Wine Country Gazette™ – Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake Counties

Lake County supervisors, from left, Eddie Crandell, Jessica Pyska, Chair Brad Rasmussen, Helen Owen and Bruno Sabatier, at the board's special budget meeting Oct. 1, 2026, in Lakeport. (Screen capture from County of Lake video)

Governance

Lake County administrator Susan Parker to retire Dec. 31

Lake County Administrative Officer Susan Parker will retire Dec. 31, three weeks after supervisors evaluated her in closed session. The county named no successor. Two residents’ written comments for the review raised county finances.

By Roger Coryell Oct. 28

Latest stories

Opinion

A Referral Is Not a Roof

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…

Oct. 28
Homelessness

Sonoma County homeless count holds flat, officials warn

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…

Oct. 28
Governance

Lake County supervisors shelve fire station fee waiver

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…

Oct. 28
Health

Lake County tops state for fentanyl, overdose death rates

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…

Oct. 27
Wine & Ag

Lake County winery licenses fall to 38 as grape prices slide

Five Lake County winery licenses have lapsed since June, leaving 38, state records show. Lake grape prices fell 38% in two years, far more…

Oct. 26
Governance

Lake County supervisors take up renaming the courthouse

Lake County Superior Court has left the Forbes Street building in Lakeport, and a county survey put County of Lake Civic Center first among…

Oct. 25
Governance

Lake County turns to outside engineer for road commissioner job

State law requires a licensed civil engineer in the job and ties the county’s gas tax money to filling it.

Oct. 25
Business

Bodega Bay’s icehouse replacement slips to 2027, county says

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…

Oct. 24
Governance

Cloverdale council warns Morgenstern, stops short of censure

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…

Oct. 22
Water

Objections to Sonoma Water’s Russian River flow cut due Monday

Sonoma Water wants to lower the required minimum flow in the Russian River past Guerneville from 125 to 70 cubic feet per second again,…

Oct. 19
Fire & Safety

West of Cloverdale, Cooley Fire grows to 1.8 square miles

The fire that began Friday as a prescribed burn on a ranch west of Cloverdale grew by about 425 acres Sunday. Crews had it…

Oct. 19
Fire & Safety

West of Cloverdale, a prescribed burn crosses its lines

Cal Fire calls it the Cooley Fire and now lists 731 acres, 5% contained.

Oct. 17
Governance

Guerneville: Our hall is falling down

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…

Oct. 16
Housing

Sonoma County ends ADU ban on 3,997 lots, 494 in Monte Rio

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…

Oct. 15
Governance

Sonoma County’s Wohler Bridge will stay closed past Oct. 30 target

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…

Oct. 14
Health

Santa Rosa nursing home on federal list of troubled homes

Federal inspectors found that missed skin checks led to maggots in a resident's toe wound and the amputation of his toe.

Oct. 12
Health

Sonoma County supervisors weigh 9% ambulance rate increase

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…

Oct. 12
Education

Lake County leads California in suspending students

Mendocino County tied for fourth in suspensions, and both counties rank near the top of the state for chronic absence.

Oct. 11
Health

Sebastopol elder care home cited for neglect, fire risk

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…

Oct. 11
Water

Sebastopol weighs $5 million federal loan for Well 4 package

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…

Oct. 11
Water

Vacation Beach dam repair outgrows park district’s staff

The Guerneville park district that owns the broken Vacation Beach summer dam is hiring a project manager as the repair grows, and neighbors have…

Oct. 11
Housing

Lower Russian River rentals top the cap in all 7 zones

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…

Oct. 11
Water

Lower Russian River could run at 70 cfs next summer

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…

Oct. 11
Crime

Guerneville sees fewer deputy patrols as calls hold steady

Sheriff’s data show deputy-initiated activity in Guerneville fell 58% from 2025, while calls from the public stayed flat.

Oct. 11
Governance

Clearlake seeks senior center operator by Dec. 1

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…

Oct. 8
Crime

Guerneville downtown safety meeting set for Oct. 14

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…

Oct. 7
Governance

Sonoma County to get $5.5 million for 2017 storm repairs

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…

Oct. 5
Water

Lake Mendocino ends water year 5 feet lower than 2025

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…

Oct. 3
Governance

Lake County adopts budget by unfunding vacant county jobs

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…

Oct. 3
Community

Guerneville ArtWalk brings brooms, photos and street music

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…

Oct. 2
Environment

Heat advisory covers Sonoma and Napa hills, not valley towns

The National Weather Service put the hills of western Sonoma County and the mountains of Sonoma and Napa counties under a heat advisory from…

Oct. 1
Housing

Fort Bragg delays housing fix as state target nears 5 times

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…

Sept. 30
Governance

Santa Rosa holds $11 million in unspent parks tax money

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…

Sept. 30
Housing

Napa passes on help for buyers stuck with code violations

Days after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill to give new homeowners time to fix inherited code violations, Napa County staff sketched a local…

Sept. 30
Water

Clear Lake pact takes effect after a split Lake County vote

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…

Sept. 30
Wine & Ag

Vintage Premiere Dinner at Robert Mondavi Winery

Robert Mondavi Winery welcomed guests back to its Oakville estate Saturday for its 2026 Vintage Premiere dinner. It was the first edition of the…

Sept. 27
Wine & Ag

At Brassfield, a Lake County estate pushes its chips in while the market pulls back

While much of the California wine business pulls vines and trims payroll, Brassfield Estate Winery has spent the downturn buying land and hiring salespeople,…

Aug. 28
Water

Clearlake Oaks water, sewer bills head 61% higher by 2031

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 —…

Aug. 5
Water

Clearlake weighs a Clear Lake pact that gained a seventh tribe

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…

Aug. 4
Water

Upper Lake wells still pumping past a 2022 state deadline

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…

Aug. 3
Fire & Safety

North Bay fuel dryness is headed past the 97th percentile

Bay Area forecasters project Energy Release Component values past the 97th percentile in the North Bay this weekend. No Red Flag Warning is in…

Aug. 1
Governance

Clearlake recruits for a sewer board seat not yet created

The city is taking applications for a public seat on the Lake County Sanitation District board. Supervisors decide Aug. 18 whether the seat exists…

July 29
Business

Napa’s tourism economy broke even last year. Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake lost ground

A new Visit Napa Valley study puts the valley first in its competitive set on familiarity, perception and likelihood to visit. State data covering…

July 28
Crime

Santa Rosa man gets 25 to life in wife’s stabbing death

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…

July 24
Wine & Ag

Sonoma County’s earliest harvest in decades begins

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…

July 24
Water

Grand jury flagged the pipes in St. Helena. Then a bus hit a hydrant

A Napa County civil grand jury said in June that decades of sediment in the St. Helena water mains had never been assessed and…

July 21
Housing

Lake County lost more than a thousand homes to fire. Nobody will say how many came back.

Lake County gained thousands of residents and lost more than a thousand homes since 2010, nearly all in the 2015 Valley Fire. Eleven years…

July 20
Governance

Petaluma to vote on rejecting all eight grand jury findings

A Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury report says Petaluma let years of animal services failures slide. The city says the jury misread the law.…

July 16
Fire & Safety

Sonoma Developmental Center still out of fire-code compliance

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…

July 15
Water

San Pablo Bay floods tonight, and no storm is behind it

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…

July 14
Water

Sonoma keeps saying yes to Marin’s Russian River pipeline

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…

July 13
Legal

Sonoma County’s sheriff watchdog keeps its subpoena power

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…

July 9
Mental Health

Sonoma County jail death follows vote to scrap mental health wing

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…

July 9
Water

Who is going to watch the Russian River?

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…

July 5
Legal

Napa nursing home sold for $6.25M, fentanyl suit pending

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…

June 18
Water

St. Helena: where the town’s water comes from

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…

June 16
Legal

Yountville’s French Laundry faces three labor lawsuits

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…

June 14
Governance

Sonoma County drops plan to put Measure P update on ballot

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…

June 12
Community

Grand jury gives Sonoma’s open-space agency a clean review — and flags a 2031 cliff

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.

May 10
Business

Opinion: A quiet scam at the dumps voters own — and pay twice to clean up after

Opinion: Sonoma County's $47 dump fee works as a customer-acquisition strategy for Republic and Recology — and voters pay twice.

May 5
Business

Sonoma’s first Mexican American family winery is in bankruptcy court

Robledo Family Winery, Sonoma's first Mexican American family winery, files for bankruptcy in California wine's worst quarter in years.

May 2
Governance

Yountville’s town manager walked into a performance review. He walked out resigned.

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.

April 30
Wine & Ag

Cloverdale’s own water plan says the city doesn’t need the Eel River dams its vice mayor is fighting to save

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.

April 26
Housing

Appeals court blocks Santa Rosa mobilehome park owners from recouping wildfire-era rent increases

An appeals court bars Santa Rosa mobilehome park owners from recouping wildfire-era rent increases, setting statewide price-gouging precedent.

April 26
Governance

Petaluma mobile home residents say park owners are running a smear campaign against their advocate

Petaluma mobile home residents say park owners hand-delivered a smear dossier against the advocate leading their rent fight.

April 25

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