Cloverdale Vice Mayor Todd Lands has spent the better part of this month working the phones with the Trump administration, lobbying USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and her staff to derail PG&E’s plan to tear down the Potter Valley dams. He told the Press Democrat last week that 750,000 people in the Russian River basin depend…
Author: Roger Coryell
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Appeals court blocks Santa Rosa mobilehome park owners from recouping wildfire-era rent increases
A 1st District ruling sets statewide precedent on California’s price-gouging law and clears the way for hundreds of Santa Rosa residents to keep their post-emergency rents intact. A California appellate court has barred Santa Rosa mobilehome park owners from raising rents to make up for annual increases they couldn’t impose during the multi-year wildfire state…
Lake Mendocino.(Alexey Komarov)
The lake that feeds the upper Russian River is losing ground
Lake Mendocino was about 10,000 acre-feet above the threshold for critical conditions on April 24. Operators have already cut Coyote Dam outflow by about 65%. Lake Mendocino is getting tight, and Russian River releases are dropping Lake Mendocino entered the last week of April with less room than water managers want heading into summer. On…
An aggressive man serves eviction notice to worried elderly couple outside a mobile home.
Petaluma mobile home residents say park owners are running a smear campaign against their advocate
Residents from three Petaluma parks flooded Monday’s city council meeting to defend Jody Johnson, who has led their fight against major rent increases for three years On Friday afternoon, residents of Youngstown Mobile Home Park found an unusual document on their doorsteps. Hand-delivered — reportedly by the park’s own manager — the packet appeared to…
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After three years tied to the dock, Bodega Bay’s salmon fleet gets blessed again
For three salmon seasons, the boats at Spud Point Marina haven’t gone out for salmon. They’ve sat. Crews scattered. Some skippers picked up crab work or rockfish, some got out of fishing altogether, a few sold the boat and the slip and walked off the dock for good. California’s commercial salmon fishery shut in 2022…
Witches, munchkins, and shelter mutts: Sebastopol’s Apple Blossom Parade hits 80
Sebastopol’s Apple Blossom Parade hits 80 this weekend, and the Chamber went and themed the whole thing “Blossoms of Oz.” Ruby slippers, yellow brick road, the works. Saturday morning you’ll have witches on flatbeds, Munchkins on Main Street and, if the Humane Society of Sonoma County’s plans hold, a small pack of adoptable shelter dogs…
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Three years in: Is Sonoma County’s groundwater plan actually working?
The well at the back of your property doesn’t care what’s in a state filing. It runs, or it doesn’t. For thousands of Sonoma County households on private wells, that is the bottom line of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, the 2014 state law that forced local agencies to manage several of the county’s most…
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Sonoma County just rewrote the rules for big events: Here’s what changes June 9
Throwing a wedding on a vineyard? Hosting a charity 5K on a ranch? Running a summer concert series on a winery lawn? If your event happens in unincorporated Sonoma County, a new ordinance is about to reshape how you do it, and most of the people affected have no idea it exists yet. On June…
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Your Dungeness crab starts with one ice machine in Bodega Bay: Inside Sonoma County’s quietest infrastructure win
If you have ever cracked a fresh Sonoma Coast crab, slurped a local oyster or picked up a filet of wild rockfish at a Santa Rosa seafood counter, one very specific piece of equipment deserves a thank-you. Not a boat. Not a net. An ice machine. And for years, it has been quietly falling apart….