KZYX News

April 26, 2021 — Black Lives Matter activists rallied in front of the Ukiah courthouse Saturday to demand police accountability after the beating of Gerardo Magdaleno and to request an audit of the sheriff’s department. Troyle Tognoli is a local Black Lives Matter organizer. She is also a member of Ukiah’s recently formed Equity and Diversity committee, which is meeting this Wednesday. The Ukiah P...

April 23, 2021 — A small homeless encampment on the south end of Ukiah was closed down earlier this week. Shortly after 8am on Tuesday, city workers began removing items that had been left behind by six to ten residents, some of whom have been living there since “Tent City” off Hastings Avenue was cleared out in June. Notices were stapled to nearby trees and utility poles by Friday, announcing tha...

It’s no secret that our county, along with the entire state, is in a drought. Lake Mendocino is at a historic low, Fort Bragg’s main source of water is flowing at half its normal level, and Ukiah water manager reckons that parts of the Russian River may run dry towards the end of the drought year. But what will that mean for Mendocino County residents?

April 21, 2021 — A day after the board of supervisors declared a state of emergency due to drought, Governor Gavin Newsom stood at the bottom of Lake Mendocino and signed a proclamation declaring a drought emergency in Mendocino and Sonoma counties. There was very little moisture in the basin of the lake this afternoon, a few hundred feet from the south boat ramp where dignitaries suffered in dark...

April 21, 2021 — At an inconclusive eleven and a half hour meeting this week, the Board of Supervisors agreed 4-1 to allow cannabis expansion on parcels meeting a narrowly defined set of requirements. And, with the drought expected to be in full swing by the time the season begins, growers under the new ordinance will not be getting plants in the ground this year. The ordinance was not fully hamme...

April 19, 2021 — Today, about seventy people who have been homeless or at high risk for it are moving into Live Oak Apartments, a former Best Western Inn in Ukiah. The building is part of the state’s Project Homekey initiative. Last year, counties got money specifically to buy lodging establishments and convert them into permanent housing for vulnerable populations. Mendocino County received $9.6...

April 16, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors decided this week to follow Humboldt County’s approach to code enforcement against cannabis scofflaws, which includes real time aerial surveillance, hefty fines, and property liens. And scientists with the California Dept of Fish and Wildlife told the board that the proposed cannabis cultivation ordinance to replace Phase III does not adequately address th...

April 16, 2021 — Redwood Valley residents met with county supervisors this week to start on a wish list for community needs that could be funded with some of the $22 million settlement from PG&E. Suggestions ranged from new fire trucks to improvements on the grange, which served as a community hub during the 2017 firestorm. And, with roughly 200 agricultural water connections getting shut off...

LITTLE RIVER, 4/15/21 - Inland reservoirs have hit historic lows, the coast is preparing to rely on trucking water in from out of town, and dry, hot weather is on the horizon. On Monday, First District County Supervisor Glen McGourty held a "water workshop," where water leaders from around the region came together to discuss the drought and how it should be handled.

April 14, 2021 — Supervisor Glenn McGourty organized a water informational session at this week’s board of Supervisors meeting, calling on the board to come up with an emergency response to the drought. With Lake Mendocino lower than it’s ever been, Redwood Valley Water District is shutting off irrigation services to its 200 agricultural customers on April 19. Jared Walker, the district general ma...

Supervisors did not vote on any of the proposals, though most of them got a nod from at least one member of the board. The next round of presentations is scheduled for May fourth. The Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council will discuss the settlement fund at its meeting this Wednesday at 5pm.

April 8, 2021 — Mendocino County’s two-year industrial hemp pilot program got started this week, with one participant, in District 3. The hemp will be grown for CBD, and is part of a study about how much water the crop requires. Elizabeth Garcia, with the County Agricultural Department, shares details in this interview.

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 h...

April 7, 2021 — The family of Gerardo Magdaleno, the mentally ill man who was beaten by Ukiah police last week, is preparing to sue the city. Their lawyer, Isaak Schwaiger, is a civil rights attorney who specializes in police brutality cases. The case has not been filed yet, but Schwaiger says “It is primarily an excessive force lawsuit...but it also has a component that’s derived from the America...

April 5, 2021 — A little over a dozen people marched on Civic Center in Ukiah Saturday, calling for an end to police brutality and more mental health services in the wake of Gerardo Magdaleno’s beating at the hands of Ukiah police officers. On April first, Magdaleno, a schizophrenic bipolar man, took some non-prescription drugs after running out of his psychiatric medications. He was wandering nud...

April 2, 2021 —In the wake of a summer of protests against police brutality, two short videos from behind a shop window show four Ukiah police officers repeatedly punching a man whose sisters have identified as Gerardo Magdaleno. One shows the nude man getting up off the ground and walking slowly toward an officer. The officer shouts at him repeatedly to get back on the ground. The video is blurry...

April 2, 2021 — Yesterday, every Californian over the age of fifty became eligible for a vaccine. Later this month, every Californian over the age of 16 will be eligible. There haven’t been any clinics for first doses for weeks, but a combination of paid staff and volunteers are busy at second dose clinics around the county. With limited or unknown supplies, getting volunteers where they can be us...

April 1, 2021 — Spring is here, and new growth is everywhere. But unlike the fields of yellow mustard that signal the beginning of the short season, some of that growth is old and slow. Like an 18-inch diameter, breast-height scrub oak, which could have been on the landscape since your great-great-great grandmother was born. Jennifer Riddell and Andrea Davis, fellow co-presidents of the Sanhedrin...

March 31, 2021 — With Old Howard Hospital decisively off the table for use as a psychiatric health facility, the Board of Supervisors last week directed county staff to look into two other possibilities. One is using the property at Whitmore Lane in Ukiah, formerly an alternative quarantine site, now in need of a $2.8 million roof. The other is finding a parcel somewhere in the unincorporated part...

POINT ARENA, 3/26/21 - When the weather is favorable, Teresa (Tree) and Scott Mercer drive out to the end of the windy Point Arena bluff, right near the lighthouse, where they position themselves above the rocky shore line in two camping chairs pointing south, out to sea. Snacks at the ready and binoculars in hand, they settle in for a four to seven hour stint of whale watching. The Mercers, who a...

March 23, 2021 — A detailed proposal for building a psychiatric health facility in a rural part of the county was filed under public expression on the agenda for yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, though the item came up Monday during Measure B discussions. On Monday, the board asked staff to come back with two proposals for a psychiatric health facility, one called the Ranch concept for a...

March 22, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors agreed to work on dedicating staff and funding to an economic development program run by West Business Development Center. Supervisors also agreed to spend Measure B money to remodel the behavioral health training center in Redwood Valley, purchase a gun locker for the site, and reimburse the sheriff’s office for crisis intervention training for law enforc...

March 22, 2021 — At a meeting that lasted nearly twelve hours, the Planning Commission agreed to recommend some of the expansion that was the main point of contention in 302 letters and four hours of public comment. The Commission held two hearings on Friday, one on a cannabis facilities ordinance proposed by the Board of Supervisors, and another on a proposed major change to cultivation policy. P...

March 19, 2021 — The Planning Commission came up short at its regular meeting yesterday, with only three of the seven commissioners available for an application to extend a cell phone tower that generated about twenty letters of opposition. Without a quorum, though, the item was automatically permissible, due to federal law about the length of time allowed to review the application. A proposal for...

March 18, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors decoupled a proposed oak woodlands ordinance from the proposed Phase III cannabis ordinance last week and sent it to committee, pending an inventory of the oak woodlands in the county. Michael Jones, the UC Cooperative Extension Forest Advisor for Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma Counties, said the most recent data puts the local acres of oak woodlands and mixed...