NEWS ARTICLE ARCHIVE — in chronological order, with pagination below
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City”s Otis Johnson Park gets six-figure facelift
Fort Bragg Advocate-News Staff Writer Eighth grade math teacher Nick Tedesco left his Arizona classroom to join Americorps and make a difference in the environment. Sunday he led a daylong Americorps workday project at the City of Fort Bragg”s Otis Johnson Wilderness Park. He enjoyed the cool sunny weather and admired the improvements to the…
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Lighthouse, county, Hospitality House expanding homeless services
There is a hopping new dinner place in Fort Bragg where a full meal, shared with lots of friends, costs about $1.60 per night. “This is a place where you can eat very well for very little and where everybody can hold their head up. It”s the anti-soup kitchen, kitchen,” said Rex Gressett, one of…
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Noyo Harbor still waits for insurance sum
Whole towns in Japan have been rebuilt while the Noyo Harbor District waits for insurance money from damages caused by the March 11, 2011 tsunami. Harbor commissioners expressed frustration and bemusement at last week”s meeting that they are still waiting for payment from Navigators Insurance more than a year after a wave surge wrenched the…
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Hospitals, clinics prepare for mental health privatization
Fort Bragg Advocate-News Hospitals and clinics in Mendocino County are involved in a behind-the-scenes process both to recreate mental health care and respond to Mendocino County”s efforts to privatize mental health services. At the request of the Mendocino County Mental Health Board, Susan Era and Sharon Kichli provided information about the new group at MHB”s…
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Will millions of salmon bless Fort Bragg”s recreational fishing?
Fort Bragg Advocate-News Reports of the death of the Fort Bragg salmon fishing industry may have been greatly exaggerated. Federal biologists are predicting that a good old days crowd of millions of king salmon will return to the Sacramento and Klamath River systems this year. Recreational salmon season started Saturday and is expected to last…
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DFG to review ocean parks impacts
New North Coast marine protected areas could cost commercial fishermen $278,000 in future years, a new economic analysis presented to the California Fish & Game Commission shows. At the April 11 Eureka meeting the state agency, the analysis will be reviewed; it will be the last meeting on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). At…
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Groups boycotting Navy meetings
With a dozen environmental groups boycotting Navy scoping hearings in the Pacific Northwest, some locals weren”t sure it was prudent to come to Friday”s Fort Bragg Town Hall event. “That”s why I didn”t sign in,” said George Reinhardt, who was one of several people curious about what was going on but who didn”t want to…
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Homelessness intervention letters sought
One local homeless man is known for charging out into traffic, lost in a fantasy world. A different homeless young man ended up in the emergency room last year with congestive heart failure and is now unable to work as a laborer. His disability and medical costs are being borne by taxpayers. Other homeless men…
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Jere Melo Foundation promotes fight against marijuana garden trespassers
During the search for double-murder suspect Aaron Bassler last summer, Chris Kelly, California program director of The Conservation Fund, said trespass marijuana gardens presented a more permanent and scary issue. “It”s a terrible problem for all the landowners,” he said. At the “Take Back Our Forests” public forum on Friday, March 30 at 6 p.m.…
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Meeting set to study impact of new MLPA
Mendocino County”s proposed new marine protected areas should cause fish populations to flourish, a newly released environmental impact report (EIR) states. The EIR admits the new offshore parks present enforcement challenges and creates the problem of fishermen moving off newly-closed areas to others, but says those negatives will be overridden by the good marine protected…
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FERC opens public comment period
Paperwork fixed, a Southern California development company is finally back on track to get a three-year exclusive wave energy study preliminary permit for the waters off the town of Mendocino. Green Wave Energy Solutions has again proposed an eventual project of 150 to 680 wave energy converters having a total installed capacity of 100 megawatts,…
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FBUSD is generating power
If anybody happened to be watching from space, Fort Bragg Unified School District buildings doubled in size over the past two years and “grew” big clusters of glowing glass panels at every site. The largest alternative energy project in Mendocino Coast history is complete and fully operational, pumping power into every electrical meter in the…
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County sends out RFP to privatize mental health
Could contractors provide better adult mental health services than Mendocino County? How much could the county save by turning treatment of the mentally ill over to nonprofits and medical firms and entering into joint partnerships with private agencies and other governments? Those questions are the subject of a process the county has launched to obtain…
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FBUSD English learners excel
Spanish speakers who can improve their English language skills to be deemed proficient will move to the top of the class in other subjects, Superintendent Don Armstrong told the Fort Bragg Unified School District last week. “Some of our best students by far are found among the English redesignated. They are usually very hard working…
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Tradewinds has new owner while federal issues continue
Court battles continue over Fort Bragg”s Tradewinds motel on South Main Street, even as Scott Feil, the former owner, serves his time in federal prison. Attorneys involved in the case on all sides, have been mum to this newspaper and others who have contacted them. Joshua Eaton, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco…
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County considering privatizing more mental health services
Mendocino County is considering privatizing more of its mental health services. At a Monday meeting the county discussed several options for privatizing mental health services by outsourcing. The details about what is being considered for privatization were delayed and not available by press time Wednesday morning. The county has balanced its mental health branch budget…
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FERC gives wave energy developer one month
The Mendocino Coast”s only wave energy proposal was tasked with a New Year”s resolution by the federal agency in charge — fix the paperwork. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a notice of deficiency to Green Wave Mendocino Wave Park on Dec. 29. The notice requires Green Wave to identify this month how many…
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Scorned foods provide good nutrition at Food Bank
In four years of doing features about the Fort Bragg Food Bank, I”ve made a lot of new friends. There is one I plan to have over for dinner as often I can — cardoon, a new food I have come to love. Cardoon looks like a rough, oversized clump of celery, that”s bitter when…
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Two corporate escapees love their new life at Food Bank
For two key employees of the Fort Bragg Food Bank, July 9 was independence day. That”s the day last summer that Doug Duncan and Jim DiMauro completed their escape from the corporate world and the day both started at the Food Bank. Both men wouldn”t trade the better money they once made for the atmosphere…
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Food Bank provides stories of unemployment, poverty
In modern journalism, covering poverty is generally all about the numbers. One story would be the decline of Mendocino County”s unemployment rate to 9.9 percent October 2011 from 10.2 percent in October 2010. Another news piece, with the opposite message, could be a local impact of the steady growth of the poverty rate since the…
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