Five Lake County winery licenses have lapsed since June, leaving 38, state records show. Lake grape prices fell 38% in two years, far more than in Mendocino, Sonoma or Napa.
Roger Coryell / Wine Country Gazette
Roger Coryell
Roger Coryell reports on water, local government and the wine business across Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties. He edited the Sonoma County Gazette until its closing in 2026, and his reporting has appeared through Bay City News and Local News Matters, The Mendocino Voice and the Sebastopol Times. Reach him at roger@rogercoryell.com or 707-394-2642.
Mount Konocti rises over Clear Lake, seen from the Lakeport waterfront on June 7, 2026. (Roger Coryell)
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 possible new names.
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)
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.
Bodega Harbor, seen from the east shore in Bodega Bay on May 14, 2026. (Roger Coryell / Wine Country Gazette)
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 no later than Dec. 31.
A sign welcomes visitors to Cloverdale on Feb. 25, 2023. (Sarah Stierch / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
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 a draft censure resolution.
Roger Coryell / Wine Country Gazette
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, starting May 1, 2027.
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 15% contained.
West of Cloverdale, a prescribed burn crosses its lines
Cal Fire calls it the Cooley Fire and now lists 731 acres, 5% contained.
The Veterans Memorial Building stands at First and Church streets in Guerneville on Aug. 18, 2026. A 2019 engineers' report found the 1957 hall, home to West County Community Services' year-round homeless shelter, would likely be unusable after an earthquake. (Roger Coryell/Wine Country Gazette)
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 there says the county isn’t obligated to make structural repairs.
A sign reading “Monte Rio Awaits Your Return” hangs above a street in Monte Rio in front of a house and wooded hills, Nov. 9, 2009. (Stepheng3/Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
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 of the Monte Rio lots touch the river’s flood area.