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 Chavez interim oversight director as it leans on collaboration with the Sheriff’s Office.
Year: 2026
Napa grand jury flags planning turnover, stalled software
A Napa County civil grand jury says the city Planning Division kept permits on schedule even after losing its four most senior staff in a year, but warns spreadsheets, undeployed software and no succession plan leave it fragile.
Top-down view of parched, cracked earth texture with small green plants emerging
Napa’s groundwater fee lands on growers and well owners
Napa County’s new Groundwater Sustainability Fee starts next budget year, landing on Napa Valley Subbasin growers and rural well owners. Here’s who pays, how much, and how to contest your bill before it arrives.
A Google Nest smart thermostat. Sonoma Clean Power is offering free thermostats, installation and bill credits to income-qualified customers in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. (George Lane, Feb. 13, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
Sonoma Clean Power to install 1,000 free smart thermostats
Sonoma Clean Power will install free smart thermostats in up to 1,000 income-qualified homes across Sonoma and Mendocino counties, the first phase of a $6 million push to build a regional virtual power plant.
Sonoma, Lake counties: PG&E power shutoff likely tonight
A red flag warning hits the North Bay mountains at 11 p.m. Wednesday and a PG&E power shutoff is likely in parts of Sonoma County. Southeast Lake County, including Cobb and Konocti, is under its own warning.
Photo by Styves Exantus (Pixels)
The Putah Fire started as CAL FIRE’s own controlled burn
The 869-acre fire burning west of Winters began Monday as a CAL FIRE fuel-break burn along Highway 128. It escaped in rising wind, and the unit that lit it enters tonight’s red flag warning already committed.
Photo by Harrison Keely (cc)
Santa Rosa schools hire an Oakland administrator who’s seen state takeover up close
Santa Rosa City Schools picked its next superintendent from Oakland Unified — a district that spent 22 years under state control before clawing its way out last summer. Santa Rosa is fighting to keep from going in. Monica Thomas, a longtime Oakland administrator, was named June 4 to run Sonoma County’s largest school system. The…
Comstock Middle School closes for good as Santa Rosa schools claw out of fiscal crisis
SANTA ROSA — The last bell at Hilliard Comstock Middle School rang Friday, ending 54 years on West Steele Lane and closing one more campus in a Santa Rosa City Schools cost-cutting drive that district leaders describe as the deepest financial reckoning in their more than 100-year history. Comstock, which opened in January 1972 and…
Cotati hit with new federal civil rights lawsuit
COTATI — A federal civil rights lawsuit was filed Tuesday against the City of Cotati in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to court records — the third such case filed against the small Sonoma County city by a plaintiff named George Barich in the past decade. The case, Barich v….
Lake County: $4.9 million from state, all on Route 29
The California Transportation Commission’s $4.9 million allocation for Lake County all goes to state Route 29, including $3 million for a new turn lane near Twin Lakes and $1.9 million for safety upgrades from Middletown to Lower Lake.