Wine Country Gazette
Friday, October 9, 2026
Halfpoint/Adobe Stock
Governance
Clearlake’s request for proposals sets Dec. 1 for a senior center operator to take over. The council discusses it Thursday. The meal contract belongs to Highlands Senior Service Center, the nonprofit running the center now.
Crime
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office will meet Guerneville residents 5 to 6 p.m. Oct. 14 at Rio Nido Station on downtown quality-of-life and public-safety…
Governance
FEMA approved a $5.5 million reimbursement to Sonoma County for road repairs after the January 2017 winter storms, the county said Oct. 5. The…
Water
Lake Sonoma ended the year about a foot higher despite 12 inches less rain. Lake Mendocino closed Water Year 2026 holding about 9,100 acre-feet…
Governance
Lake County supervisors adopted the 2026-27 budget Oct. 1, a day before the state deadline, by pulling funding from vacant general fund jobs after…
Community
River Arts' First Saturday ArtWalk fills downtown Guerneville from 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 3 with handmade brooms, photography, ceramics, metal sculptures, a party-hat…
Environment
The National Weather Service put the hills of western Sonoma County and the mountains of Sonoma and Napa counties under a heat advisory from…
Housing
Fort Bragg's council again put off fixing a decades-old conflict over apartments in commercial zones, continuing the hearing to Nov. 9 as the city…
Governance
Santa Rosa ended the last fiscal year with $11.07 million in unspent Measure M parks tax money, about three-quarters of what all nine cities…
Housing
Days after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill to give new homeowners time to fix inherited code violations, Napa County staff sketched a local…
Water
The Clear Lake co-management agreement took effect Sept. 11 with all 23 governments signed. Lake County's announcement called the approval four to one; the…
Wine & Ag
Robert Mondavi Winery welcomed guests back to its Oakville estate Saturday for its 2026 Vintage Premiere dinner. It was the first edition of the…
Wine & Ag
While much of the California wine business pulls vines and trims payroll, Brassfield Estate Winery has spent the downturn buying land and hiring salespeople,…
Water
Clearlake Oaks County Water District's five-year rate schedule takes a home's combined water and sewer base bill from $129.11 to $207.63 a month —…
Water
The Clearlake City Council takes up the Clear Lake watershed co-management agreement Thursday. The version in front of it lists 23 governments, one more…
Water
State regulators gave the Meadow Pointe water system five years to get off gasoline-contaminated wells. The deadline passed in December 2022. Since 2017, $1.3…
Fire & Safety
Bay Area forecasters project Energy Release Component values past the 97th percentile in the North Bay this weekend. No Red Flag Warning is in…
Governance
The city is taking applications for a public seat on the Lake County Sanitation District board. Supervisors decide Aug. 18 whether the seat exists…
Business
A new Visit Napa Valley study puts the valley first in its competitive set on familiarity, perception and likelihood to visit. State data covering…
Crime
Tunoa Meo got 25 years to life Friday for stabbing his wife to death in Santa Rosa. The district attorney’s office says Proposition 57…
Wine & Ag
Sonoma County's 2026 winegrape harvest began July 16, nearly two weeks earlier than any start the county's growers association has documented. The crop is…
Water
A Napa County civil grand jury said in June that decades of sediment in the St. Helena water mains had never been assessed and…
Housing
Lake County gained thousands of residents and lost more than a thousand homes since 2010, nearly all in the 2015 Valley Fire. Eleven years…
Governance
A Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury report says Petaluma let years of animal services failures slide. The city says the jury misread the law.…
Fire & Safety
A brush fire this week was the reminder: the state-owned Sonoma Developmental Center campus in Glen Ellen is out of compliance with the county…
Water
A minor coastal flood advisory runs through Thursday. The National Weather Service says 3 to 6 inches of tonight's high tide is sea level…
Water
Sonoma County's supervisors approved a 15-year water contract with Marin on the consent calendar, with no discussion. The number that mattered — a near-doubling…
Legal
The state Supreme Court won't review the appellate ruling that upheld IOLERO's subpoena power. That ends a two-year fight and clears the Sonoma County…
Mental Health
Hours after supervisors killed the jail's long-planned 72-bed mental health wing and moved its money to a proposed Los Guilicos campus, a man died…
Water
Brenda Adelman spent 45 years watching the Russian River's wastewater permits. Her group folded this spring, and more than 100 boxes of river history…
Legal
Piner's Nursing Home in Napa sold for $6.25 million and rebranded as Napa Community Health Center, even as a civil elder-abuse lawsuit over a…
Water
St. Helena's water runs from an 1878 earthen dam built by Chinese laborers in York Canyon to today's Bell Canyon reservoir — a 150-year…
Legal
Three former workers have sued the operators of Yountville's French Laundry in Napa County Superior Court since March, alleging unpaid hours, missed breaks and…
Governance
Sonoma County supervisors won't ask voters to strengthen Measure P this November, reversing a plan floated two weeks earlier. The county named auditor Matthew…
Community
The civil grand jury gives Sonoma County's open-space agency a clean review — and flags the 2031 expiration of the tax that funds it.
Business
Opinion: Sonoma County's $47 dump fee works as a customer-acquisition strategy for Republic and Recology — and voters pay twice.
Business
Robledo Family Winery, Sonoma's first Mexican American family winery, files for bankruptcy in California wine's worst quarter in years.
Governance
Yountville's town manager walked into a performance review and out of a job — the second city he's left under the same cover story.
Wine & Ag
Cloverdale's vice mayor is lobbying Washington to save the Eel River dams. The city's own water plan says Cloverdale doesn't need them.
Housing
An appeals court bars Santa Rosa mobilehome park owners from recouping wildfire-era rent increases, setting statewide price-gouging precedent.
Governance
Petaluma mobile home residents say park owners hand-delivered a smear dossier against the advocate leading their rent fight.
