Local News Matters
A whale of a homecoming: Skeletal leviathan gets new quarters in Fort Bragg after 17 years
A BLUE WHALE that died off the Mendocino Coast in 2009 finally has a home.
Roger Coryell
All clips written by Roger Coryell, owned by their publishers
357
stories
October 2026
SFGate
PG&E plans November repair of void at Cape Horn Dam in Mendocino County
PG&E plans to start repairing a void at the base of Cape Horn Dam by Nov. 20, according to a letter the utility filed with federal dam-safety regulators Oct. 6.
SFGate
Sheriff’s Office names father in deaths of his 2 children near Ukiah
The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office on Thursday named Alexander Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 44, of Ukiah as the father investigators believe killed his two children and then himself Oct. 9 at a home…
SFGate
No Kings’ rallies in 5 Mendocino County towns Saturday push early voting
No Kings comes back to five Mendocino County towns Saturday with a different ask: vote early. Fort Bragg is bringing large letters and yard signs.
Local News Matters
5 local measures on Mendocino County ballots Nov. 3: What each one does and costs
Mendocino County voters will decide five local measures in the Nov. 3 election. None is countywide. Each appears only on ballots inside the city or district that proposed it.
SFGate
Covelo man sought in alleged stabbing of acquaintance who gave him a ride
Mendocino County sheriff's deputies are looking for a 31-year-old man suspected of stabbing an acquaintance from behind on Thursday night in the unincorporated Mendocino County area of Covelo after asking…
September 2026
Local News Matters
Newsom declares Mendocino County storm emergency ahead of El Niño winter
Gov. Gavin Newsom this week declared a state of emergency in Mendocino County over February’s storm damage and ordered Caltrans to seek federal money to fix highways here.
Local News Matters
U.S. House of Representatives votes to speed up stalled Lake Mendocino dam study
The U.S. House voted last week to order the Army Corps of Engineers to speed up its study of raising Coyote Valley Dam at Lake Mendocino — a study the…
SFGate
Newsom vetoes Jackson Demonstration State Forest bill, citing need for flexibility
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 2494, which would have changed the management priorities for Jackson Demonstration State Forest and California’s 13 other demonstration state forests.
The Mendocino Voice
Lake Mendocino boat inspections funded two more years after golden mussel scare
Sonoma Water, which used to be known as the Sonoma County Water Agency, and which provides water to parts of Sonoma and Marin counties, will keep inspecting every boat that…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County’s healthcare backup to Medi-Cal may cut its eligibility and benefits
When Medi-Cal work requirements take effect Jan. 1, the program that’s supposed to catch Mendocino County residents who lose their coverage may narrow its own door on the same day.
The Mendocino Voice
The circus at Crowley came in by train. So does the audience
There’s no good road to Crowley. It’s a clearing in the woods west of Willits, at the summit of the Skunk Train’s line, and until Sept. 27, there’s a circus…
The Mendocino Voice
Your Mendocino County Garden: September
Everyone on the coast knows this, and nobody visiting believes it. The tourists pack up after Labor Day, and the sun comes out behind them like it was waiting for…
The Mendocino Voice
Fort Bragg will get the keys to the county-owned Veterans Memorial Building
Mendocino County supervisors met inside Fort Bragg’s Veterans Memorial Building on Tuesday and voted 5-0 to let the city run the hall.
The Mendocino Voice
Word Junkie: Mendocino County’s autumn edition
In Boonville, the county fair puts apples right in its name. It’s the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show.
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors weighs sea level rise rules for coastal building
On Tuesday, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors reviewed these proposed changes to the hazards section of the county’s Local Coastal Program: People who build on areas of the coast…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino schools broke water permit rules, county staff says
The Mendocino Unified School District has two new water tanks on its land off Little Lake Road. In July and August, it filled them with water pumped from its wells.
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month
Most celebratory months start on the first. Hispanic Heritage Month started Tuesday, Sept. 15. It is Independence Day in five countries. And it’s the night Mexico starts celebrating its own.
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County Supervisors weigh housing amnesty, composting toilets
A cabin demoted to a storage shed. Three shipping containers that cost more than $3,500 to permit.
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County supervisors meet in Fort Bragg Tuesday
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday in the Fort Bragg Veterans Memorial Building, and one agenda item is whether to turn over the running of that building to…
The Mendocino Voice
A white-eyed vireo is hiding in a Big River thicket
A small gray-green bird with white eyes has been living since Aug. 31 in a thicket beside the creek at the mouth of Big River, singing a song that belongs…
The Mendocino Voice
Potter Valley dam comments close Friday as Southern California district keeps fighting to join case
Anyone who wants a say in what federal regulators study before two Eel River dams come out has until 2 p.m. Friday to put it in writing, according to a…
The Mendocino Voice
Lake County officials hold public community briefing on the Lucas Fire
A press conference was held Sunday afternoon with Cal Fire and county officials to update the community on the blaze, which officials said had diminished a bit due to cooler…
The Mendocino Voice
The Nome Cult Walk, from Chico to Covelo, sets out Sunday in remembrance of tragedy
Walkers leave Chico on Sunday to trek to Covelo, 100 miles west over the north coast mountains, with a wildfire burning in the county they’re headed for. They’re going anyway.
The Mendocino Voice
Ukiah man held on more than $1 million bail in Sunnycrest stabbing
A 23-year-old man is in the Mendocino County Jail on $1,002,500 bail, accused of trying to kill a 53-year-old man in a stabbing Friday night at a Sunnycrest Drive property…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino’s sheriff is treasurer of a private nonprofit that funds the county’s trafficking raids
In May, Mendocino County sheriff’s deputies found a man at an illegal cannabis grow near Navarro who told them he had been forced to live and work there for two…
The Mendocino Voice
Judge halts logging above Dutch Charlie Creek with most of it already done
Logging on 926 acres in the hills west of Laytonville is stopped under two court orders at once. The First District Court of Appeal froze most timber operations there on…
The Mendocino Voice
Flynn Creek Circus comes to the redwoods, and the only way in is a train
A clearing in the Noyo River Canyon sports a red-topped circus tent. There’s no road access. Starting Sept. 11, the way in is a train.
The Mendocino Voice
Round Valley tribal cemetery vandalized north of Covelo; sheriff’s office logs case
Vandals damaged or scattered flowers, flags and memorial items on several gravesites at a Round Valley Indian Reservation cemetery north of Covelo, the Round Valley Tribal Police Department said.
The Mendocino Voice
Paul Bunyan Days fills Fort Bragg streets with trikes, classic cars and a giant axe
A man in a red plaid shirt and a knit cap shouldered an axe the size of a surfboard, leading a line of children, wagons and parents down Franklin Street…
The Mendocino Voice
One person hospitalized after water rescue at Jug Handle near Caspar
One person was taken to a hospital after a medical water rescue Thursday evening at Jug Handle State Natural Reserve near Caspar, a Cal Fire dispatch captain said Friday.
The Mendocino Voice
Sheriff’s office identifies Willits couple killed in Aug. 30 car crash off Mariposa Creek Road
The two people found dead Aug. 30 in a vehicle that went off a hillside outside Willits were Phillip R. Colvard, 68, and his wife, Bernice D. Colvard, 57, of…
The Mendocino Voice
Visit Ukiah reports flat county tourism but 89% jump in social media views
Mendocino County’s visitor economy has remained flat in recent years, while Visit Ukiah’s Facebook and Instagram views rose 89% over the past year, the Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliance…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County “not following the law” at Fort Bragg mill site
Eight households on Gibney Lane and Mallory Drive, in an unincorporated area outside Fort Bragg, draw their drinking water through carbon filters installed on their wells in 1992. The owners…
The Mendocino Voice
State recommends ‘danger’ advisory at Lake Pillsbury as toxic algae warnings spread across Lake and Mendocino counties
The State Water Resources Control Board has recommended a danger advisory, its highest warning for toxic algae, at Lake Pillsbury after sampling ahead of the Labor Day weekend found toxin…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County supes ban data centers—for the moment, at least
Mendocino County supervisors voted 5-0 Tuesday to adopt an urgency ordinance barring any new data center in the unincorporated county, the land outside city limits. It took effect immediately and…
The Mendocino Voice
Ukiah drops annexation proposal after two years, saying public never got behind it
The city of Ukiah is dropping the annexation proposal it spent two years building, saying the plan never won the public support it needed to go forward.
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County Supervisors approve taking a $4.5 million state grant to fight illegal cannabis grows
Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall spent much of Tuesday morning’s regular Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting explaining what his new $4.5 million cannabis enforcement grant won’t be used for.
August 2026
The Mendocino Voice
Safety standards could be preventing greater safety in Mendocino County’s vineyards?
Six machines work after dark, moving through 200 acres of organic vineyard outside Hopland. Nobody sits on them.
The Mendocino Voice
Judge called federal farmworker wage cut unlawful. Mendocino vineyards are still working under it.
Mendocino County growers have federal approval to fill 130 wine-grape jobs this season with farmworkers brought in from abroad on temporary visas. All but two of those jobs pay $16.90…
The Mendocino Voice
Jackson Demonstration State Forest bill clears the Legislature, but logging could continue
The bill, brought by state Assemblymember Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, whose district takes in the Mendocino coast, rewrites the mandate that has governed California’s demonstration state forests for decades. There…
The Mendocino Voice
Hay confrontation is no excuse for driving drunk, Mendocino County jury finds
The defense argument was that Jodine Rene Burkhart, 60, had no choice. An armed property owner had caught her loading his hay, and driving off drunk was the only way…
The Mendocino Voice
Fort Bragg’s new icehouse is generating complaints as well as ice
Most of the sea lions are out of town, which is lucky for the Noyo Harbor District.
The Mendocino Voice
Conservation Corps traded Ukiah cabins for $68 million campus in Willits
For more than three decades, the California Conservation Corps housed its Mendocino County crews in cabins on an old dairy farm south of Ukiah, bunks the young people helped hammer…
The Mendocino Voice
Anderson Valley’s earliest harvest meets its oldest problem: Visibility
Zac Robinson stopped at the end of a vine row on Monday, July 27, and pointed at a cluster turning from green to purple. Veraison, the last color change before…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County Sheriff blames the bench for Benjamin Miller’s release
It took the Mendo-Lake Regional SWAT Team to bring in Benjamin Miller the first time. A deputy had tried to contact him near Redwood Valley on the last day of…
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County needs a new tourism leader. Applications close Sept. 4
The tourism vehicle Visit Mendocino County is hiring a boss. The pay is $100,000 a year and applications close Friday, Sept. 4. The job includes a marketing budget that three…
The Mendocino Voice
Laytonville search ends in arrest; Willits man booked on 12 counts
Sheriff’s deputies arrested a Willits man near the Cahto Reservation on Tuesday evening. The arrest ended a search around Laytonville that had gone on since the weekend.
The Mendocino Voice
Williams Fire held to 19 acres east of Covelo
The Williams Fire burned 19 acres off Mendocino Pass Road east of Covelo and was 50% contained Wednesday morning, according to Cal Fire incident data.
The Mendocino Voice
New models say a rebuilt Eel River water link could keep Russian River supplied
One of the concerns about taking out the two dams of the Potter Valley Project — Scott and Cape Horn — is the loss of water downstream for agriculture, recreation…