KZYX News

March 17,2021 — A former motel in Ukiah is getting closer to housing more than 60 people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Last week, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a contract with Rural Community Housing and Development Corporation to manage Live Oak Apartments, which the county purchased in September with state funds under Project Homekey, a program to house the...

March 16, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors is facing the question of how to spend the $22.6 million of settlement money from PG&E for damage caused by the fires of 2017. Last week’s list of proposed projects, copied and pasted from the list of capital improvement projects in the mid-year budget review, did not include any projects that were specific to Redwood Valley or Potter Valley, where the...

March 15, 2021 — Cannabis is in the spotlight this week. With the Planning Commission scheduled to hear about major changes to the Phase IIII cannabis ordinance this Friday, informational events about various aspects of cannabis have been highly visible. The Cannabis Business Association of Mendocino County is hosting an event this afternoon at 4pm on the MendoVoice facebook page, about a proposal...

Teresa Sholars has lived on the Mendocino Coast for 50 years, studying the diverse ecosystems that make up our small corner of the planet. Yesterday, Sholars took me out to the headlands, the flat bluffs that overlook the pacific, to look at the wildflowers which are just starting to appear, marking the beginning of spring.

March 11, 2021 — A property on Whitmore Lane, just outside Ukiah city limits, is out of commission even as its potential uses multiply. Last March, CEO Carmel Angelo commandeered a former skilled nursing facility to use as an alternate care site for people who did not have another safe place to isolate or quarantine during the pandemic. According to a CEO report from April of last year, “the month...

Jim Culp talks to longtime members of the county-wide, unmoderated community forum, the MCN list.

March 10, 2021 — Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren reported to the Board of Supervisors yesterday that, if current covid case metrics hold for another week, the county can look forward to transitioning out of the purple tier and into the much less restrictive red tier next week. The county received its first shipment of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine yesterday, and is considering...

At the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection’s eight-hour-long meeting Wednesday, Cal Fire directors discussed the upcoming 2021 fire season, timber harvest plan sales, fire safe regulations, and carbon sequestration.

Mach 8, 2021 — About half the Caucasian population in Mendocino County has been vaccinated, compared to 16% of the Hispanic population. Still, with case rates dropping, Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren says the county could enter the red tier by the middle of this month. The county Planning Commission unanimously approved a subdivision of parcels on Feliz Creek in Hopland for more winemaking,...

LITTLE RIVER - The largest coast redwood forest left in private family hands is now protected from subdivision and development permanently. This morning, Save the Redwoods League announced three conservation easements that will protect an extensive redwood forest, including a 300 acre section of true old growth, on the Mailliard Ranch, a 14,838 acre property in the Anderson Valley. Photography by...

On February 16, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians requested a government-to-government consultation with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as Cal Fire, to discuss the Tribes concern over the cumulative impact of around nine timber harvest projects lined up to take place in Jackson Demonstration State Forest over the next half decade. Jackson Demonstration...

March 4, 2021 — Former Ukiah Police Sergeant Kevin Murray is scheduled to appear in Mendocino County Superior Court today, to be arraigned on information. On January 26, District Attorney David Eyster filed a complaint against Murray, charging him with four felonies for crimes alleged to have occurred on November 25 of last year. The complaint says he entered an occupied motel room on South Orchar...

March 2, 2021 — Spanish-language outreach about covid has fallen almost entirely to community groups and volunteers. In the Ukiah valley, UVA, or Ukiah Vecinos en Accion, has collaborated with Adventist Health to get Spanish speakers to vaccination events. Jackie Orozco, a member of UVA who runs the Spanish-language publication Periodico Al Punto, says the collaboration got off to a strong start,...

March 1, 2021 — The wild pony herds of Robinson Creek are part of the lore of Ukiah. They’re the descendants of Shetland mares and a Welsh stallion that escaped captivity in the middle of the last century. Over the decades, a few other breeds may have gotten involved, including some pintos and appaloosas. Now the vigorous little creatures are dots in the distance, a magical visitation, or a nuisan...

From Mendocino County Public Broadcasting, this is the KZYX news for Friday, February 26th. I’m Lana Cohen.  “Well first if I can just tell you about the sunflower sea star and just how cool of a species it is in and of itself.”  That’s Walter Heady, he’s a coastal marine ecologist for the California Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, an international national non profit.  “Sunflower sea stars are...

February 25, 2021 — A day after CEO Carmel Angelo critiqued the Measure B Citizens Oversight Commission as having no common mission, the committee voted to hire a consultant to work out a long term strategic plan based on the Kemper Report. Commissioning that report was the first thing the committee did after electing Tom Allman as its first chair three years ago. The commission also formed an ad...

February 24, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors approved a $200,000 increase to a contract with an armed guard service to monitor people in quarantine at hotels or Whitmore Lane, the county-owned quarantine facility just outside Ukiah city limits. The outbreak at Mountain View, a long-term care home in Ukiah, is up to 23 cases, with two people now deceased. Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren said t...

February 23, 2021 — As the pandemic drags on, the public demand for outdoor recreation has surged. At a town hall last week, Senator Mike McGuire invited panelists to talk about how they believe the Great Redwood Trail from Marin County to the Humboldt Bay will enhance outdoor recreation in the coming years. Some segments are already built, and some are underway. Some, like the one in Ukiah, will...

February 22, 2021 — Adventist Health in Mendocino County has administered 10,875 doses of the covid-19 vaccine, four thousand of them second doses. Vaccine shipments did not come in last week due to storms across the country. The hospital, which receives its own allocation of the vaccine, has been focusing on administering it to people over the age of 70. According to data from the California Dept...

February 19, 2021 — Redwood Coast Medical Services in Gualala has administered about 3000 doses of the covid-19 vaccine on the Mendonoma coast, about ⅔ of them to residents of Mendocino county and ⅓ to Sonoma county residents in its coverage area. At a quarterly town hall meeting last night, RCMS CEO Ara Chakrabarti said the clinic had 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine from Sonoma county public hea...

February 17, 2021 — There are so many different ways to get a vaccine, but the supply is still scarce. Adventist hospital, which gets its own allocation of doses from the state, is holding age-based mass vaccine events. CVS pharmacy in Ukiah is taking appointments for people 65 and older. The county public health department is administering vaccines to people who are at risk because of their occup...

February 16, 2021 — The Ukiah Unified School District is opening up to a hybrid model of some in-person instruction for pre-kindergarten through sixth grade today. Pre-Kindergartners through second graders, fifth graders at Eagle Peak Middle School, and sixth graders at Pomolita Middle School, as well as some special day classes throughout the district. will be back in the classroom two mornings a...

From Mendocino County Public Broadcasting, this is the KZYX news for Monday, February 15th. I’m Lana Cohen.  “So we are standing in a section of Jackson State Forest that basically is vegetated by Mendocino Cyprus and another name for that is the Pygmy Cyprus and what people have kind of called this area is the Pygmy Forest, what we botanists call it is the …”  Only 2,000 acres of Pygmy ecosystem...

February 9, 2021 — The Promotores de Salud, a Spanish-speaking community health workers program that’s funded by the county with supplemental money from the Community Foundation to buy groceries for families in isolation or quarantine, is heading into its third month. The promotores focus on getting information out to people who need it, often in person, by handing out fliers or calling people at...

In the past, there has been no groundwater regulation in Ukiah. Municipalities, agricultural users, and individuals could use their wells to pump as much water out of underground aquifers as they wanted. But That is about to change. Groundwater regulation in the Ukiah Valley is on its way. Yesterday, the Ukiah Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which is in charge of figuring out how to mana...