KZYX News

February 10, 2022 — With the international movement to return tribal lands picking up steam, a local tribe is strategizing how to have more of a voice in the management decisions of Jackson Demonstration State Forest, which one ethnohistorian argues is an Indigenous cultural landscape in its entirety. “You have to get out of the mindset of just a site, and into understanding how the whole environm...

February 8, 2022 — It’s hard to get new paintings by an artist who’s been dead for 85 years, but that’s what the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah did a few weeks ago. A new exhibit, “The Art of Collecting,” features sixteen paintings by the eponymous artist, donated by a museum on the other end of the state. Director David Burton talked about what happened when he picked up the phone last spring. “Bac...

February 7, 2022 — The omicron surge seems to have peaked, though the variant can be hard on children. And more than 200 staff and inmates at the jail have been infected. None have died or been hospitalized, according to Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren. At Friday’s briefing, Coren reported that while hospitalizations have plateaued, there was one newborn infant from Mendocino County being tre...

February 3, 2022 — The state Department of Cannabis Control is proposing to adopt a conflict of interest code, in keeping with the Political Reform Act, which prohibits public officials and government employees from using their positios to influence policy decisions that could benefit them financially. The public comment period on the proposed code, which lays out disclosure categories for decisio...

February 4, 2022 — The fate of the Potter Valley Project took a few more turns this week, with a regional coalition declaring it will not file for the license application and PG&E taking steps to operate the project under an annual license until the next development. PG&E, which owns and operates the project, announced in 2019 that it would not renew the license or continue to try to sell...

February 2, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors repealed two cannabis policies yesterday, which was also almost the first time cannabis has been included in the crop report. The facilities ordinance was repealed without comment on the consent calendar, after a legal challenge from the Willits Environmental Center about the ordinance’s compliance with the state’s environmental regulations. The board al...

January 31, 2022 -- "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is ready for the boards, again. After sheltering in place, vaccines, masks, social distancing, and a limited audience, the drama crew at the Mendocino College Theater are opening their doors on Thursday, February 3, for another chance at the spotlight. The show runs through February 13 -- barring unforeseen events.

January 28, 2022 — The Fort Bragg City Council heard a presentation this week from a citizens’ commission charged with researching the history of Fort Bragg, its namesake Braxton Bragg, and making recommendations about whether or not the town’s name should be changed. The commission, which met 31 times and spent more than 60 hours discussing the matter, made six recommendations, many of them conce...

January 27, 2022 -- The Plateau, a housing development in Fort Bragg offering 69 affordable units, including some for people experiencing homelessness, is near completion and accepting pre-applications until February 2. Applications are available at the Mendocino County Community Development Commission's office in Ukiah at 1076 North State Street in Ukiah, or at their website, cdchousing.org.

January 26, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors unanimously selected Assistant CEO Darcie Antle to serve as interim CEO following Carmel Angelo’s departure in March, praising her fiscal acumen and thanking Angelo for her fourteen years of service to the county. The Board also made a long-awaited unanimous decision about the location of the puff, or psychiatric health facility. After a presentation fro...

January 25, 2022 — Activists held two days of public actions against logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest on Sunday and Monday, starting with the first of a series of tours offered by a tribal leader. Michael Hunter, Chair of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, led about a hundred people through areas that are slated for logging as well as one that was logged four years ago near Caspa...

January 24,2022 — The covid outbreak at the jail continues, with 62 cases among the inmates in the last two weeks. Some have recovered in custody, while others have been permitted to finish their isolation periods at home, according to a sheriff’s office press release. Forty-five inmates with covid remain in the jail. Covid testing is now part of the intake process, and new inmates are quarantined...

January 21, 2022 — Reporter Stacey Sheldon takes a tour of the fish hatchery at the Coyote Valley Dam, with Facility Manager Danny Garcia, who calls himself a "Proud Papa" to the many anadromous fish he has sent out into the world to propagate the species.

January 20, 2022 — Timber sales in Jackson Demonstration State Forest are ongoing, despite a decision not to add any new ones this year. The five timber harvest plans that started last year are still in operation, according to Kevin Conway, the State Forests Program Manager. These include Parlin 17, the Chamberlain Confluence, Red Tail, Soda Gulch, and the Caspar 500, where operations were shut do...

January 19, 2022 — “No additional timber sales will be offered in Jackson this year,” according to the Board of Forestry Director’s report for this month’s board meeting. A brief item in the written report notes delays in last year’s operations and interruptions by protestors. Logging in the Caspar 500 Timber Harvest Plan, which was heavily populated by protestors, has been on hold since June. Pro...

January 18, 2022 — Fort Bragg received almost $9 million last month in state grant funds to secure one of its two main water supply lines. The city also brought a desalination plant online last year to supplement its water supply during future droughts. Reporter Michelle Blackwell talked with John Smith, the Fort Bragg Director of Public Works, about both projects.

January 17, 2022 — Neighbors and bird-watchers successfully faced down PG&E to defend a bald eagle’s nest in Potter Valley last week. On Wednesday night, Tim Bray, a kzyx programmer and member of the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society, sent out an alert that PG&E planned to cut down the aging Ponderosa Pine that contains the nest, located on a road that runs parallel to the Eel River, not far...

January 13, 2022—County CEO Carmel Angelo told the Board of Supervisors last week that she is moving up the date of her retirement, from October of this year to March. Supervisors Maureen Mulheren and Dan Gjerde spoke with kzyx earlier this week about their work comparing the CEO versus the CAO model, and some of their thoughts on finding Angelo’s successor. They’re on an ad hoc committee charged...

January 14, 2022 — Since the beginning of December, over 100 fulmars, a long-lived gull-like seabird with a remarkable nasal apparatus, have become stranded on California beaches, including the coast of Mendocino. Reporter Michelle Blackwell spoke with Sarah Grimes, the Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator and Educator at the Noyo Center for Marine Science, about the phenomenon and what makes these...

January 12, 2022 Project Sanctuary, a non-profit organization assisting victims of domestic and sexual assault, will launch an upcoming educational program on the topic of teen dating violence. With prevention as the goal, Project Sanctuary plans to raise awareness on the topic with school visits in February, and an art contest at the end of January. This two-pronged strategy aims to educate the y...

January 11, 2022 — Organic waste reduction is the focus of a sprawling piece of state legislation due to go into effect this year. SB 1383 requires jurisdictions to drastically cut down on the amount of edible food and food-based waste that goes into the landfill and causes methane gas pollution. In order to contribute to the statewide goals, local composters expect to increase their tonnage by 40...

January 10, 2022 — The county has entered the “omicron blizzard” that’s affecting the rest of the country, according to Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren. The only known outbreak at this time is at the jail, where fifteen staff and two inmates have tested positive. There have been 45 exposures at schools, but Coren declined to shut down the Fort Bragg school district after extra-curricular acti...

Jan 7, 2022 — Candlelight vigils took place all across the country last night, in commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the attempt to overturn the presidential election and take over the Capitol by force. Many of last night’s vigils took the form of a call to action, from ending the filibuster to indicting Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to supporting Senate bills designed to increase acces...

January 6, 2022 – Mendocino College’s Theater Arts Department in Ukiah now offers a new, one year certification program in technical theater. This program, called Career in Technical Education, or CTE, teaches stagecraft, sound, lighting, costuming and set design to prepare students to work as behind the scenes professionals in the entertainment industry. Students enrolled in the program take a va...

January 5, 2022 — The question of a conflict of interest between the sheriff’s office and the Board of Supervisors has been decided. According to a court order signed by presiding Judge Ann Moorman on December 30, there is a conflict of interest with the County Counsel’s office advising the sheriff on issues surrounding information and technology, but not the remaining matters. That includes the q...