A Red Flag Warning remains in effect until early Saturday for Eastern Mendocino and Northern Lake counties with a continuing risk of lightning through this evening. The National Weather Service says the threat will decrease over the weekend.
The Lake County Planning Commission has put off a decision on the major mixed-use development planned outside of Middletown at Guenoc Valley. The Commission says it needs more time to look over the documents and has decided to hold a special meeting on August 8th to discuss the project, including a new environmental impact report on the development, as well as the necessary amendments and zoning changes that would be required. The project would transform that part of southeastern Lake County with a 13,000-acre development that would eventually have up to 400 hotel rooms, 450 resort residential units, 1,400 residential estates, and 500 workforce co-housing units. The County Commission wants to know more about evacuation and infrastructure plans for the project. Some members say, as it is now, there aren’t enough ways out of the area in case of a disaster. Supporters say the scale of the development would be a boost to the Lake County economy with more visitors and more high-paying jobs at the high-end resort.The developer has owned the property since 2016, and the project has been on the drawing board for years, with back-and-forth legal wrangling over environmental and other concerns.
A new report suggests three area hospitals could be forced to close under the budget bill passed by Congress earlier this month. Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research puts Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, Adventist Health Clearlake, and Sutter Lakeside Hospital on a list of more than 300 mostly rural hospitals said to be at risk because of cuts to Medicaid. Of those at-risk hospitals, 28 are in California. The report uses two criteria for a hospital to make its list. It has to be among the top ten percent of those getting Medicaid reimbursements or have lost money for three years in a row. Overall,46 states had hospitals on the list, with Kentucky at the top, with 35. Democratic Senators who voted against the so-called Big Beautiful Bill have written to the President urging him to reconsider the cuts. Supporters of the budget think the predictions of hospital closures are overblown and that it will actually help Mediaid by making it more efficient for those who need it.
