Fort Bragg Police and Mendocino County have been awarded a $2.5 million grant to expand their efforts to tackle homelessness. $1 million will go to Fort Bragg Police to add a third person to their Care Response Unit whose time will be split between Fort Bragg and county areas from Albion to Westport. The CRU first started in 2022 and officials say it has proven to be a successful model to help officers by adding someone who can help with certain social challenges like mental health. The other $1.5 million will go to the Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center to expand behavioral health services outside of Fort Bragg to more of the Mendocino Coast including some temporary and transitional housing to those who come to them from the Fort Bragg CRU Team.
A Redwood Valley man has been arrested three times in two days on vandalism charges. Ukiah Police say Aldar Fragoso was arrested September 20 for allegedly spray painting walls at Schat’s Bakery, Ukiah Brewing Company and Jax Boutique. Surveillance video showed Fragoso and he had previously been arrested for some graffiti on South State Street so was already in custody. But the added charges were not enough to keep him in custody and he bailed out. The next day a UPD Officer on patrol nearly hit Fragoso who was allegedly riding recklessly on his bike on South State so the officer chased him down. When he caught up to Fragoso he allegedly found him with several cans of spray paint and permanent markers so he was arrested again.
Now going strong for 77 years, the Ukiah Garden Club recently began its new season. The Ukiah Garden Club was established in 1947 and has been located at their Garden Club House on Clay Street since 1956. Their goals include promoting gardening for personal use as well as beautifying the city, helping with conservation efforts and furthering interests in horticulture and landscaping. They do this through ongoing projects such as garden tours, monthly educational programs, summer excursions, and plant sales. Garden Club President Denice Lovdal-Johnson tells the Ukiah Daily Journal that everyone is invited to attend their monthly educational program meetings which are held on the second Wednesday of each month from September to May.
You can hear from the eight candidates running for Clearlake City Council at a candidates forum Monday, Sept. 30. It will be held at Clearlake City Hall from 6pm to 8pm. There are three seats up for election in November. Expected at the forum are incumbents David Claffey, Joyce Overton and Russell Perdock, and challengers Tara Downey, Brett Freeman, Jessica Hooten, James Rivera and Mary Wilson. Lake County News editor and publisher Elizabeth Larson will moderate.
A repeat DUI driver from Ukiah has been convicted by a jury. The Mendocino DA says on Wednesday Lindsay Ann Nielsen was convicted for an incident that happened in May. He says she’d admitted before the trial that she’d been convicted of two other DUI’s within the last ten years – the other two times being in Lake County in 2017. There is no word yet on her sentencing.
A Ukiah man has been convicted on charges connected to three different armed carjackings on the same day. On Wednesday a jury found Justin Michael Hietala guilty of the attempted carjacking from a woman and her two children in the McDonald’s parking lot in central Ukiah on June 24, and again from the same women in the Pear Tree Shopping Center parking lot after she had escaped his first attempt, and then the completed carjacking from a patient transportation vehicle driver waiting to pick up a client at the dialysis clinic on South Orchard. The Mendocino DA says Hietala is being held in the Low Gap Jail until another hearing next month on the aggravated circumstance of this being three in one day before he is sentenced.
