NEWS ARTICLE ARCHIVE — in chronological order, with pagination below
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New proposal given for Baxman property
A last remnant of Fort Bragg”s industrial glory days may get new life and decades more of use — but not just yet. Last week, a plan to upgrade Baxman Gravel Company”s oceanfront operation was withdrawn, City Community Development Director Marie Jones told the Fort Bragg Planning Commission. Dennis Kirwan, who wants to buy the…
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Are jumbo squid gone or just shrinking?
Heralded as both a ruthless sea monster and a potential economic salvation to Fort Bragg”s fishing industry, the Humboldt, or jumbo, squid has now become a memory and a mystery. The scientist who has spent his career studying the Humboldt squid thinks the creatures may have shrunk — no longer growing into the 4-foot-long giants…
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PG&E abandons last study site
Five years ago, Pacific Gas and Electric Company came to Fort Bragg to sell wave energy as the key to the future of alternative energy as well as a potential local economic boost. PG&E has now withdrawn its last application and canceled its last preliminary permit after acquiring millions in grant money from the California…
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Hopes remain for 2011”s open salmon season
Yes, salmon fishing season has opened. But will anglers and commercial fishermen be able to “hook up” with the guests of honor? The biggest Chinook salmon return from the ocean depths to the waters of inland Northern California waters since the early days of the millennium has been predicted by experts, but fishermen won”t believe…
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Noyo Bowl to become Calvary Chapel, nursery
Noyo Bowl will become the first permanent home of 13-year-old Calvary Chapel, after the Fort Bragg Planning Commission unanimously granted a variance to the church. More than 50 church members gathered at the Wednesday Town Hall meeting last week, with hugs, chat and smiles exchanged as the meeting got started. Finally getting a building to…
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Deadline on dredge schedule
The headline could read “more than a thousand truckloads of dredge spoils, possibly containing contaminants, to be trucked over Highway 20 this summer and fall.” Or, it could report; “Noyo Harbor District, caught between a federal deadline and state red tape is forced to spend tens of thousands of tax dollars trucking mostly clean sand…
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Jobs, programs intact, work to be done at FBUSD
No teachers lost their jobs, no athletic programs were cut, class sizes were not increased and all the bus routes are still intact. Still, the April 7 special meeting of the Fort Bragg Unified School District was a solemn affair, as all those possibilities were reluctantly put on a master list of possible cuts. For…
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MCRPD/Sports Club deal dies
A creative proposal to merge the Mendocino Sports Club into the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District died just two weeks after coming to light. “Mr. [Larry] Hinson has withdrawn his proposal to consolidate his Mendocino Sports Club with the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District,” said Jim Hurst, MCRPD executive director wrote in a…
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Docks may need to be replaced
A tsunami surge that shattered two of Noyo Harbor”s docks might not be the worst enemy of the post-World War II floating structure. Father Time might demand that the docks be replaced, not repaired. Building new docks would be a lengthy and very expensive process, involving permits from an alphabet soup of agencies, along with…
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Moody solution: No single use” pledge
Like many environmentalists, Stuart Moody of Green Sangha will tell a Redwood Coast Senior Center audience on March 25 about traditional actions against pervasive plastic pollution, like single-use bag bans and beach cleanups. He will also ask locals to look deeper for the solution. The 7 p.m. event is sponsored by Mendocino Coast Transition Towns”…
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Radiation monitoring bolstered
New radiation detectors are headed for Fort Bragg City Hall to allow better monitoring of potential fallout. This comes as a report by Bloomberg news this week revealed that some Environmental Protection Agency radiation monitors have failed or malfunctioned. Yet, there is no evidence anyone in California has or will face danger from fallout. Dangerous…
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Botanical Gardens set to hike rates
The price of a walk in the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, as well as annual memberships will likely be going up, following action by the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District last week. Admission at the Botanical Gardens is proposed to jump from $10 to $14 and a regular household membership from $60 to $75,…
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Docks broken, optimism remains
On March 10, Larry Roggasch negotiated the purchase of a commercial salmon boat in Fort Bragg then thought about being back out on the Pacific all the way home to Shasta County. While he was on Interstate 5, a tsunami surge sliced off the end of C dock, less than 10 feet from where “his”…
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Teachers get first layoff notices from board
In what has become an unpleasant, but eventually meaningless ritual of spring, eight Fort Bragg Unified School District teachers will get layoff notices on March 15, after unanimous action by district trustees last week. “I”m hopeful we can bring them all back, but ultimately we are in the hands of Sacramento,” Superintendent Don Armstrong said.…
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Commercial fishers will get a summer salmon season
When last week started, the prospect of the best salmon return in a decade was California”s big ocean story. Then came the tsunami. Tommy Ancona, who was in northern Washington when federal regulators proposed the first commercial salmon fishing season in many years for California, came home to the big surge from Japan at his…
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High hopes for 2011 local salmon fishing season
John Gebers, owner of Noyo Fishing Center, was exchanging stories with local fishermen John Innes and Jim Martin on a sunny Tuesday mid-morning this week when this reporter dropped by the Noyo Harbor store. Everybody is talking about widespread enthusiasm that the salmon will really be back this year, and the three were no exception.…
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High hopes for 2011 local salmon fishing season
John Gebers, owner of Noyo Fishing Center, was exchanging stories with local fishermen John Innes and Jim Martin on a sunny Tuesday mid-morning this week when this reporter dropped by the Noyo Harbor store. Everybody is talking about widespread enthusiasm that the salmon will really be back this year, and the three were no exception.…
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Wave energy proposals, lawsuits gone: Future uncertain
Political and technological currents have changed course several times since Fort Bragg was a national center of wave energy five years ago, but so far the risks and benefits are still making a splash only on paper. Local meetings and controversy from 2004 to 2008 clearly contributed to a national understanding that the political and…
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South Noyo boat junkyard in final stages of cleanup
Fort Bragg”s most famous boat salvage yard is out of business and slowly slipping into oblivion. Hundreds of other picturesque, rotting former seagoing vessels in and around harbors all over the North Coast have no place to end their days. Over the past decade, Bruce Abernathy”s South Noyo Harbor property became an outlet for dozens…
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MLPAI plan hinges on Native American issue
Last week”s California Fish and Game Commission meeting was supposed to be graduation day for the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative”s efforts to restrict or ban fishing in new ocean areas off Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte County. Instead, the entire process is stuck in a neverland between Native American treaties and state law. Native…
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