NEWS ARTICLE ARCHIVE — in chronological order, with pagination below
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Season of Sharing fund drive nears the $7,000 mark
Jacob Whalen wasn”t looking forward to a Christmas beneath a plastic tree. So he was thrilled to get a real tree from the Fort Bragg Food Bank, picking out a 6-foot pine that was the same size as the big Fort Bragg man. “This is great. A plastic tree just doesn”t do it for me.…
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Season of Sharing: Vitamin conspiracy punishment funding brings good food to Food Bank
I knew getting names wouldn”t be easy but I didn”t want anonymous sources in this week”s story on how the Fort Bragg Food Bank impacts nutrition in our community. On Monday, I saw a former real estate listing client and another prominent community member-pal on my way into the Food Bank. Quotes? No way. It…
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Season of Sharing: U.S. economic turmoil brings new clients to Food Bank
The smiling Latina woman told me how the Wall Street crisis is being felt by people who never had stock or any real money to lose. “I have a set amount of money every month from Social Security. Now some things I need cost a lot more. Prices go up and down, and I don”t…
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Season of Sharing: Reporter returns for second year in Food Bank line
I chose to sit next to the diminutive well-dressed brunette because she was alone in a Fort Bragg Food Bank waiting room full of talkative people. It turned out, that was by design. “Many of these people have been coming here for years. Did you know that?” The middle-aged woman promptly recited the lineage of…
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Ocean dead zones multiplying, fertilizers one cause
Two recent studies blame farm runoff for separately causing problems in rivers and the ocean that have injured fishing around the world. Last week, the prestigious journal Science reported that there are now more than 400 dead zones in the ocean, double the number the United Nations reported just two years ago. Scientists Robert Diaz…
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Fort Bragg is ground zero in wave energy fight
Like a Golden Age explorer staking a flag into a remote beachhead, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has chosen Fort Bragg to claim all regulation of alternative energy from water power. FERC used a Fort Bragg ruling last week to raise the stakes in its national showdown with a fellow federal agency. But…
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Heritage House foreclosure sale postponed
Little River”s Heritage House has won another last minute reprieve from a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps. The sale, set for Wednesday, has now been postponed until Nov. 18. The request was made by the German bank that is seeking to foreclose on more than $20 million in loans to Lantana Mendocino LLC. The…
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State expresses doubts about wave energy viability in rejecting Eureka funding
The California Public Utilities Commission plans to reject funding for the first-ever wave energy contract in the United States — a test project off Eureka proposed by PG&E and the Canadian Corporation Finavera . The CPUC has circulated its plan to reject the contract ahead of its Friday meeting, with PG&E and Finavera circulating protests…
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This Just In … U.S. candidates ignore wave energy global news
Wave energy is making a splash around the world from Tasmania to Ireland. The biggest news was in Portugal on Sept. 30 when a Pelamis unit was towed into the ocean, connected to an underwater cable and moored to the sea floor, at a site where it will stay for the next 15 years. Portugal…
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This Just In … U.S. candidates ignore wave energy global news
Wave energy is making a splash around the world from Tasmania to Ireland. The biggest news was in Portugal on Sept. 30 when a Pelamis unit was towed into the ocean, connected to an underwater cable and moored to the sea floor, at a site where it will stay for the next 15 years. Portugal…
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Wall Street crisis hits WaMu, Wachovia but impact is less locally
Like many middle class Americans, Anna Marie Stenberg of Fort Bragg suffers with an adjustable rate mortgage and still hates the idea of a bailout of Wall Street”s mega lenders. Stenberg has been seeking refinancing on her home but the credit crunch has prevented her — and many others from doing so. The bailout was…
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Wall Street crisis hits WaMu, Wachovia but impact is less locally
Like many middle class Americans, Anna Marie Stenberg of Fort Bragg suffers with an adjustable rate mortgage and still hates the idea of a bailout of Wall Street”s mega lenders. Stenberg has been seeking refinancing on her home but the credit crunch has prevented her — and many others from doing so. The bailout was…
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Local advisers comment on Wall Street crisis
With the stock market in turbulence and a baffling federal bailout package on the table, the newspaper asked two busy and prominent local investment firms serious questions about the situation. Michael Gibson, an owner of Redwood Investments on Main Street, and Joshua Richardson, who runs one of the three Edward Jones offices in Fort Bragg,…
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Fishermen get financial relief, launch study of disaster impacts
For Telstar Charters owner Randy Thornton, federal salmon disaster relief money will literally be salvation for his charter boat business. But as part of a new committee on salmon closure impacts, he hopes to help show how the catching of the tasty pink fish impacts the entire coastal economy. The North Coast Fishing Association is…
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PG&E gets $1.2 million for local wave energy study
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company expects to be granted $1.2 million this week by the U.S. Department of Energy to study wave energy off Fort Bragg and Eureka. PG&E sought the new money earlier this summer to move its local wave energy study under a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permit to the…
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Foreclosures hitting close to home
How is the national foreclosure crisis being felt on the coast? Several marquee businesses face foreclosure, as well as dozens of homes, a phenomenon mostly unseen locally. How bad is the problem compared to other areas? To past years? Why did this happen? How can we fix it? What can you do if you are…
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Many come out to support local fishermen
Subdudes lead vocalist Tommy Malone referred to the magic of Mendocino as he breathed frigid air and told of the distinctive stomach-churning curvy road escape from hot weather to witness the advance of the fog on Sunday morning. “We had never heard of Mendocino until I heard the McGarrigle Sisters song (“Talk to me of…
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PG&E dumps MMS wave process, county to sue FERC
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company decided last week not to be the national test case for the Minerals Management Service”s wave energy program. Just two weeks earlier, the utility officially filed paperwork to pursue those same far offshore wave energy leases. None of the filings have yet been provided to this newspaper by PG&E,…
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School board starts year without budget, with good bond news
Of the Advocate Despite the lack of a state budget, falling real estate values and other disturbing economic news, the Fort Bragg Unified School District started the year with smiles and a new superintendent. The board heard a report from Lennard Cuenco, from the firm Caldwell, Flores, Winters, the district”s bond adviser, at its inaugural…
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This Just In … When should fools rush in?
One of the Mendocino Coast”s most distinctive business names, the Fools Rush Inn, is no more. New owner Samir Tuma has remodeled the business and renamed it the “Cottages at Little River Cove.” The change is part of a broad change in which tourists have sought out the Mendocino Coast because it was unique and…
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