Wine Country Gazette
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
A downtown Middletown intersection with a Highway 175 sign, September 2023. The photo does not show a school or a polling place. (Photo by Sarah Stierch via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, CC BY 4.0)
Community
Middletown Unified's $38 million Measure C school bond stood at 54.59% yes in Lake County's election-night count, short of the 55% it needs. The count covers 7,757 ballots, about 1 in 5 registered voters.
The day’s stories from Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties, picked by the editor. Free.
Business
The Madrona, Healdsburg's two-Michelin-Key hotel on Westside Road, told the state it will close temporarily Jan. 3 and lay off 77 workers. Its booking…
Community
Questions are due by Nov. 15. The county's release doesn't say which agencies will be there, but the record shows 66 Flock cameras across…
Food & Wine
Rich Parducci, who began learning his family’s wine business at age 12, has been named the 2026 recipient of the George Zeni Award for…
Community
Lake County supervisors on Tuesday take up a plan to raise the $20 Clear Lake mussel sticker to $30 in July 2027 and to…
Community
Police tested the Intelvi AI cameras for six months without a council vote, and staff want a year-to-year contract the chief could renew four…
Community
Sonoma County will hold a drop-in open house Nov. 10 on its $4.6 million plan to seismically retrofit the 1934 Bohemian Highway Bridge in…
Community
More than 35 local makers sell ceramics, jewelry, textiles and more at River Arts’ free Autumn Craft Fair, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov.…
Opinion
A 65-year-old homeless writer says vacant apartments, waiting lists and housing lotteries treat people as economic terms, and asks what Jesus would do.
Food & Wine
The Lodge at Dawn Ranch serves a $175 tasting menu from co-executive chefs Juliana Thorpe and Ignacio 'Nacho' Zuzulich. Chronicle critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan…
Community
Lake County Administrative Officer Susan Parker will retire Dec. 31, three weeks after supervisors evaluated her in closed session. The county named no successor.…
Opinion
A 65-year-old Santa Rosa writer living on $1,260 a month says a referral is not housing and asks that success be measured by people…
Homelessness
Sonoma County counted 1,951 homeless people this year, one fewer than 2025, but health officials told supervisors the count hides rising chronic and youth…
Community
Lake County supervisors set aside a $27,000 fee waiver for a new Hidden Valley Lake fire station, hired NCE as road commissioner and began…
Health
Lake County had the highest fentanyl and overall overdose death rates of any California county in 2025, preliminary state figures show, while Mendocino County’s…
Food & Wine
Five Lake County winery licenses have lapsed since June, leaving 38, state records show. Lake grape prices fell 38% in two years, far more…
Community
Lake County Superior Court has left the Forbes Street building in Lakeport, and a county survey put County of Lake Civic Center first among…
Community
State law requires a licensed civil engineer in the job and ties the county’s gas tax money to filling it.
Business
A $75,000 state grant for the Spud Point Marina ice plant asks Sonoma County for a final report when the work is done, and…
Community
The council voted 4-0, with one abstention, to issue Councilmember Marjorie Morgenstern a formal warning over her treatment of city staff instead of adopting…
Water
Sonoma Water wants to lower the required minimum flow in the Russian River past Guerneville from 125 to 70 cubic feet per second again,…
Fire & Safety
The fire that began Friday as a prescribed burn on a ranch west of Cloverdale grew by about 425 acres Sunday. Crews had it…
Fire & Safety
Cal Fire calls it the Cooley Fire and now lists 731 acres, 5% contained.
Community
A 2019 engineers' report says Guerneville's 1957 veterans hall will likely be unusable after an earthquake, and the county's new license with the shelter…
Housing
Sonoma County will stop banning ADUs on 3,997 unincorporated parcels Nov. 5. About half touch high or very high fire hazard land, and half…
Community
Sonoma County now expects to reopen the century-old Wohler Bridge over the Russian River this winter, about a year later than the county first…
Health
Federal inspectors found that missed skin checks led to maggots in a resident's toe wound and the amputation of his toe.
Health
Sonoma County Fire District had asked for 16.36% and has agreed to cooperate with an independent financial audit. Supervisors take up the 9% increase…
Education
Mendocino County tied for fourth in suspensions, and both counties rank near the top of the state for chronic absence.
Health
State reports describe a bedridden resident’s pressure injuries, a resident who tried to set a bathroom on fire and missing records for a state…
Water
City staff recommend a federal WIFIA loan for Well 4 and two other water projects. The packet lists no interest rate, and staff’s own…
Water
The Guerneville park district that owns the broken Vacation Beach summer dam is hiring a project manager as the repair grows, and neighbors have…
Housing
County permit records count 188 vacation rentals in seven lower-river zones capped at 5% of homes. Eighteen applicants wait for an opening, the longest…
Water
Sonoma Water wants the state to keep its Lake Mendocino drought index past Nov. 16 and cut the lower river’s minimum flow in a…
Crime
Sheriff’s data show deputy-initiated activity in Guerneville fell 58% from 2025, while calls from the public stayed flat.
Community
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…
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…
Community
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…
Community
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…
Community
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…
Food & Wine
Robert Mondavi Winery welcomed guests back to its Oakville estate Saturday for its 2026 Vintage Premiere dinner. It was the first edition of the…
Food & Wine
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…
Community
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…
Food & Wine
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…
Community
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…
Community
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.
Community
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.
Food & Wine
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.
Community
Petaluma mobile home residents say park owners hand-delivered a smear dossier against the advocate leading their rent fight.
