The Willits City Council isn’t moving forward on a project to be sure the groundwater is staying resilient. They had a two hour meeting with public comment a couple weeks ago and took no action on the Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND) for the Groundwater Resiliency Improvement Project. The study has to be done by state law if they’re eyeing a project, just like an environmental impact report. This project looking at developing groundwater, giving the city of Willits a secondary water source and help the city meet its water needs. They were looking to add hundreds of feet of piping, upgrade some piping and replace a pump, plus put in a new 250,000-gallon chlorine contact tank at the groundwater treatment facility.
Since there’s stormy weather and snow in some passes, Highway 20 was closed while plows could be brought in. Caltrans officials in Mendocino and Lake counties closed the route so it would be safer for travel on both sides west of the Mendocino/Lake County Line near Witter Springs. They brought plows in around dinner time and had cleared one lane. There were also a bunch of cars stuck on State Route 175 between Hopland and Lakeport. After the plows came in on Highway 20 traffic was still slow going.
The state Legislature is reportedly considering mandating all K-12 public schools put COVID-19 testing plans in place for students and staff and earmark the cash to do it. The legislation, if it passes would be for pre-schools, childcare centers and afterschool programs too. It would require the state Dept. of Public Health work with school districts on a testing plan, but it doesn’t specify how much testing there would have to be, or anything about vaccines. The money for the new plan would be found later, depending on how many tests school districts already had received from state and federal governments for school testing.
The former Sergeant in the Ukiah Police Department who faces felony sex crime charges is still out on bail even though prosecutors filed to get his bail revoked after a recent arrest. Kevin Murray was recently arrested for petty theft in Lake County, but the judge didn’t change his bail arrangement. The prosecution said the recent arrest showed a failure to follow and obey the law, which was a condition of his release. He was charged previously for burglary, sex assault, preparing false evidence and possession of an illegal AR-15 considered an assault weapon under state law. There’s also a civil suit against him, filed by a former female colleague who says she was sexually assaulted by Murray too.
A man from the Bay Area suspected in the death of a man may also be involved in a marijuana business robbery near Laytonville. Mendo Fever and Kym Kemp are both reporting LaTrail White is in the Solano County jail where he’s waiting his preliminary hearing for murder. But he could also be one of four men from the Bay Area connected to an armed robbery with assault rifles in Sept. of 2020 at the Black Oak Ranch, a community north of Laytonville. Three men, a woman and a girl were reportedly held at gunpoint while the men demanded weed and money. One of them, from out of town was found and hogtied by locals. And apparently White was one of the men, caught the first day by police and found with several assault rifles in a van. But apparently the charges against White were dropped in that case. The alleged murder tied to him happened last summer.
A man pulled over by Fort Bragg police has been arrested. Police say he seemed to be driving drunk last Friday. Michael McSorley was told to get out of his car and found with an un-registered concealed firearm with a high capacity magazine and a concealed dirk/dagger. He would not agree to field sobriety tests so he was arrested. In the car they found a loaded .45 caliber handgun, a glass pipe and a white substance that looked like meth. He was arrested and charged with several crimes and held in jail.
An apartment complex that had been proposed for low income farm laborers and wildfire victims in Lakeport has been approved by the federal government. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reportedly given the green light for the exemption for the 48-unit Martin Street Apartments, phase two. And this phase could be ready for folks to move in this summer. The developer got agriculture housing credits so they were supposed to have tenants who were farm laborers, but apparently they only rented two units. So last summer, after the Cache fire broke out, the city asked developers if survivors of the fire could move in and were told no, but then they reached out to the fed anyway to see. They ended up getting a waiver after the city got in touch with Congressman Mike Thompson’s office.
The Ukiah Planning Commission is considering an application for a cannabis dispensary near City Hall. The documents related to the proposed business on Seminary Avenue say the retailer would sell cannabis products and deliver them. The building is the former Mixies restaurant and near the Ukiah Civic Center and the Veteran’s Hall. They’ll be checking zoning codes at the meeting on Zoom today. A cannabis business is not allowed to be near a school, one is close, but far enough away. And it can’t be near any other youth-oriented facility, which of there are many, but they too are far enough away. There are some other limitations too, all to be discussed this evening.
The Planning Commission meeting is at 6 p.m. at the following link: https://zoom.us/j/91264543193
The annual report on Cannabis sales for medical use has been released. The group Americans for Safe Access released the report looking at how each state’s programs work and how effective they are. They base it on 100 categories like access, affordability, health and social equity, and product safety. The annual report is distributed to state lawmakers and several hundred health organizations and patient organizations. And they come up with solutions to problems with legislative and regulatory language. California has been in the medical marijuana business for 25 years. The agency says it works to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. You can read the state of the states report at their website.
PG&E has permission to raise their rates. Starting Tuesday, the energy company will bring rates up to over 8% more for small businesses. Just 2 weeks ago the Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to allow the company to bring rates up beginning March 1st. A spokesperson for PG&E says they had to raise rates because of recent drought conditions which lowered the cost of hydroelectric generation across the western U.S., and higher natural gas and wholesale electricity. All of this from last year but was predicted to continue this year. And a report from the PUC in May of last year also said the company’s rates would probably increase by nearly 4% between 2020 and 2030. The Press Democrat has also reported various other California investor-owned utility companies rates had also risen.
