KZYX News

January 4, 2022 — There’s something missing from the Ukiah Farmers Market this time of year…like the market itself, which will be coming back next Saturday, but without one important fixture. The Ukiah Bike Kitchen is heading into its tenth year of fixing bikes for free, coaching aspiring mechanics, and amassing enough bike parts to cancel out global supply chain woes. I’ve never actually taken my...

January 3, 2022 — It’s a busy time of year for fish in the Eel, with steelhead running, chinook hatching, and coho bouncing back, according to Pat Higgins, director of the Eel River Recovery Project. Ocean conditions have started to improve since the warm water blob of 2015 upended the near-shore ecosystem. That’s a big help for anadromous fish that travel between freshwater and salt throughout th...

December 31, 2021 — Toby Keith’s anthem to military valor, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” was on the radio in Officer Alex Cowan’s police car the day his dash camera recorded him beating a naked, mentally ill man in Ukiah. As Cowan’s colleagues iced their bloodied hands in the aftermath, the singer crooned, “A mighty sucker punch came flyin’ in from the back. Soon as w...

December 30, 2021 — The drought is still on, in spite of the recent rain and snowfall in the region. But next week, the town of Mendocino, where the situation was desperate just a few months ago, could see a loosening of drought restrictions from a drastic mandatory reduction to a still-significant but much smaller and merely requested reduction. On Wednesday, Ryan Rhoades, the superintendent of t...

December 29, 2021 — Save The Redwoods League Director of Land Protection, Becky Bremser discusses the League’s recent efforts to save 5 miles of coastline and 2250 acres of coastal redwoods in northern Mendocino County.

December 28, 2021 – Art Center Ukiah has laid plans to bring in some new artists in the new year. Art Center Ukiah is a non-profit art gallery, run by volunteers, tucked behind the Corner Gallery on State Street in downtown Ukiah. With a mission to support local artists and display local art, the Art Center has ambitious plans for the New Year and hopes its imminent series of exhibits and workshop...

December 27, 2021 — Oscar’s Place, a donkey sanctuary in Hopland named for a cat, is populated by guinea hens, medieval artillery, and dozens of soon-to-be reality TV stars. Ron King is a former New York fashion and media executive who lost his job in the pandemic and decided to devote himself to rescuing donkeys. The 75-acre ranch is named for the memory of a much-beloved pet. Donkeys are charism...

December 23, 2021 — Noble Waidelich, Ukiah’s new police chief, is being sued in civil court this month for domestic violence that is alleged to have taken place between 2011 and 2015. Madisyn Carley, who is now 20 years old, claims that on numerous occasions, she witnessed Waidelich abusing her mother, Amanda Carley. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for wage loss, medical expenses,...

Dec 22, 2021 — Fees for many county services are due to go up in mid-January, leading to sticker shock after years of unchanging prices. Last week, department heads made their various cases to the Board of Supervisors as to how bringing up the cost of fees is the only way to achieve cost recovery, or in some cases, retain staff. Environmental health, the sector of public health that covers everyth...

December 21, 2021 – Wondering what to get yourself or that special someone for the holidays? How about the free gift of a COVID 19 vaccination or booster shot? As Mendocino County experiences new, more transmissible COVID 19 variants, it is more important than ever to protect yourself and your community by getting vaccinated and boosted to fully fortify your immune system to stave off severe sympt...

December 20, 2021 – Sometimes the government does work to better serve its people, and when this happens, it is cause for celebration. Therefore, a celebration was held on the afternoon of December 16th when government officials and community members joined together to commemorate the grand opening of the new Crisis Residential Treatment Facility of Mendocino County. Members from the Measure B com...

December 17, 2021 — The Potter Valley Project is in a phase of uncertainty, but a recent feasibility study could be a blueprint for a future that includes a diversion without dams. The deadline for the license application is coming up in mid-April, and PG&E, which owns the project, has made it clear that it does not intend to renew. The coalition seeking to take over the license hasn’t come up...

December 16, 2021 — The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors approved the contract, including a $3 million increase, with the medical provider for inmates at the county jail this week, with the proviso that the contract be amended to include a mental health clinician. Dr Jenine Miller, the head of the county’s Behavioral Health Department, agreed to work with NaphCare, the provider, on those amen...

December 15, 2021 — About a dozen activists from a coalition that’s been pushing for a moratorium on logging in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest held an impromptu meeting with Assembly member Wood and Senator Mike McGuire’s field staff in downtown Ukiah Tuesday, asking them to convey their concerns to elected officials. Among them were Polly Girvin, an authorized representative of the Coyote...

December 14, 2021 — Sherwood Oaks, the nursing home in Fort Bragg, is in a serious crisis, according to a report by Dr. William Miller, the Medical Director and Chief of Medical Staff at Adventist Health Mendocino Coast. At last night’s meeting of the Mendocino Coast Healthcare District, he told the board that the property, but not the nursing home itself, is in escrow, and the nursing home is des...

December 13, 2021 -- What began as an act of civil disobedience in front of a store turned unlawful on Saturday, December 11, when 15 maskless protestors and their children boldly entered The Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op in Ukiah, California, to demonstrate their fury over the need to wear a mask and follow COVID protocol to shop inside the store. Apparently unsatisfied with the Co-op’s online shoppi...

December 10, 2021 — Trails and railroads have been top of mind lately. Last month, the Skunk Train made a controversial move to purchase the Georgia Pacific mill site in Fort Bragg. And the master planning process for the Great Redwood Trail is poised to get going in the new year — under the shadow of the Coal Train, which could stall progress on the trail’s federal application indefinitely. In th...

December 9, 2021 — The Ukiah Unified School District has partnered with Mendocino County Public Health to host COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics at local elementary schools in November and December for children ages 5-11. The final clinic for this round of first shots took place Thursday, November 9th, at Grace Hudson Elementary school from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

December 8, 2021 -- We revisit the controversial sale of the Georgia Pacific mill site in Fort Bragg to the Skunk Train and its parent company the Mendocino Railway with George Reinhardt, an associate at the non-profit, The Noyo Headlands Unified Design group or NHUDG. NHUDG has been advocating for the mill site clean-up and environmentally friendly reuse plans for over a decade.

December 6, 2021 — A local tribe learned last week that CalFire has decided to review its management plan of Jackson Demonstration State Forest, with an eye toward tribal co-management with the Sherwood Valley and Coyote Valley Bands of Pomo Indians. Polly Girvin, a longtime advocate for Coyote Valley, says the tribe is ready to get specific. “We have a plan in hand, at our fingertips,” she said....

Skunk Train president Robert Pinoli answers questions about their acquisition and plans for the Georgia Pacific Mill Site in Fort Bragg and the City’s lawsuit, short broadcast version.

In this segment Skunk Train president Robert Pinoli answers questions about their acquisition and plans for the Georgia Pacific Mill Site in Fort Bragg and the City’s lawsuit.

December 2, 21021 — Tax revolts have a storied place in American history, going back to the Boston Tea Party, when the Sons of Liberty set off a revolution by destroying an entire shipment of British tea to protest taxation without representation. More recently, Flow Cannabis Company co-founders Michael Steinmetz and Flavia Cassani invited California cannabis businesses to join them in withholding...

December 1, 2021 — Senator Mike McGuire’s dream of a 320-mile Great Redwood Trail from the San Francisco Bay to the Humboldt Bay is a few million dollars closer than ever to becoming a reality. At a town hall on Tuesday night, he exulted over the funds he plans to tap to bring the project to fruition. “We now have funding to be able to move the Great Redwood Trail forward,” he told listeners, elab...

November 30, 2021 — The Wildlands Conservancy, a conservation group that buys large tracts of land for preservation all over the state, announced earlier this month that it had succeeded in purchasing close to 27,000 acres along what it calls the Grand Canyon of the Eel River: the $25 million Lone Pine Ranch, which Dean Witter’s family bought in the1940s. Lauren Schmitt, of our sister station KMUD...