Ca Fire reports having a townhall to discuss the ongoing work at the Jackson Demonstration Forest. Emphasis on Demonstration. They invite interested citizens to meet at Camp 20 at the State Forest this Saturday, June 26 at 10 a.m. They say it’s to allow community members an opportunity to express themselves and their ideas about forest management and for CAL FIRE to provide information and education about how they manage the Jackson Demonstration State Forest. It comes after activists all but stopped a logging operation by being on foot and asking loggers to stop their work. The manager of the loggers said they had to stop for everyone’s safety and they’d have to wait for either Cal Fire or law enforcement to step in and help.
The Delta strain of coronavirus which first surfaced in India has made its way to Calif. We told you it was in Sonoma County earlier this week… now we hear it’s in Trinity County. The Trinity County Public Health Office says it’s working with the state Dept. of Public Health and local healthcare providers, and laboratories to contain any positive cases, then share info on any strains identified in the county. They say all residents not yet vaccinated should do so. They say especially the Pfizer and Moderna variety are effective against the highly contagious and possibly deadlier strains. The department also says those who get an mRNA vaccine, that’s Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are less likely to have asymptomatic infection or to transmit COVID to anyone else.
The Gov. said 90,000 acres of land have been managed to protect against possible wildfires. But Capital Public Radio investigated and says it’s actually only 13% of the 90,000 acres. The gov. toured the state before the pandemic promising that he had started 35 high-priority forest management projects. The Cal Fire Chief is taking the heat though, saying Cal Fire did not do their job educating the public or the Governor’s office about the completed work. The Governor has not responded to the report or the Chief’s statement in response to it. But the Natural Resources Agency says the Chief spoke on his behalf.
More mandatory water conservation measures have been put in place in Sonoma County. As we are in another historic drought, the city councils in Petaluma and Sonoma followed Cloverdale, Healdsburg and Rohnert Park to approve the mandate to reduce the use of water plus restrictions on how water can be used and at what time of day. In Sonoma they’re asking residents to conserve by 20% of their use from 2018-2020. The five communities are asked to limit landscape irrigation, washing cars and other vehicles, filling swimming pools, wash down pavement and sidewalks, using potable water for dust control, using ornamental fountains and more.
An appeals court is looking at several gun laws in the state including large capacity magazine that have over 10 rounds of ammo. It could topple California’s 32 year old military style rifle ban which a district court overturned earlier this month. The ban was instituted after an AK-47 and large-capacity magazines were used at a school yard in Stockton where five children were killed in 1989. The democratic justices on the panel argued, among other things, that less people are killed if a shooter in a massacre had to stop to reload a gun, citing cases where people were able to escape; or if a shooter was caught as they tried to reload.
A woman in trouble with the law and the Mendocino County Superior Court evacuated after a bogus bomb threat. The Ten Mile Branch of court had to be closed and evacuated yesterday for about 45 minutes after a woman threw a bag inside the front entrance to the court. She reportedly told security officers there were explosives in the bag and fentanyl, before she left. A police officer from Fort Bragg went towards the bag, opening it and confirmed no bomb. The suspect was apparently a known homeless person with mental health issues. And since the county does not have a bomb sniffing dog, the officer took a chance. They’re still searching for the woman to arrest her for the fake bomb threat.
Several fires over the last week in Lake County look to have been caused by lawn mowers and cars. Lake Co News reports the Pomo Fire last Thursday burned 42 acres near Nice. That one started by a car fire but they’re still investigating. Another fire near Blue Lakes burned less than an acre was started by a tractor that ignited brush. The Hill Fire Sunday in north Lakeport was three fires that burned into one and blackened an acre after a car passed by, it’s being investigated as maybe being involved somehow. On Monday a bigger fire we reported on burned 25 acres. The Wilkinson Fire triggered evacuations and cars and motor homes were involved. With that firefighters remind, it’s hot and early in the summer which means we could have a potentially busy fire season. Be careful with lawnmowers that can hit rocks and spark fires.
A special Clearlake City Council meeting’s called for to discuss bringing on a new finance director. The meeting this morning at 10-30 with limited in person capacity, and the rest on the city’s Zoom account. You can catch it on YouTube too. The council’s considering hiring Kelcey Young as the city’s director of finance starting July 18th. She would make about 120,000/year plus relocation help and other benefits. Andrew White, the city’s police chief has been the acting finance director in the interim.
It’s not gone, just smoldering. That’s what the Mendocino County Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren had to say about the Covid-19 pandemic to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday. Dr. Coren says there have been clusters of cases in local businesses, schools and churches and more cases since Memorial Day, Father’s Day and graduations. He also warned the July 4th holiday and summer travel are around the corner, so his priority is to get more people to get their vaccine. The county is averaging about 5-7 cases/100,000 people at the moment, with the most cases Coren says in Ukiah, Redwood Valley and Willits where the lowest vaccination rates have been recorded.
An urgency ordinance is in place in Humboldt County after their Board of Supervisors extended the hemp cultivation moratorium for the coastal zone. It’s for another six months until the county gets feedback from the California Coastal Commission. The board initially passed a permanent ban on industrial hemp cultivation instead of a temporary moratorium, but they reportedly intended on amending the ordinance one day to allow for research into noncommercial hemp cultivation. Also the College of the Redwoods was interested in some growing for educational and research purposes.
It’s not always easy filling county positions, so the Lake County Board of Supervisors has given the go-ahead to increase the incentives for jobs that have been hard to fill. That could include a potential sign on bonus, for some jobs, it might be as much as $10,000 which will come from cannabis tax revenue. The positions are many that could get that high signing bonus, including for lawyers, engineers, licensed medical staff, mid/senior-level managers and social workers, and mental health and substance abuse professionals. There are incentives for the sheriff’s office too of up to $10,000 for deputies. The sheriff said though that retention is just as much of a challenge as recruitment.
After the 2020 Presidential Election there were concerns raised due to All-Mail-in-voting, which was of course, due to the pandemic. The Mendocino County Grand Jury investigated the All Mail In Ballots and how they were distributed and how the County’s Elections Office ran for the November 2020 election. The jury also looked into the county’s participation in the Voters Choice Act of 2016 and computer systems installed for the 2020 Primary and General elections and found the results were reliable. The jury’s report said the county can rely on the election results as reported by the Elections Office of Mendocino County to assure accurate vote tallies. And the report said there wasn’t much of an impact on the workload for the local county Elections Office staff and volunteers from prior elections.
