Caltrans District 1 staff and local officials got together at the annual Workers’ Memorial in Eureka yesterday morning to honor highway workers who lost their lives in the line of duty. A moment of silence was observed during the ceremony, followed by a tribute in which Caltrans staff presented 17 orange cones as District 1 Maintenance Manager Paul Johnson read the names of the fallen workers. You should know that workers put their lives on the line every day to make sure our roads and bridges remain safe. Caltrans District 1 services coastal and inland state highways in Humboldt, Del Norte, Lake, and Mendocino counties.
Fire crews with the Mendocino National Forest’s Grindstone Ranger District are planning an interagency prescribed burn at the Red Bluff Recreation Area on May 29, so long as the weather cooperates. Firefighters will attempt up to 400 acres of understory burning in an area south of Hwy 36 and east of I-5… within the Red Bluff city limits. Forest staff are coordinating the 400-acre maintenance burn with partners, including CAL-FIRE Tehama-Glenn Unit, City of Red Bluff Fire Department, Resource Conservation District of Tehama County and the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians. You should know that access to the Red Bluff Recreation Area will be limited, and firefighters would prefer you to avoid the area while burn operations are underway. Smoke may be visible in the city of Red Bluff and along the I-5 corridor.
Assembly Bill 1460, authored by local Assemblymember Chris Rogers, passed the Assembly on Monday and is now headed to the Senate. The bill protects access to the federal 340B discount drug program for clinics and health centers. Rogers says " the bill ensures that clinics and health centers can utilize this critical discount prescription drug program to support important services." AB 1460 prohibits manufacturers from using discriminatory practices to ensure fair access to this important federal program for clinics and health centers. The 340B program was founded in 1992 to help providers that serve vulnerable and uninsured patients secure affordable prescription drugs.
Attorneys for Auditor Chamise Cubbison slammed Mendocino County’s change of venue motion, calling it “waste of still more taxpayer dollars on an untimely, legally defective, and utterly frivolous” in a court filing. Therese Cannata, a San Francisco attorney representing Cubbison went on to say lawyers representing the county are "attacking every member of the press, and apparently every sitting judge in the County." The Ukiah Daily Journal says as of now, the county has spent more than $200,000 to resist the Cubbison civil case plus their failed bid to criminally prosecute her. Cubbison says she’s had to spend twice what the county has to defend herself, and that’s after going without salary or benefits for 17 months during her hearing.
UVFA Battalion Chief Justin Buckingham says a mower sparked a vegetation fire along Burke Hill Drive south of Ukiah yesterday afternoon. He said fortunately, the grass it was burning was somewhat wet, so the fire did not spread quickly. The Ukiah Daily Journal reports that fire crews from the UVFA and Cal Fire kept it down to about a quarter of an acre, and none of the surrounding structures were damaged and no one was injured.
The Sonoma-Mendocino GeoZone project still faces a long list of legal, regulatory and financial hurdles before construction, but the developer is already thinking ahead to hiring. CEO Geof Syphers says his plan to nearly double the amount of electricity from naturally occurring heat deep below Mendocino and Sonoma counties could create thousands of new jobs in the region. Syphers says he plans to hire workers who live locally for at least 30% of the jobs he’s going to need. He says in order to meet that goal, he’ll need to form local partnerships with workforce development programs, and get a long-term commitment from the state in order to streamline geothermal energy. The Mendocino Voice says clean energy is a small but growing segment of Mendocino County’s workforce.
Everyone is invited to attend the first Cobb Mountain Forest Summit next month. The program, which has been created by the Seigler Springs Community Redevelopment Association, or SSCRA, will kick off the development of a Cobb Mountain Area Community Wildfire Protection Plan, or CWPP. To refresh your memory, Cobb was the epicenter of the 2015 Valley Fire and the community has been working round the clock, targeting hazardous fire fuels, while at the same time creating conditions that acknowledge that fire is an important part of the natural environment. The CWPP kickoff Summit is June 7 from 9 a.m to 3 p.m at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Cobb. Lake County News says space is limited and online registration is required at www.sscra.org.
The median price of a home in our neck of the woods is $380,500. Recent data from the California Association of Realtors shows home prices in the state are at a record high. Statewide, the median price of a single-family home was more than 910-thousand-dollars last month. Homes in the Bay Area top are the most expensive at nearly one-and-a-half-million-dollars.
