NEWS ARTICLE ARCHIVE — in chronological order, with pagination below
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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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Volunteers work hard to stretch Food Bank dollars
When I first saw the young man sitting in his car in the Fort Bragg Food Bank parking lot, I had no doubt he was a very unwilling court referral, forced to choose between doing community service at the Food Bank or jail by a judge. He sat bolt upright, listening to his stereo cranked…
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Contradictory legal opinions on Laura”s Law
When they ponder Laura”s Law this month, Mendocino County supervisors must take a side in a passionate split that divides legal minds, as well as advocates, for the mentally ill. If the supervisors vote yes, Laura”s Law (AB 1421) would set up a process where certain officials, and family members of mentally ill people who…
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Coats for dogs and people among many Food Bank extras
The San Francisco Giants are partly responsible for a popular new program at the Fort Bragg Food Bank — sweaters for dogs. Long time Food Bank volunteer Nancy Milano has crocheted about 100 doggie coats, which have been given away to Food Bank clients by Second Chance Rescue. She made many while watching her favorite…
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Exhausted Food Bankers now need Christmas turkeys
Volunteer Shirley Harbour was spending the first of three busy days at the Fort Bragg Food Bank on Monday making fruit cups for the workers with her pal, Nina Pivirotto. Outside, the line extended down South Franklin Street. After a wild and busy Thanksgiving week, the Food Bank still needs more turkeys or hams for…
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Mental Health: Data unavailable, questions remain
A continuing series Andrew Weber had a big smile when he talked about the fact he was turning 21 in 12 days. “I can”t wait,” he said, following last week”s mental health board meeting, when he told his story as an illustration of the community collaboration strategy implemented by Mental Health Director Tom Pinizzotto. Weber”s…
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Season of Sharing: Food Bank”s senior food deliveries bring big smiles
As Allied bombs fell nearby, 14-year-old Ingeborg Hartung was in school learning textile arts. “War should be illegal. Why do young men have to go war for something they don”t understand, and die? for what,?” she says. The Fort Bragg grandmother remembers a Germany where the only soldiers left alive to fight were teenagers. She…
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40-gallon diesel spill results in fines, probation
A 65-year-old Fort Bragg man has pleaded guilty to spilling diesel fuel into the Pacific Ocean on June 12, the largest of about 25 Mendocino County incidents reported to the California Office of Spill Prevention and Response in 2011. Much smaller drips, overflows and other spills in the pint-to-quart range often go unreported and could…
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Food Bank challenges community to give turkeys, more
A homeless man said he needed the box of “executive hair dye” to prepare his beard for his next job interview. A 57-year-old unemployed woman, whose fortunes collapsed along with the economy in 2008, informed the rest of us in the lobby of the Fort Bragg Food Bank that she has never had a gray…
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Howard Wheatley” Allen: How does he do it?
When Mikhail Gorbachev reached for a metaphor to describe how the standoff that threatened the planet for half a century ended, the last Soviet president chose a goose. “During the nuclear arms race, I was given a gift by an American, a little figure of a goose in flight. I still have it at my…
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Wave energy proposed again for Mendocino
Wave energy is back off the Mendocino Coast, at least on paper. Green Wave Energy Solutions has refiled for permits to develop wave energy off the village of Mendocino and San Luis Obispo; both sets were thrown out by the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission last fall. FERC revoked the Thousand Oaks” company”s 2009 permits citing…
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FBUSD gets new board member
Jerry Matson was chosen last week by the Fort Bragg Unified School District Board from a list of four applicants to fill an open seat. Matson, 56, owner of Matson Construction and Matson Building Materials, spent nine years as a member of the Fort Bragg Planning Commission. He has also been a Fort Bragg Rotarian…
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Mental Health Board makes a difference — without funds or power
Part two of our Mental Health Services investigation looks at the Mendocino County Mental Health Board Before this summer”s murderous spree made headlines around the world, Mendocino County Mental Heath Board (MHB) chairman Guy Grenny was looking for an additional board member from the Coast. Now, the MHB has its most controversial applicant ever, Jim…
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$19M more sought for county conservation easements
More than $40 million in state bond funds headed to Mendocino County this summer will help create “lots of jobs,” said Art Harwood, executive director of the Redwood Forest Foundation Inc. While RFFI is still preparing for its first timber harvest, another logging-preservation nonprofit, The Conversation Fund, is already creating jobs in the three big…
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Security for forest operations
Last month”s murders created fear in local forests and renewed questions about landowner security just as $38 million is being spent to create sustainable wilderness logging in the north and south ends of the county. What is the security strategy of these new style logging-restoration nonprofits? “Jere Melo was our security man,” said Art Harwood,…
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Laura”s Law might save county money, force better services
Mental Health Series Following the murder of three people by a deranged Nevada County man, the California Legislature passed Laura”s Law to give counties a new way to practice preventative mental health care. After two local horrific murders and three attempted murders by Aaron Bassler, whose family had also sought mental health treatment for their…
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