carley. Carley’s adult daughter Madisyn is also suing Waidelich for damages over what she says is h...

June 15, 2022 — With the passage of SB 1383, Californians will be required to reduce organic waste in the landfill by 75% in the next three years. In a few weeks, a new large-scale compost facility will be available to most of Mendocino County, and buy-back recycling will re-open in Fort Bragg and Ukiah. Most of the county’s non-recyclable, non- compostable trash goes to a landfill in Fairfield. T...

June 14, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors has closed its budget hearings and will formally ratify the final county budget on June 21. The total county budget is over $355.8 million, with an operating budget of over $29.6 million per month, according to documents attached to the June 7 agenda. Talk of closing the county museum was notably absent from the list of recommendations. Several organization...

June 13, 2022 — Five years after filing a lawsuit against Mendocino County and her ex-boyfriend, Amanda Carley will have a chance to make her case in court. Carley is suing the county, the probation department, her boss at the time, and Noble Waidelich, who is now the chief of the Ukiah Police Department. At a hearing on Friday morning, Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Jeanine Nadel granted C...

June 10, 2022 — By 7:00 on Wednesday night, the Board of Supervisors had agreed 4-1 to put a tax on the November ballot to fund county-wide fire and water needs. The amount of the tax has not been decided yet, but the split will be 60% for fire and 40% for water. However, it would be a general tax, which typically goes straight into the general fund for no specified purpose and only requires a sim...

June 9, 2022 — Union members rallied outside the Board of Supervisors chambers during the second day of budget hearings Wednesday. The county is in negotiations with all its bargaining units, and the largest, SEIU Local 1021, says that on Monday, the county offered them a zero percent cost of living allowance increase, or COLA. Negotiator Jackie Otis, a social worker in adult and aging services, l...

June 8, 2022 — The last voter of the night cast her ballot with ten seconds to spare. She was heavily pregnant with a baby on her hip and a firm grasp on another child’s hand as they approached the dropbox in the parking lot outside the county administrative building. She spent the journey back to the car explaining the fundamentals of democracy. Preliminary voting results, with no precincts repor...

June 7, 2022 — In the first round of budget hearings on Tuesday morning, the Board of Supervisors agreed to use $250,000 from the PG&E settlement money for a water agency, though the structure and duties of the agency have yet to be defined. And the board asked staff to revise plans for enhanced code enforcement, even as code enforcement manager John Birx reported that in the last year, his st...

June 7, 2022 — The Madrone Care Network celebrated its move from a cramped little shop behind an audio store to a 1700 square foot office building on Monday. The network started offering palliative care to patients in Mendocino County just a few months before the start of the pandemic. Physician’s assistant and founder Lynn Meadows, who was a well known longtime midwife in the community, said now,...