A Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office narcotics investigation led to the seizure of approximately 70 pounds of suspected methamphetamine in Mendocino County earlier this month, with the help of the agency’s K-9 Duke.

The search was part of an investigation that began in April into alleged methamphetamine trafficking by Bernabe Calderon-Nunez, 49, and Jonathan Perez Santos, 18, both of Redwood Valley.

On July 21, detectives with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Narcotics Unit served five search warrants tied to the investigation. During one of the searches in Mendocino County, Duke, a narcotics-detection dog, located about 70 pounds of suspected methamphetamine with an estimated street value of $1.5 million, along with 17 grams of cocaine, nearly $100,000 in cash, and evidence investigators said was related to narcotics sales and trafficking.

According to Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Nicholas Miller, Duke is a 7-year-old Belgian Malinois-German Shepherd mix who joined the department in 2020. He is trained as a dual-purpose K-9 for narcotics detection and suspect apprehension and assisted detectives by locating the drugs during the search.

Calderon-Nunez was arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance for sale and sale of narcotics. Detectives obtained a bail enhancement, and he was initially held on $200,000 bail before later being released from custody.

Perez Santos was arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance for sale and booked into the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility. He was later released on zero bail.

Willits is broke — the mayor will cheerfully tell you so — but the town may soon be one whimsical bronze animal richer, and for once the choice belongs to the public.

At the City Council’s Wednesday, July 22 meeting, local artist Gary Martin clicked through a slideshow he billed as “the state of the arts in Willits” and landed on a modest proposal: he wants to donate a bronze sculpture for the children’s playground at Willits City Park. The only real question is which creature it should be. Four finalists are headed to the local media in the coming weeks for a public vote — a goat, a horse, a turtle and a pig.

Martin, who also led the meeting’s Pledge of Allegiance, has a favorite, and he made no attempt to hide it. “My favorite, the pig,” he told the council — a preference that drew an unsolicited “I love the pig” from the dais.

Before he got to the barnyard, Martin took the room on a tour of the public art Willits already has, arguing that a town signals what it values by what it puts in its shared spaces. He pointed to murals at JD Redhouse, St. Francis Episcopal Church, the Book Juggler and a string of local schools, plus one at NAPA Auto Parts he cheerfully named his favorite; Anna Judd’s mural on the back of the bandstand; and the windmill on Highway 20 that Jane Camp commissioned and gave to the city. He credited work around town by artist Laura Wieseck and touted the reach of the Willits Center for the Arts, which he said brings arts programming to thousands of students a month across Willits, Laytonville and Covelo, with a new branch in Gualala.

The pitch itself drew on older civic tradition. Martin cited the century-old bronze goat that generations of children have clambered over at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia — a sculpture built not to be admired from a distance but to be climbed, ridden and loved into a shine. A durable bronze in Willits City Park, he argued, would do the same here: “spark curiosity and inspire wonder, especially in young minds.” He closed, as one does, with Dead Poets Society: “poetry, beauty, and love, these are what you stay alive for.”

The sculpture would cost the city nothing, a point Mayor Tom Allman underscored with characteristic candor. “I really appreciate you not asking us for money,” Allman said, “because we’re still broke.”

Public comment leaned firmly toward the whimsical. A resident read a letter from Jane Camp, who could not attend but wrote to strongly back the gift. A sculpture, Camp wrote, would “enliven children’s curiosity and interest in this form of art” and be “a lovely and whimsical sculpture for all to enjoy,” urging the council to “give this project the green light.” The reader added her own two cents: “I like pigs. I think it’s adorable.”

Helen Sims had a friendly amendment. Whatever the town picks, she suggested, it ought to get a name — by public contest. “The tortoise, the pig, the little pork chop,” she offered, running through the possibilities.

No vote was taken; the item was a presentation, not an action.

Additional city council reports:

Council Member Gerardo “Gerry” Gonzalez reported attending a Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) meeting July 6, where the board reviewed the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District’s municipal service review and sphere of influence. He also flagged ongoing bicycle and scooter traffic in front of downtown buildings as a safety concern and noted a rider had been redirected to the bike lane.

Council Member Matthew Alaniz reported meeting July 15 with a field representative from U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff’s office to discuss transportation funding, rural hospital support, and forest management’s effect on fire insurance rates. Alaniz reminded residents that city council candidacy paperwork is available from the city clerk through Aug. 7 and that candidates must reside within city limits. He noted that a community gathering in support of injured student Zach Thompson is scheduled for July 26 at 11 a.m. at Willits High School, and he announced that First Friday returns Aug. 7. Alaniz also disclosed that the Fair Political Practices Commission replied June 26 with a finding of no conflict of interest regarding his connection to the general manager of a trails organization involved in a prior council matter; he said he will post the full finding on his personal Facebook page.

Mayor Tom Allman congratulated Frontier Days on its 100th annual celebration, crediting organizer Marcy Barry and her team, city staff, and the community. He acknowledged the recent earthquake, commending city employees across all departments for their response, and urged residents and businesses with damage to report it to the community development department so the city can assess whether a FEMA request is warranted.

Department head reports:

Administrative Services Director Joseph Park said the fiscal year transition to the Springbrook financial software went unnoticed — his benchmark for a clean rollover. The 2024-25 audit is underway; auditors are working virtually, with an on-site visit planned next month. Financial consultant Andy Heath is returning the following week to assist. Council Member Bruce Burton to add an accounts receivable column to the account balance reports, noting that reimbursements pending on capital projects such as the Rails with Trails work could ease concern over the fund balance trend. Park agreed.

Public Works Director Davey Bowles confirmed the new solar array is operating, producing roughly 580 kilowatt-hours per day, near peak summer output. A monitoring link showing daily output, energy savings, and equivalent metrics will be posted to the city website. Bowles said the notice of completion for the solar project will likely come before the council at the second August meeting. He also acknowledged the City Park merry-go-round is damaged and under repair.

🏛️ Mendocino County

Supervisors Reject Permanent Road Sales Tax in Split Vote
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 24
Mendocino County supervisors voted 3-2 on July 21 against placing a permanent 1% road-repair sales tax on the November ballot, one vote short of the four needed to advance it. The measure would have raised about $5.5 million a year — far below the $220 million officials estimate is needed over the next decade to restore county roads.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/supervisors-reject-permanent-road-tax

Grand Jury Faults County on Fire-Safe Rules
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 24
The Board of Supervisors appointed a two-member committee on July 21 to respond to a civil grand jury report criticizing its oversight of Planning and Building Services. A resident noted the county still has not fully implemented fire-safety regulations required under Public Resources Code Section 4290, an issue flagged in the prior year’s grand jury report.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/grand-jury-faults-county-on-fire-safety-rules

Sheriff Warns Vacancy Rate Is Near 45%
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 24
Sheriff Matt Kendall told supervisors on July 21 that his department’s effective vacancy rate approaches 45% once employees on leave are counted. The board responded by unanimously funding five previously unfunded positions at an estimated cost of just over $1 million a year from the general fund.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/sheriff-warns-vacancy-rate-is-near-45-percent

Mendocino County Missed $3 Billion in Taxable Property Value Over Five Years, Records Show
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 23
The county Assessor’s Office failed to timely assess roughly $3 billion in property value over tax years 2021 through 2025, delaying about $33 million a year in tax revenue, records show. Most was recovered through late corrections, but some assessments fell outside California’s four-year statute of limitations and could not be recouped.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/mendocino-county-missed-3-billion

District 3 Candidate Eric Hart Lives in a House in District 3
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 23
District 3 supervisor candidate Eric Hart moved his primary residence from a District 4 cabin to a home on Williams Ranch Road inside District 3 in 2025, making him eligible to represent District 3 on the board of supervisors. County counsel declined to pause certification of the June 2 Primary Election in response to a resident’s complaint about his residency status.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/d3-candidate-eric-hart-lives-in-d3

Six Months After State Audit, County Departments Report Uneven Progress on Reforms
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 22
Six months after the December 2025 state audit, Mendocino County departments reported mixed progress on required reforms, with two department heads submitting written updates but the Assessor’s office missing the deadline entirely. The state auditor has yet to verify the responses.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/county-offers-updates-six-months-after-audit

🚒 Boonville

PG&E Crew Sparks Gowan Fire in Anderson Valley; Volunteers Stop It Quick
By Frank Hartzell, Mendocino Coast News · July 20
A PG&E crew accidentally ignited a grass fire in Anderson Valley when a hot bolt they were cutting fell into dry grass across from Don Gowan’s farm. Volunteer firefighters, including a father-and-son team, contained the blaze in under an hour using water and retardant.
Read more: https://mendocinocoast.news/your-monday-paper-7-20-26-willits-senior-housing-project-sells-for-10-8-million-what-happened-at-the-gowan-fire-stop-that-sticker-sticking/

🌲 Caspar

Caspar Pond Trail opens Saturday with help from grant and landowner
By Savana Robinson, The Mendocino Voice · July 21
The new Caspar Pond Trail opens to the public Saturday, July 25, made possible by a $55,000 grant from the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society and a public-access easement donated by landowner Michael St. John. The Mendocino Land Trust will maintain the birding trail, and a ribbon-cutting and informal bird walk are set for 11 a.m.
Read more: https://mendovoice.com/2026/07/caspar-pond-trail-opens-saturday-with-help-from-grant-and-landowner/

⛰️ Covelo

Father and Son Arrested in Killing of Covelo Mom; Teenage Brother Still Sought
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 24
Two brothers are accused of fatally shooting 31-year-old Covelo mother Josepha Littlewolf Basurto at an illegal marijuana grow on July 9, and their father allegedly helped them flee. Authorities are still searching for the 17-year-old, who was not with the others when they were taken into custody.
Read more: https://www.mendolocal.news/p/father-and-son-arrested-in-covelo-homicide

🌊 Fort Bragg

Woman Swimming the Coast of California to Stop in Fort Bragg Sunday
By Justine Frederiksen, Ukiah Daily Journal · July 24
Long-distance swimmer Catherine Breed, who set out July 1 to swim all 900 miles of California’s coastline, will make her second of 10 planned stops at the Noyo Center in Fort Bragg on Sunday, July 26, weather permitting. A support vessel backing her swim pulled into Noyo Harbor on Thursday.
Read more: https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2026/07/24/woman-swimming-the-coast-of-california-to-stop-in-fort-bragg-sunday/ (Subscription to the Ukiah Daily Journal required)

What Will Tomorrow’s Redwood Forest Look Like?
By Mary Rose Kaczorowski, The Mendocino Voice · July 19
CAL FIRE has launched the Coastal Adaptive Management Experiment at Jackson Demonstration State Forest to test three strategies — resistance, resilience and transition — for helping coast redwoods adapt to climate change. Run with the University of Nevada, Reno, the study will monitor 245 plots across about 500 acres for at least 20 years.
Read more: https://mendovoice.com/2026/07/what-will-tomorrows-redwood-forest-look-like/

🛼 Gualala

Long-distance Skater Stops in Gualala
By David Torres, Independent Coast Observer · July 23
Eric Baldwin, 33, of Santee, is a little more than halfway through a journey from Vancouver to San Diego, having started skating on June 22. Baldwin, a hockey coach, is raising money to purchase hockey equipment for under-privileged children.
Read more: https://www.mendonoma.com (Subscription to the Independent Coast Observer required)

🦈 Mendocino

Mendocino Teacher Bitten by Shark Returns to Surf
By Savana Robinson, The Mendocino Voice · July 19
Mendocino High School English teacher James Eastman, who survived shark attack at Big River Beach in March, returned to surf the same spot in July after two surgeries and four months of recovery. A GoFundMe for his care raised $13,806, with surplus funds going to a nonprofit he and his wife created to place bleeding-control kits at high-traffic beaches.
Read more: https://mendovoice.com/2026/07/mendocino-teacher-bit-by-shark-returns-to-surf-same-spot-he-was-attacked/

💡 Point Arena

The Point Arena City Council Approves Three Coastal Development Permits
By Chelsea Randall, Independent Coast Observer · July 23
The Point Arena City Council approved three coastal development permits at its July 21 meeting, advancing upgrades to the city’s wastewater treatment system, the Caltrans Main Street repaving and sidewalk replacement project, and the proposed Rockwall campground.
Read more: https://www.mendonoma.com (Subscription to the Independent Coast Observer required)

💧 Potter Valley

Federal regulators extend Potter Valley comment deadline to September
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · July 24
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pushed back the public comment deadline on PG&E’s Potter Valley Project decommissioning plan from July 24 to September 18, adding nearly two months for input.
Read more: https://mendovoice.com/2026/07/federal-regulators-extend-potter-valley-comment-deadline-to-september/

🏙️ Ukiah

City of Ukiah Responds to Concerns Regarding Flock Safety Cameras
By Justine Frederiksen, Ukiah Daily Journal · July 23
Ukiah residents have repeatedly pressed the City Council over its network of Flock Safety cameras that scan license plates at the city limits, with speakers at the July 15 meeting warning of mass surveillance. City officials have defended the cameras as a net public-safety benefit.
Read more: https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2026/07/23/city-of-ukiah-responds-to-concerns-regarding-flock-safety-cameras/ (Subscription to the Ukiah Daily Journal required)

Ukiah Gigabit Fiber Project Progresses to Activation Phase
By Justine Frederiksen, Ukiah Daily Journal · July 21
Ukiah’s high-speed fiber project began activating service in July, with crews having installed nearly 50,000 linear feet of fiber — about 45% of Phase 1 — and 85% of underground construction complete. The network aims to improve connectivity for city facilities and hundreds of previously “unserved” households.
Read more: https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2026/07/21/ukiah-gigabit-fiber-project-progresses-to-activation-phase/ (Subscription to the Ukiah Daily Journal required)

🚂 Willits

Grocery Outlet Donates Food to Willits Community Services
By Willits Weekly · July 23
Grocery Outlet donated nine pallets of food to the Willits Food Bank even as the store remained closed for repairs caused by the earthquake. “The good news is we’ve got a lot of good stuff going over to the Food Bank, the bad news is we’re still a few weeks away [from reopening],” said David McKinney of the Willits Grocery Outlet.
Read more: https://www.willitsweekly.com

Willits Senior Housing project sells for $10.8 million
By Frank Hartzell, Mendocino Coast News · July 20
Redwood Meadows Senior Apartments, a roughly 140-resident complex for people over 55 at 1475 Baechtel Road in Willits, sold for $10.8 million on June 18, with the deal recorded the following week. Echelon Properties LLC bought the property from firms tied to Theodore Caldwell.
Read more: https://mendocinocoast.news/your-monday-paper-7-20-26-willits-senior-housing-project-sells-for-10-8-million-what-happened-at-the-gowan-fire-stop-that-sticker-sticking/

🐻 CalMatters

California Can’t Replant Its Forests as Fast as Wildfires Are Destroying Them
By Rachel Becker, CalMatters · July 24
High-severity wildfires have burned 2.3 million acres of California forestland over the past 25 years, and projections show half the state’s forest area could disappear by 2071 as replanting falls behind. Closing the gap would require expanding seed-bank capacity by roughly 300% and rebuilding a badly depleted federal reforestation workforce.
Read more: https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2026/07/wildfires-california-forest-reforestation-seed/

California weighs bringing back the grizzly bear, a century after it vanished
By Ryan Sabalow, CalMatters · July 23
Democrats are advancing Senate Bill 1305 to study whether California should reintroduce grizzly bears, extinct in the state since the 1920s. At least 40 groups including tribes and environmental advocates back the measure, while ranchers, rural communities and Republicans oppose it, citing existing predator conflicts and the state’s capacity to manage another apex predator.
Read more: https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/07/california-grizzly-bear-reintroduction-bill/

Three men are in custody and a teenage boy is being sought in the shooting death of a Covelo woman at an illegal marijuana cultivation site earlier this month, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

Josepha Littlewolf Basurto, 31, was found fatally shot the night of July 9 inside a pickup in the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road, northwest of Covelo, after a family member who had spent hours looking for her located her and called 911. An autopsy on July 15 found she died of a gunshot wound to the torso, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide, the Sheriff’s Office said.

In an updated account released Friday, the Sheriff’s Office said investigators identified two brothers who had been staying at the grow and who were reportedly involved in the shooting. The older brother was identified as Elias Garcia-Acosta, 22, of Adelanto; the younger is a 17-year-old boy whose name is being withheld because of his age. Both are wanted on warrants charging homicide, the agency said.

The brothers left the scene and were not located during the initial investigation, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Investigators determined that the boys’ father, Elias Juarez-Garcia, 44, of Porterville, had driven to the property the night of the killing, taken his two sons, and left Mendocino County.

Investigators developed probable cause that Juarez-Garcia knew his sons were involved in killing Basurto and helped move them hundreds of miles away to avoid arrest, the agency said, and placed a stop-and-detain alert on his vehicle with the state Department of Justice.

With help from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office, Juarez-Garcia and Garcia-Acosta were found together the evening of July 17 in Adelanto, in the vehicle investigators say the family used to leave the Covelo area, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Both were arrested without incident — Garcia-Acosta on a warrant charging homicide, and his father on a warrant charging accessory after the fact. The 17-year-old was not with them. The two men were driven to the Mendocino County Jail and booked July 21, jail records show. Garcia-Acosta is being held without bail and Juarez-Garcia in lieu of $350,000 bail.

The third man, Jesus Hernandez Sosa, 35, of Covelo, had already been arrested in connection with the case. The Sheriff’s Office said Sosa was contacted in Sonoma County on July 10 and determined to be involved in the illegal cultivation operation. He was arrested on felony marijuana charges — including cultivation with illegal water diversion — but was released July 13 after the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office declined to file those charges, the agency said.

Investigators later developed probable cause that Sosa was also involved in the shooting, and a Superior Court judge approved a warrant charging him with homicide and with personally using a firearm in a felony resulting in death, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Sosa was arrested July 23 at the Mendocino County Superior Courthouse in Ukiah, the agency said, after investigators learned a vehicle linked to him might be in the area and canvassed for it. He was booked into the county jail and is being held without bail.

An arrest is not evidence of guilt, and prosecutors had not filed formal charges as of Friday. The warrants describe what investigators told a judge they believe; the men are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Basurto was a mother of four children between the ages of 4 and 13. Her family remembers her as a loving mother and friend, a skilled horse trainer, and a California Native and powwow dancer. A GoFundMe organized by her mother and aunt seeks to cover funeral costs, travel for relatives coming from Utah, and the family’s attendance at court proceedings.

The scene where Basurto was found was a large illegal marijuana cultivation operation, which investigators examined as part of the homicide inquiry. The investigation has drawn in the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force, the District Attorney’s Office, the county’s Marijuana Eradication Team, and criminalists from the California Department of Justice’s Eureka laboratory, along with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators are continuing to work with authorities in San Bernardino County to arrest the 17-year-old still being sought on a homicide warrant, the Sheriff’s Office said. Anyone with information may call the Sheriff’s Office dispatch center at 707-463-4086, option 1, or the anonymous tip line at 707-234-2100.

A proposed 1% sales tax to fund county road repairs will not reach the November ballot after the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors deadlocked 3-2 on July 21, with Supervisors Madeline Cline and Mo Mulheren dissenting. The measure drew majority support but fell short of the four votes necessary to place a tax before voters.

The tax would have applied to purchases in the unincorporated county and raised an estimated $5.5 million a year for pavement work and crew positions. But even if the supervisors had decided to place the tax on the ballot, it would have fallen short of what was needed.

Transportation Director Howard Dashiell told the board it would take roughly $220 million over 10 years to restore the county’s roads to “good” condition. He said that the tax would lift the average countywide pavement condition score from a projected 50 to about 64. The measure carried no expiration date: had two-thirds of unincorporated-area voters approved it, the 1% tax would have taken effect in 2027 and stayed in force until voters chose to repeal it.

Road Maintenance Costs More for Rural Counties

Nephele Barrett, executive director of the Mendocino Council of Governments, told the board rural counties shoulder a heavier road burden per resident than urban ones: they have fewer people and fewer retail outlets to raise tax revenue, and “rural counties often lose some of their … sales tax to surrounding urban areas.” With less money to go around, Barrett said, “each person essentially has a higher responsibility in terms of costs of road maintenance.”

An independent audit the department received just before the meeting largely validated how the county spends its road money. The review by Nichols Consulting Engineers, commissioned by the Mendocino Council of Governments, examined 144 road sections treated between 2019 and 2025 and found the county’s treatment choices performed well about 93 percent of the time, with only nine sections rated poor. It credited the county’s heavy reliance on in-place pavement recycling and chip seals as an efficient way to stretch limited dollars across a large rural road network.

The “No” Votes

Cline, who represents the First District, said her mind was made up long before the presentation. “My position hasn’t really changed on this since our discussion in March, where I did not support moving forward with it,” she said. “My constituents, frankly, are not interested in supporting it.” She said she understood the measure’s merits and thought it worth putting on the ballot, but could not back it “due to the conversations I’ve had with constituents, a lot of constituents,” even when she explained its benefits.

Mulheren, whose Second District includes the city of Ukiah, credited county staff but said her reservations went beyond roads. “I think staff did a really good job at trying to answer some of the questions that I had,” she said, but “I still have concerns about the county’s overall fiscal transparency and taking a sales tax to the voters.” She noted that the department’s approach was “essentially … to bring more information back each year.”

The Only Realistic Path

Supervisor Ted Williams, who backed the tax, framed it as the county’s only realistic path. He said the state pegs the county’s road need at about $60 million a year, “putting inflation aside,” against current spending of about $16 million. “If we want better roads, we have to self-fund,” he said, adding that the state’s system for allocating road money “doesn’t seem quite fair” and that he was “not holding my breath for legislators in LA and San Francisco metros to decide to give Mendocino more.”

Supervisor John Haschak, who also supported the measure, said the board constantly hears complaints about road conditions — “they’re coming to the board meetings from far away to complain about the roads,” he said. He acknowledged “the easy thing to do would be to just say, no, we’re going to lose,” but argued the county should let voters decide: “the longer we wait, the bigger the hole we’re digging for ourselves.”

During public comment, Kevin Evans of Gualala, who chairs the community’s Municipal Advisory Council and lost to Williams in June’s race for the District 5 supervisor seat, offered qualified support, arguing the measure could win voters over only if paired with strong accountability. “A modest sales tax may be a reasonable investment,” he said, noting the cost of vehicle repairs from poor roads and that the tax would be “shared by visitors to the county,” not just residents. But “before voters are asked to pay more, they urgently need binding guarantees that every road repair dollar will be spent as promised.” He called for equitable district-by-district distribution and local input from municipal advisory councils, community services districts and town councils, concluding that “with transparency, fairness, and local control, this measure can earn the public support.”

Ukiah Annexation Less Likely

The vote also dimmed prospects for the proposed Ukiah annexation. Williams told the board he has been a proponent of an annexation “that strengthens the county and the city of Ukiah,” but “every time we chip away at funding, and this would be a big chip, $5.5 million, that possibility becomes more bleak.” In his report later in the meeting, he said that with the roads decision, annexation is “probably not likely to happen.”

In his presentation, Dashiell said the county had been asked to analyze the proposed Ukiah annexation and found that transferring 19.65 miles of road to the city would free an estimated $410,000 to $455,000 a year over the county’s 20-year maintenance plan for use elsewhere.

The board dissolved its roads ad hoc committee the same day.

Supervisors appointed a two-member committee July 21 to respond to a civil grand jury report criticizing the Board of Supervisors’ oversight of Planning and Building Services, after a District 5 resident said a known fire-safety gap was still open.

The 2025-26 report, “From Policy to Practice: Digging Deeper into the Board of Supervisors’ Oversight of Planning and Building Services,” was paired with a review of whether the county and other agencies properly responded to the previous year’s grand jury reports. Under state law, the board must respond to both.

Dee Pallesen told supervisors the county still has not fully implemented Public Resources Code Section 4290 and the state’s minimum fire-safe regulations — the same concern she raised in 2025, and the first recommendation of a 2024-25 civil grand jury report titled “Planning and Building Department Structural Issues: Exposing the Cracks.”

Pallesen said the board then directed the planning director to meet with CAL FIRE to resolve a discrepancy, and that the meeting never occurred. She said she contacted CAL FIRE herself and was told the agency cannot conduct a 4290 inspection without an application, and that the county is not referring all building permit applicants to the agency.

The first recommendation from the 2024-25 grand jury was for the board “to give direction to the Mendocino County Chief Executive Officer to instruct Planning and Building Services to immediately enforce Public Resource Code 4290 for all new permits pertaining to preexisting and habitable structures, commercial and industrial buildings, by July 1, 2025.”

The Board of Supervisors responded that “the recommendation will not be implemented as it is not warranted. PBS complies with its responsibilities as it pertains to PRC section 4290 and follows the established CALFIRE procedure as provided in Attachments A and B.”

Supervisor Ted Williams, who served on last year’s grand jury ad hoc, said the process was frustrating. He described finding himself caught between a grand jury that believed one thing and county staff who maintained another.

Supervisor Madeline Cline asked whether she could reach out and have a conversation with the grand jury.

“I don’t really see a process for that,” Interim County Counsel Katharine Elliott said. She emphasized that supervisors needed to follow the grand jury’s policies and procedures, which are governed by state law. When pressed, however, Elliott said nothing prohibited Cline from reaching out.

Mulheren moved to appoint Williams and Haschak. The vote was 5-0.

Read additional coverage:

County Planning Director Resigns for New Job, as Grand Jury Report Faults Her Department (July 8, 2026)

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is operating with an effective vacancy rate approaching 45%, Sheriff Matt Kendall told supervisors July 21. When he finished his remarks, the board voted unanimously to fund five positions it had left unfunded as a cost-saving measure.

The sheriff’s office reported a 33% vacancy rate to the board earlier this month. Administrative Capt. Jason Caudillo said that figure does not account for eight employees out on leave, which pushes the effective rate to 44% or 45%. Kendall said several of those employees are unlikely to return because of the severity of their injuries.

The Ukiah sector, which generates half the county’s calls for service, is the hardest hit and has run shifts with a single deputy. Kendall said the department is simultaneously handling a rise in homicides and human trafficking, and illegal marijuana activity in the north county that he attributed to transnational drug trafficking organizations. Illicit cultivation, he said, “has gotten completely out of control.”

Caudillo said relief is arriving: three deputies were sworn in July 20, and three more lateral hires are expected in August.

Two of the five positions will be offset by roughly $500,000 in Proposition 64 funding over five years and will carry investigator assignments. Public agencies receive Prop. 64 funds to combat illegal cannabis cultivation, support youth education, and address public health and safety impacts tied to cannabis legalization.

The full-year cost to the general fund is slightly over $1 million, though interim CEO Sara Pierce put the current-year figure closer to $500,000 given hiring timelines. She said the cost could to be covered by one-time funds this year while the county looks for ongoing revenue.

Supervisor Bernie Norvell moved approval and Haschak seconded. Cline said the board is at a crossroads on priorities and that public safety is worth the cost. The vote was 5-0.

When Eric Hart decided to run to represent District 3 on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, he knew his housing situation would raise questions. That’s because the small one-bedroom cabin he and his wife bought outside Willits in 2019 on Northview Road is in District 4. Last year, he and his wife moved to the larger, adjoining parcel, on Williams Ranch Road, which is in District 3. They made Williams Ranch Road their primary residence.

The parcels are contiguous, however, and make up a hilltop and hillside. Hart and his wife sometimes joke about the houses being “upstairs” and “downstairs,” with the extra space “upstairs” being used as an office, a workshop, or for visiting friends and relatives.

Hart said in an interview that he and his wife are currently renting their primary residence on Williams Ranch Road with an option to purchase it. That explanation has satisfied most people, he said.

But not everyone.

At 6 p.m. Monday, Julie Golden, chair of the Hopland Municipal Advisory Council, sent an urgent letter to the board of supervisors. Golden requested that the board refrain from certifying the June primary election — an item on the consent calendar for the board’s meeting the next day.

“Supervisors, please PAUSE the Certification of the Election and pull it from the BOS Agenda until Eric Hart has the opportunity to confirm that his PRIMARY residence is in District 3,” Golden wrote. “It’s important for election integrity to allow Eric Hart the opportunity to publicly confirm that he has relocated and updated his State and Federal tax filings with his new PRIMARY Residence onto his neighbor’s property. This should be easy for him to provide tax filing documents and this issue can be closed and the election can be certified.”

In her email, Golden included an essay titled “Two Homes, One Seat: Residency Questions Loom Over Leading District 3 Supervisor Candidate.” The essay purported to be written “By Mendo Confidential” on July 20, 2026.

However, the essay was dotted with “mojibake” — corrupted characters that occur when copy is cut and pasted from large language models like Claude or ChatGPT — strongly suggesting it was produced by AI. The essay noted Hart’s former residence on Northview Road and his current home on Williams Ranch Road, where he is registered to vote. It also cited a complaint by Clay Romero, who competed unsuccessfully against Hart and Buffey Bourassa in the District 3 primary.

“California law requires supervisor candidates to be domiciled in the district they seek to represent. Domicile is more than temporary residence or property ownership,” the essay stated, “it is the place a person considers their permanent home and intends to return to.”

The essay suggested that “questions remain” about Hart’s Williams Ranch Road address “given public records showing strong ties to a Northview Road Property in the neighboring 4th District for many years.”

At the board meeting on Tuesday, Supervisor Mo Mulheren pulled Item C9, the Certification of the June 2, 2026 Primary Election, for discussion.

Mulheren asked Interim County Counsel Katharine L. Elliott to comment on the item, which she said was “related to an email that the board received because of one of the candidates.”

Elliott told the board it had received a letter requesting that C9 be pulled, but said certifying the election was not really the board’s choice to make. “The certification of the election has to go through pursuant to state code,” Elliott said. “Whether the board approved it or not, it’s sort of irrelevant. It would go through as certified anyway.”

The concern, Elliott said, “was related to the third district and whether there was residency there.” But the county registrar of voters has no role in vetting a candidate’s qualifications, Elliott said. The office is “not required to verify or determine if a candidate meets the qualifications” and is “by law, entitled to rely on that candidate’s declaration under penalty of perjury.”

“If citizens have concerns in terms of residency, there are actions that citizens can take,” Elliott said, “but not that the county would take.”

Hart wonders why no one took the trouble to call him to ask about the two properties before asking the board of supervisors not to certify the election. “My phone number is everywhere,” he said. “People are constantly calling.”

He said he would have been happy to show Romero or Golden or anyone from the county the properties had they simply called and asked. “Northview Road and Williams Ranch Road are both on our property,” he said. “They are both easements. I can drive from one house to the other without ever leaving our property. that’s how ridiculous this whole thing is.”

Over the past five years, the Mendocino County Assessor’s Office has gone back and added more than $3 billion in property value to the tax rolls — value that existed all along but had escaped assessment — worth roughly $33 million a year in property taxes, a MendoLocal.News review of county records shows.

MendoLocal.News requested public records of escape assessments in March. Last week, the county responded, sending us 101 files. We analyzed the files with Claude Code, an AI coding assistant.

The $33 million figure revealed by our analysis is separate from the $30.6 million the California State Auditor flagged in December, and it points to a second, comparably sized gap in the county’s fiscal management. Together the two figures describe different failures at opposite ends of the property-tax system.

The auditor’s $30.6 million is tax that was billed but never paid on defaulted properties. The $3 billion is value that was never billed on time in the first place — a recurring stream we estimate at about $33 million a year, using a 1.1% effective tax rate.

Our finding is drawn from five years of the county’s own escape-assessment records, tax years 2021 through 2025, released under the California Public Records Act. Most of the recovered value — about $2.9 billion — came from routine but late corrections: regular transfers between a buyer and seller or between a deceased owner and their heirs, as well as new construction the office enrolled years after the fact under a section of state law covering clerical roll fixes. A smaller share reflects enforcement — $78.9 million in “true escapes,” the omitted-property and business-audit cases the office is required to pursue, plus $7.4 million in penalties for concealment or late filing.

The value did not come back in a single year. The assessor added it back across the five tax years, rising and falling as the office worked through its backlog — from about $395 million in tax year 2021 to a peak near $859 million in 2023, then tapering. At a 1.1% rate, that is the difference between roughly $4.4 million and $9.5 million in tax for a given year. (The 2025 figure is partial; the office is still processing that roll.)

Our analysis puts precise numbers to a pattern described by the state auditor. Nearly 11,000 properties — about one in six on the secured roll — had at least one value-adding escape over the period. Among the cases we could date, the value sat off the rolls an average of 2.7 years, and in one Comptche case as long as nine. To guard against exactly this kind of revenue slippage, the audit directed the assessor to build “aging reports” by March 2026 to flag the properties at highest risk of going untaxed. In its 60-day response to the auditor, filed in February, the assessor-clerk-recorder’s office reported that it had built the tool for building permits but not yet for property transfers, which it called “a work in progress” because of a problem with the county’s property-tax software, Aumentum.

Most of the escaped value was recovered — billed late rather than lost. Some slipped away for good. Of the delayed cases we could date, 10 parcels — about $9.6 million in value, or roughly $106,000 in tax — fell past California’s four-year statute of limitations on back-assessments and cannot be recovered. Because we could date only part of the caseload, that figure is a floor, not a full accounting.

The $33 million found in our analysis and the auditor’s $30.6 million matters are distinct amounts. One thing they have in common is that only a fraction of the total goes to the general fund.

The auditor’s $30.6 million has been widely read as a hole in the county budget. But that money is tied to the Teeter plan, Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison told the board of supervisors on July 21 — a state accounting method under which the county fronts cities, school districts, fire districts and other local agencies their share of unpaid taxes and recovers it later through collection or auction. If the county collects it all, she said, the amount that would actually reach the general fund “might be a couple million dollars, but it is not $30 million.” The $33 million our analysis found is likewise not a county windfall: once the escaped value is billed and paid, that tax is distributed among the same taxing agencies — schools, cities and special districts.

Taken together, the two findings point to a county behind on both sides of the property-tax ledger — slow to put escaped value back on the rolls, and, by the auditor’s account, still owed tens of millions in uncollected bills.

Two men have been booked into the Mendocino County Jail in connection with the fatal shooting of a Covelo woman earlier this month, one of them on suspicion of first-degree murder, according to jail records.

Both men were booked July 21 by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and listed under the same court case number, jail records show. One, a 22-year-old, was booked on suspicion of first-degree murder and was being held without bail. The other, a 44-year-old, was booked on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact, with bail set at $350,000.

Capt. Quincy Cromer of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the arrests are connected the killing of Josepha Littlewolf Thunderheart Basurto, 31.

An arrest is not evidence of guilt. Being booked into jail means only that officers believed there was cause to make an arrest; it is not a criminal charge, a conviction, or a finding by any court. Both men are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty, and prosecutors had not filed formal charges as of this writing.

Booked into the Mendocino County Jail on July 21, according to jail records, were:

• Elias Juarez Rodriguez, 22, on suspicion of first-degree murder. He was being held without bail. Records list him under the additional name Elias Atzael Garcia-Acosta. He was booked at 2:19 p.m., and his address is listed as Adelanto, California.

• Elias Juarezgarcia, 44, on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact, with bail set at $350,000. Records list him under the additional names Elias Atzael Garcia-Acosta and Elias Garcia Juarez. Booking records show he was booked at 2:55 p.m. and list his address as Porterville, California.

Basurto was found shot to death about 9 p.m. July 9 inside a pickup in the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road, northwest of Covelo, after her sister found her and called 911. The Sheriff’s Office described the location as a large illegal marijuana cultivation site and said at the time that multiple suspects appeared to have been involved.

Basurto was not involved with illegal grow, but had gone to the location to help another person, according to her mother, Sharlisa Mountainlion Unca Sam.

Basurto was a mother of four children between the ages of 4 and 13. She is remembered by her family as a loving mother and friend, a skilled horse trainer, and a California Native and powwow dancer. A GoFundMe launched by her mother and aunt seeks to cover funeral costs and travel for relatives coming from Utah, and to allow the family to attend court proceedings.

The July 21 arrests come after three other people were booked July 10 on illegal-marijuana charges during a warrant service in the same block of Rifle Range Road. The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that those arrests were all related to the illicit marijuana cultivation operation that investigators located at the property in the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road where the homicide was reported on July 9.

The homicide investigation involves the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force, the District Attorney’s Office, the county’s Marijuana Eradication Team, and criminalists from the California Department of Justice’s Eureka laboratory. Anyone with information may call the Sheriff’s Office tip line at 707-234-2100.

Last December, when the state auditor ordered Mendocino County to clean up its management of public funds, it gave the county three deadlines. The offices with noted deficiencies were to report back on their progress at 60 days, six months and a year. The six-month deadline landed June 18.

Three department heads appeared before the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors on July 21 to provide their updates, but only two were able to point to written responses to the state auditor.

Auditor-Controller Megan Hunter told the board her office had submitted its responses to the state’s recommendations on time in June. She then walked through the work behind them: a full policies-and-procedures manual she expects to finish in June 2027, a new electronic journal-entry workflow, completed countywide trainings and a continued contract with Regional Government Services on new accounting standards. A steering committee, Hunter added, is working with the CEO’s office and information services on a Munis finance-system overhaul she said would take three to four years.

It was Hunter’s first appearance before the board since the county split the auditor-controller-treasurer-tax collector’s office in two on July 5 and she took the helm of the auditor-controller’s office. The office is on schedule to publish its annual financial report by Dec. 31, Hunter said.

Chamise Cubbison, who ran both offices until the first week of July, marked the change as she introduced herself: “Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison,” she said. “First time I’ve had to leave the first part off. A little bit hard for me.”

Cubbison addressed the auditor’s finding that the county had not collected some $30.6 million in taxes, penalties and interest owed on defaulted properties. The audit had told the county to resume auctioning those properties by October; instead, Cubbison said, the auction will not resume until the spring, “hopefully sometime between January and March.”

In a memo four days before the meeting, her office had formally reported that the auditor’s recommendation was “not fully implemented,” with the auction now expected in March 2027 — about five months past the deadline. The remaining holdups, she said, are “personnel related, but they are not performance related.”

Cubbison also said the $30 million is not headed to the county’s general fund. “It is money that is for the Teeter plan,” she said. Under the Teeter plan, a state-authorized accounting method, the county advances local schools, cities and special districts their full share of property taxes every year — including the taxes owners haven’t actually paid — and in exchange keeps the penalties and interest it later collects on those delinquent bills. The county covers the shortfall up front and recovers it over time, through payment or the eventual auction of a defaulted property. If the county recovers everything, Cubbison said, the amount that would reach the general fund “might be a couple million dollars, but it is not $30 million.”

Separately, Cubbison said she was exploring whether to hand the county’s transient-occupancy-tax and business-improvement-district collections, and possibly business-license renewals, to an outside vendor. She said the change could require raising the county’s flat $40 business-license fee, which she called too low to be worth the staff time it consumes.

There was no report from the assessor. “I do not have my state audit report done yet,” Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolomie told the board, adding that she expected to submit it “within the next couple weeks.” She attributed the delay to a strained office: her assistant registrar of voters has been out on medical leave, and staff spent days preparing for a potential hand recount of the 61-candidate governor’s race — an effort estimated at roughly $3,250 a day for about 27 days. The recount was called off because the person who requested it never put up the money.

The state auditor had directed Bartolomie to build “aging reports” by March to flag unassessed properties at highest risk of going untaxed, and to document formal assessment policies by June. No supervisor pressed her on the missed deadline; instead, they thanked her office for running the June primary.

For now, the progress reports from the county’s department heads are unverified. The state auditor’s office has not yet reviewed the six-month responses. Its public recommendation tracker still reflects the earlier 60-day round, in which the auditor confirmed only one of the recommendations the county had reported as fully implemented — an elections contract with a ballot-printing vendor. Two other recommendations, out of the 18 recommendations the audit made, were downgraded to “partially implemented,” with the auditor rejecting the county’s “fully implemented” claim. The other recommendations are listed as “pending.”

In one of the downgraded recommendations, the state auditor had told the county to produce a single document spelling out when a sole-source contract — one awarded without competitive bidding — is justified. The county reported the task complete. The auditor found that the county had circulated guidance to staff but “has not yet created the expectations document” the recommendation required. The other downgraded recommendation involved tracking contracts repeatedly awarded to the same vendor. The auditor said it wanted evidence that the county has fully implemented the necessary processes before crediting the change.

The board accepted all of the reports as informational, without objection, on a motion by Supervisor Madeline Cline seconded by Supervisor John Haschak. There was no public comment.

🏛️ Mendocino County

SEIU announces tentative deal with Mendocino County
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · July 16
SEIU Local 1021 has reached a tentative three-year contract with Mendocino County that includes 3% raises for all positions, up to 12% for the lowest-paid workers, free health care, and Juneteenth as a holiday. The agreement still needs ratification by union members and approval by the Board of Supervisors.
Read more

Mendocino County farmers were paid to grow produce for food banks
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · July 16
A federal program that paid Mendocino County farmers to grow produce for local food banks ended in May after the Trump administration canceled contracts. The program had distributed more than 70,000 pounds of local food annually through 39 farms.
Read more

⛰️ Covelo

Mother of Four Fatally Shot Near Covelo; Three Arrested on Cannabis Charges, Family Fundraiser Launched
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 12–13
Josepha Littlewolf Thunderheart Basurto, a 31-year-old mother of four, was found fatally shot with multiple gunshot wounds in a pickup truck at an illegal cannabis site near Covelo on July 10, and three people were arrested on marijuana-cultivation charges at the same location a day later — though authorities have not linked the arrests to the homicide. A GoFundMe campaign seeking $8,000 has since been launched to cover her funeral and travel for family members coming from Utah for services and future court proceedings.
Read more: homicide & arrests · Read more: fundraiser

🦴 Dos Rios

Sheriff’s Office Identifies Remains of Hunter Who Vanished Near Dos Rios in 2021
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 15
The remains of John Thomas Davis III, a McKinleyville hunter missing since October 2021, have been identified through DNA from a bone found by a fisherman on the Eel River in February 2026. Davis vanished during a flood while camping near Dos Rios, prompting nearly five years of search operations across Northern California.
Read more

🏠 Fort Bragg

An ICE Arrest in Cleone
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 17
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Juan Arenas-Cinega, 46, in Cleone on July 15 in a targeted operation; ICE says he has multiple DUI and spousal-abuse convictions and illegally re-entered the U.S. after a prior deportation.
Read more

Fort Bragg Police Told Joey Lara, “You’re Going to Jail,” Despite Breath Tests Below the Legal Limit
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 17
Fort Bragg police took Joey Lara, 67, into custody on suspicion of DUI after stopping him for a license-plate light, though he passed field sobriety tests. Held in the booking cell, he registered below the legal limit six times on a breathalyzer the officer called malfunctioning.
Read more

Fort Bragg Police Captain O’Neal Leaves;
By Frank Hartzell, Mendocino Coast News · July 16
Fort Bragg Police Captain Thomas O’Neal is no longer with the department. The city had no comment on his departure.
Read more

DoorDash Lauds Fort Bragg’s Fee Waiver Program
By Carole Brodsky, Fort Bragg Advocate-News · July 16
DoorDash has commended the Fort Bragg City Council for its new First-Year Fee Waiver Program, which waives certain administrative and permitting fees for independently owned businesses during their startup year. In a letter to Mayor Jason Godeke, DoorDash’s head of California public policy, Victor Ruiz-Cornejo, praised the city for reducing barriers to entrepreneurship while maintaining safety and code-compliance standards.
Read more

An 81-Year-Old Faces Eviction as Affordable Senior Housing Waitlists Stretch for Years
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 14
An 81-year-old Mendocino Coast woman with Stage 4 cancer faces eviction from her $300-a-month trailer as affordable senior-housing waitlists in the county stretch for years. Despite social-services intervention after MendoLocal’s inquiry, she remains without permanent housing and her landlord has refused her July rent.
Read more

First Building in 60 Years Rises on the Fort Bragg Mill Site
By Frank Hartzell, Mendocino Coast News · July 14
The Noyo Center for Marine Science is erecting the LeBONEatory, a two-story octagonal structure to display a 73-foot blue whale skeleton — the first new building on Fort Bragg’s former Georgia-Pacific mill site in six decades. Construction is paused awaiting window delivery, with a grand opening tentatively set for September 13.
Read more

🌊 Gualala

CDFW Identifies Man Who Drove Truck Into Garcia River
By Karen Elowitt, The Independent Coast Observer ·· July 16
A warden from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife identified the man who drove a truck into the Garcia River in June as Melvin Stewart King, 41, of Gualala. District Attorney David Eyster said a prosecutor has not yet been assigned, but that county courts have a track record of taking wildlife-related crimes seriously.
Read more (Subscription to The Independent Coast Observer may be required)

GCC Rebuild Moving Forward
By Kat Gleason, The Independent Coast Observer · · July 16
George Provencher, a board member of the Gualala Community Center, is heading the project to rebuild the center. Provencher has a background building nuclear facilities and other classified government buildings.
Read more (Subscription to The Independent Coast Observer required)

📞 Hopland

AT&T can now hang up on Hopland
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · July 12
AT&T won federal permission on June 29 to end copper landline service for about 184,000 California customers, including in Hopland, with disconnections possible as early as June 1, 2027.
Read more

🚗 Little River

Car Goes Off the Highway 1 Cliff Onto Van Damme Beach
By Frank Hartzell, Mendocino Coast News · July 16
A car carrying three young men crashed through the Highway 1 guardrail at Little River late Wednesday and dropped roughly 30 feet onto Van Damme Beach. Witnesses said the vehicle had been driving erratically and crossing the center line beforehand; all three occupants were injured but were found sitting on a wall when responders arrived.
Read more

🎨 Mendocino

Mendocino Art Center adds programs, honors legacy
By Carole Brodsky, Ukiah Daily Journal · July 16
The Mendocino Art Center has launched a “Summer Cultivating Abundance” campaign expanding its programming under executive director Dav Bell, who is reframing the center around community-building, reciprocity, and skill-sharing. About two years into the role, Bell says the goal is a more diverse slate of programs where participants “can be constantly learning and growing.”
Read more

Mendocino teacher bit by shark returns to surf same spot he was attacked
By Savana Robinson, The Mendocino Voice · July 16
James Eastman, a Mendocino High School English teacher bitten by a shark on both legs in March, has returned to surfing at Big River Beach — where the attack occurred — after four months of recovery. His GoFundMe raised $13,806, with the surplus seeding a new nonprofit, The Minutes Matter Project, to place bleeding-control kits at high-traffic Mendocino Coast beaches.
Read more

🎵 Piercy

Music festival set to return to Cook’s Valley Campground in Piercy this weekend By Savana Robinson, The Mendocino Voice · July 14
The Dirtybird Campout and Northern Nights Music Festival returns to Cook’s Valley Campground in Piercy this weekend with four stages and more than 70 house, techno, bass, and dance acts. The three-day event offers camping, a silent disco, a cannabis lounge, yoga, and live art, with remaining tickets at northernnights.org.
Read more

📍 Point Arena

South Coast’s Action Network closes its doors
By Carole Brodsky, Ukiah Daily Journal · July 16
The South Coast’s Action Network, a 20-year nonprofit providing youth and family services on the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts, ceased operations June 30 after failing to secure enough funding to continue. Interim director Miles Clark attributed the closure to shifts in health-care funding that steered dollars toward larger behavioral-health providers equipped for insurance and Medi-Cal billing.
Read more

🏙️ Ukiah

Ukiah City Council to vote again on Downtown Zoning Code revisions
By Justine Frederiksen, Ukiah Daily Journal · July 15
The Ukiah City Council this week is set to adopt revisions to the city’s Downtown Zoning Code, which officials say has acted as a barrier to development rather than encouraging it since its 2012 adoption. Community Development Director Craig Schlatter said the original form-based code “is really acting as a barrier to development,” and the changes aim to add flexibility for property owners.
Read more

🚂 Willits

The Mendocino County District Attorney Will Not File Criminal Charges in the Death of Nicholas Bakewell
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · July 14
The Mendocino County District Attorney declined to file charges against law-enforcement officers in the June 2025 death of Nicholas Bakewell, concluding the use of force was “objectively reasonable” even though a medical examiner ruled the death a homicide from restraint-associated asphyxiation. Bakewell’s family has filed a federal civil suit alleging excessive force.
Read more

🐻 CALMATTERS

Republicans Hold a Cash Edge in California’s Swing Congressional Races
By Maya C. Miller, CalMatters · July 16
Republican candidates in California’s competitive congressional swing districts hold sizable cash advantages over Democrats heading into 2026, after costly Democratic primaries and a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing unlimited party spending coordinated with candidates.
Read more

California’s Secretive Jailhouse Sting Operations Draw Constitutional Challenges
By Cayla Mihalovich, CalMatters · July 15
A CalMatters investigation of more than 5,000 pages of court records found that California police routinely use undercover jailhouse stings known as “Perkins operations” — often continuing after suspects invoke their Miranda rights — with at least 10 cases now challenging the resulting convictions. Critics say the practice is coercive and disproportionately targets Black and Latino defendants.
Read more

CalPERS Posts Its Best Investment Return in Over a Decade
By Adam Ashton, CalMatters · July 13
CalPERS, the nation's largest public pension fund, earned a 14.8% investment return in 2025–26 — more than double its 6.8% target and its best year since 2014 — pushing its portfolio to $637.1 billion. The gains lift the fund's financial health, with assets now covering 85% of what it owes members, up from 68% a decade ago.
Read more

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a 46-year-old man in Cleone, just north of Fort Bragg, on Tuesday, July 15, in a targeted enforcement operation. Community members said the arrest took place in the trailer-park area.

ICE’s San Francisco field office said it took Juan Arenas-Cinega, a Mexican national, into custody. According to the agency, Arenas-Cinega has multiple convictions for driving under the influence and for spousal abuse, had previously been deported, and illegally re-entered the United States — a federal felony. He is in ICE custody pending removal, the agency said.

In a separate statement, the City of Fort Bragg said the Fort Bragg Police Department had informed it that ICE “conducted targeted enforcement operations within the community today involving individuals with criminal cases.” ICE later advised the department that the operation had concluded and that federal personnel had left the area, the City said.

The City stressed that it “was not involved in directing or coordinating the federal enforcement activity” and reported “no reported impacts to City services or municipal operations.”

Under California’s sanctuary law, the California Values Act (SB 54), state and local police are generally barred from using their resources to assist federal immigration enforcement, though the law carves out exceptions for people convicted of certain serious or violent crimes.

MendoLocal.News has not independently verified ICE’s account of Arenas-Cinega’s criminal history or immigration status.

Joey Lara had spent most of the day at a friend’s house — watching movies, doing laundry, eating pizza. He was almost home when a Fort Bragg police officer pulled him over for a flickering rear license-plate light on his truck and asked how much he’d had to drink.

One beer, he told her. Eight hours earlier.

What followed were roadside sobriety tests that he believes he passed and an order to get out of the truck, followed by several hours in the booking room at the Fort Bragg Police Department. At the station, the breathalyzer put his blood-alcohol level at .04, then .03 — under the legal limit — across six attempts the officer blamed on malfunctioning equipment.

If the breathalyzer was working, Lara was below the legal limit. If it wasn't, the legality of his arrest depended on whether the officer had probable cause to believe he was impaired.

The district attorney declined to file charges, and someone wrote the reason on Lara’s release paperwork by hand: “lacks jury appeal.”

Nearly a year later, the City of Fort Bragg has settled the false-arrest claim Lara brought against it, paying him $2,950. But Lara — 67, a Mendocino Coast urchin-diving legend who had only just gotten back on his feet — still hasn’t fully bounced back.

The Fort Bragg Police Department did not respond to a request for comment about Lara’s arrest. It declined to release any records related to the case in response to multiple California Public Records Act requests. The department also did not respond to questions about whether patrol vehicles typically carry breathalyzers or how often they are calibrated.

Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations requires that instruments for testing breath alcohol “shall be checked for accuracy with reference samples” and that “records shall be kept for each instrument to show the frequency of determination of accuracy and the identity of any person performing a manual determination of accuracy.” MendoLocal.News has requested these records from the Fort Bragg Police Department under the California Public Records Act.

Picking up the pieces

Back in the nineties, when Lara owned a thriving urchin-diving business, Lara estimates he pulled more than three million dollars’ worth of the spiny invertebrates off the ocean floor. He had a family, a boat, a house.

But even before the catastrophic decline of the red sea urchins that were his bread and butter, he saw the writing on the wall. “I told my wife, the future is not looking good in terms of urchin diving,” he recalled in an interview with MendoLocal.News.

Lara started working to develop other forms of livelihood — logging, dredging, organic gardening, sport-fishing excursions. Nothing he tried was as lucrative as urchin diving. His income suffered, and along with it his marriage. He lost his house and fell behind on child support.

In 2019 he found himself homeless — though for Lara, and for many other Mendocino locals, this doesn’t mean sleeping in the streets. It means couch surfing, living on a boat, camping out in a leaky RV.

Five years passed. The death of Lara’s wife finally released him from the legal claims she had made against him.

In October 2024, he rented a small studio apartment. “I felt like a real guy again,” he said. “It was getting old, being a couch surfer.” In May 2025, he got a new truck.

On Saturday, July 26, 2025, he was driving it home after an afternoon and evening hanging out with a friend. Around 10:30 p.m., he headed back to his apartment off Airport Road, driving north on Franklin Street, then a left at Manzanita Road and a right onto Highway 1.

That’s when he saw the Fort Bragg police car, parked and facing east. As Lara passed by, the car, driven by Officer Antoinette Moore, pulled in behind him.

“As I turned on Airport Road, she turned her emergency lights on, and I pulled over on Burrows Ranch Road and Airport Road,” Lara wrote in the claim he submitted to the City of Fort Bragg.

Moore approached Lara’s truck and told him she was stopping him for an intermittent rear license-plate light. This didn’t sound right to Lara. He had just replaced the bulbs a week before, and he told the officer that.

“She immediately and persistently questioned if I was intoxicated, had I been drinking, how many drinks did I have,” Lara wrote. He told her the truth: he’d had one beer, at least eight hours earlier. “Officer Moore kept insisting that I was intoxicated, and she was going to do a visual Standard Field Sobriety Test,” he wrote.

Moore did the test. Lara passed. Moore again said he was intoxicated. She administered a second test, which consisted of her moving her finger around erratically while asking Lara to follow it with his eyes. Afterward, Moore complained that she couldn’t see his eyes and asked him to step out of the vehicle.

Lara let Moore know that he was partially disabled and had an uneven walking gait.

“At that point in the investigation Officer Moore advised that if I didn’t get out of my vehicle I would be arrested for obstruction of justice.” A second officer arrived. They again told him to get out of the truck or be arrested. “I asked them to wait as I was in the process of calling my friend to come and pick up my dog as it was obvious where this was headed,” Lara recalled.

Lara said the officers opened the truck door and dragged him out. He was handcuffed and placed in the back of Officer Moore’s police car.

After arriving at the Fort Bragg Police Department, Officer Amanda Pacheco administered what Lara counted to be a minimum of six breathalyzer tests.

The first test failed. The second test failed. Officer Pacheco asked Lara to blow into the device for a longer period of time. This time, the device registered .04%. The fourth test failed. The fifth test registered .03%, and the sixth test failed, according to Lara’s claim for damages.

The problem was the equipment, Officer Pacheco told Lara. “It was malfunctioning.”

The officers told Lara he was going to jail in Ukiah unless he could find someone to come and take responsibility for him. His friend, Sam Presswood, picked him up in the morning hours of July 27.

How an arrest becomes a detention

For weeks, Lara was under the impression he had been arrested. He hired an attorney to make sure he didn’t lose his license and to assist with a false-arrest claim. He doesn’t remember when he received a sheet of paper that converted what had appeared to be an arrest into a detention. He believes he learned he had been detained after he filed his claim in early September.

So was Lara released free and clear? His release paperwork, reviewed by MendoLocal.News, states that he was “detained” — not arrested — and released on “written instructions from the District Attorney’s office.” The reason the DA gave for declining the case, written by hand by an unknown person is: “lacks jury appeal.” The paperwork itself carries no date.

Under California law, when a person is booked and then released without charges, the arrest is reclassified on paper as a detention. But Lara had been handcuffed, hauled to the station, held for hours, and told he was being sent over the hill to the jail in Ukiah. The district attorney also had options. The release form has boxes for “insufficient evidence” and “arrestee exonerated.” Neither was checked.

And there are questions about the form itself. It is not signed by anyone from the releasing agency, and there is no printed name of the releasing person.

According to California Penal Code 851.6, a person who is arrested and released “shall be issued a certificate, signed by the releasing officer or his superior officer, describing the action as a detention.”

The impound paperwork also suggests that the “detention” label was applied after the fact. The paperwork lists California Vehicle Code 22651(h)(1) as the authority for towing Lara’s truck — a section that applies only when a driver has been arrested and taken into custody.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. But the U.S. Supreme Court has held that a pretextual traffic stop — say, for a missing license-plate light — is lawful as long as police have probable cause that a violation occurred. So whether the stop was legal may come down to a single question: was the light actually on or off?

The arrest is a separate matter. A lawful stop doesn’t authorize an arrest; that requires probable cause to believe a crime — here, driving under the influence — has been committed. Lara says he passed his field sobriety tests and blew under the legal limit six times. Federal appeals courts have held that signs a person has been drinking are not, by themselves, probable cause that the person is impaired. In a 2005 case, United States v. Brown, the Fourth Circuit found that probable cause for public intoxication could not be based solely on glassy, bloodshot eyes and the strong smell of alcohol.

To Lara, the experience validated his feelings about the dishonesty and corruption of the system. In his view, all he had done was drive home from a friend’s house.

The turnaround that had been so long in coming reversed. In addition to towing, impound, and attorney fees, a family member needed financial help. Lara let go of his apartment. He moved into a dilapidated trailer.

It took him a while to stop being angry, he said. He talked to Council Member Marcia Rafanan, who promised she would look into the issue. He filed a claim against the city for false arrest, which the city paid to settle without admitting wrongdoing. He also filed an internal affairs complaint.

Then he worked on letting go. But his bad luck stuck around.

In October, Lara learned his identity had been stolen: someone had used his name and Social Security number to report $60,000 in income. He found out when the Social Security Administration began docking his monthly check for the back taxes. To make it stop, he needed to file a police report — but he was reluctant to ask the Fort Bragg Police Department for help.

On April 6, 2026 Lara got a letter from Chief Eric Swift about his internal affairs complaint. It said his complaint against Officer Moore was “not sustained” — which is not the same as exonerating her; it means there wasn’t enough evidence to prove or disprove the complaint. His complaint against Officer Pacheco, who administered the breathalyzer tests, was “exonerated” — a finding that the conduct occurred but was deemed lawful.

“He is standing by his officers rather than supporting the people,” Lara said. “I’m one of the most honest, hard-working guys in town. I didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

To settle the matter, MendoLocal.News asked Lara to request a copy of his police report and the body-camera footage under the California Public Records Act. It turned out he had already done so, and the police had denied the request stating “all investigative materials are exempt from disclosure.” At the behest of MendoLocal.News, Lara submitted a second request to review “all police documents” associated with his arrest/detention. This time, the police responded that they had no disclosable records — including, apparently, the release document that had already been provided to Lara, which MendoLocal.News reviewed.

When MendoLocal.News filed a request to review Lara’s public records requests — which are themselves typically public, as the name implies — the department denied that, too.

Lara says he’s doing better. He’s working a lot, and spending downtime in his organic garden. It’s looking to be a bountiful year. “I’ve got all kinds of herbs,” he said. “We are getting ready to harvest zucchini, tomatoes, turnips, Swiss chard, bunches of beans, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. It’s looking good.”

MendoLocal.News’ previous coverage of allegations of constitutional rights violations:

Mendocino County Butcher Says Fort Bragg Police Retaliated Against Him for Refusing to Share Phone Video, August 28, 2025

Nearly five years after a McKinleyville hunter disappeared during a rainstorm, a single bone found by a fisherman has led investigators to identify his remains, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office announced.

John Thomas Davis III, 48, was reported missing on Oct. 25, 2021, after a hunting trip along Highway 162 near Dos Rios went wrong. On June 16, 2026, the California Department of Justice confirmed that a bone recovered by an Eel River fisherman earlier this year was a positive familial DNA match to Davis’ mother and father, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The identification brought closure to a search that had spanned nearly five years, a dozen operations, and hundreds of logged hours across Northern California.

Davis and his son left McKinleyville around 4 a.m. on Oct. 23, 2021, to hunt bear and deer near Mile Marker 8 on Highway 162, the Sheriff’s Office said. The pair parked at the bridge, hiked roughly three miles southeast, and set up a tent along the Eel River. In the early hours of Oct. 24, they woke to floodwater pouring into the tent from an overnight rainstorm. Davis chose to stay in the area while his son walked back toward their vehicle. The son waited hours at the car, but his father never arrived. When he returned to the campsite, both his father and the tent were gone.

Family members searched the area on Oct. 24 without success, and the following morning Davis’ son drove to Willits to report him missing.

When deputies reached the area, the Eel River had risen high enough that searching its banks was considered dangerous, according to the Sheriff’s Office. That afternoon, roughly 12 Search and Rescue personnel, deputies, and detectives began combing the area with ATVs and a drone. The initial search turned up nothing.

Over the following 10 weeks, the Sheriff’s Office logged seven operational periods and hundreds of hours with mutual-aid teams from across Northern California. In the years that followed, the effort grew to include National Guard overflights, California Highway Patrol search planes, and Butte County air assets. A 10th operation on July 8, 2022, again found nothing, and the search was suspended pending new leads.

The break came by chance. On Feb. 1, 2026, a person fishing on the Eel River about two miles north of the Dos Rios Bridge found a long bone they believed to be human, marked its location by GPS, and turned it over to deputies. Chico State University’s Forensic Anthropology Department confirmed the bone was human, and detectives asked the state Department of Justice’s Missing Persons DNA Program to analyze it. A renewed search on Feb. 3, 2026, recovered personal items that Davis’ family later identified as possible matches for belongings he carried in 2021. The DNA confirmation followed in June.

The most recent operation, on July 11, 2026, drew more than 70 Search and Rescue volunteers from multiple counties, including a large contingent from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. Searchers worked the Eel River from Davis’ last known location past the 8-Mile Bridge and the Dos Rios Bridge to the spot where the first bone was found. Additional bones were collected but determined to be non-human; they are being sent to Chico State for formal analysis.

No criminal charges will be filed against the Mendocino County sheriff’s deputies and Willits police officers who restrained a 36-year-old man before he died in their custody last summer, the District Attorney’s Office concluded in a report released Monday, July 13, in response to a public records request submitted by MendoLocal.News.

Nicholas Bakewell died the evening of June 5, 2025, about half an hour after Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Willits Police Department officers pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him at the end of a violent episode reported by a string of 911 callers. He was pronounced dead at 7:42 p.m.

The autopsy report, authored by forensic pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, classified the manner of death a homicide, listing the cause as restraint-associated asphyxiation and a heart-muscle injury, with contributing acute drug toxicity, an enlarged heart and severe obesity.

The 34-page Officer-Involved Fatal Incident Report, dated June 25 and prepared by Senior Deputy District Attorney Eloise Kelsey, was co-signed by District Attorney C. David Eyster. It found the officers’ use of force “objectively reasonable” and closed the criminal review.

Three days earlier, Bakewell’s three young children and his mother had amended a federal lawsuit accusing the same officers of killing him through excessive force. The two documents describe much of the same body-camera footage and reach opposite conclusions.

Between about 7 and 7:11 p.m. on June 5, callers reported a man running in and out of Hearst-Willits Road — jumping from a moving vehicle, choking a man off an ATV and punching the driver of an SUV. A sheriff’s deputy reached Bakewell at about 7:07 p.m. According to the report’s account of the body-camera video, Bakewell took a fighting stance, fled into brush and ignored commands. Officers used pepper spray and deployed a Taser twice before five officers — sheriff’s deputies and Willits police — brought him to the ground face-down and handcuffed him at about 7:11 p.m.

Within moments of being cuffed, the report says, Bakewell went unresponsive. Officers removed the handcuffs, repositioned him and began chest compressions and administered Narcan. First responders arrived at 7:19 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 7:42 p.m.

Asked about how the office reached its conclusion, Kelsey responded in writing on July 14, describing the review in detail.

The report took time because it had to be thorough, she said. “The public nature of the report requires our office to make a careful and comprehensive review and determination and only then draft the report.” Investigators from the district attorney’s own bureau “conducted independent witness interviews,” she wrote, and the office completed “a full forensic and physical evidence review” and reviewed each agency’s policies and officer training, along with the relevant law.

Kelsey drew a line around what her office decides. “Every law enforcement agency has an internal Use of Force policy and reviews each case for training purposes and policy compliance,” she wrote. “Our office is focused on criminal culpability, not policy or discipline. Those questions belong to each agency’s own internal process.”

The involved officers were themselves interviewed as witnesses, she said, and their “specific actions and internal considerations are evidence and were evaluated.” The review raised no flags for either department: “No referrals or concerns were raised with either agency,” she said.

The pathologist’s classification of the death as a homicide carries less weight than the word suggests. In death certification, “homicide” means death at the hands of another person, as distinct from natural, accidental, suicide or undetermined causes. It is not a finding of murder and not a legal determination of criminal wrongdoing.

The report devotes several pages to that distinction, citing national medical examiners’ guidance and California case law to argue that Omalu’s classification describes how Bakewell died, not who is at fault.

The federal suit brought by Bakewell’s mother and three minor children puts the blame on law enforcement. It alleges excessive force and positional asphyxia.

The report and the lawsuit describe the same body-camera video and disagree most sharply over one officer. The report says Willits Officer Damian Angell “did not apply his full body weight and avoided Bakewell’s neck area,” concentrating the pressure on the shoulder blade. The complaint alleges Angell “placed a knee and significant body weight on the back of and neck of” Bakewell while he was handcuffed and face-down.

They divide on the threat, too. Where the district attorney points to the reported assaults and Bakewell’s resistance before he was subdued, the family says he was unarmed, posed no danger, and that no crime was in progress.

On June 1, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick dismissed additional claims brought by the family against the city of Willits and two police chiefs, current Police Chief Brian Fay and former interim Police Chief Michael Parish as too thin. The family filed an amended complaint on June 22. The core claims — against the individual officers, the city, and the county — remain.

Asked about the litigation, Kelsey said the office is aware of it and pointed to the difference in roles. “Our report and the complaint describe many of the same underlying events,” she wrote. “They differ in characterization and in specifics. Our office has had the benefit of reviewing all the evidence. The civil case has only begun its discovery process.” Beyond that, she said, she would not comment on a pending civil case: “Our office serves a different role. We follow the evidence developed in our own investigation and apply it against the legal standards required to bring criminal charges.”

The two proceedings answer different questions. A criminal charge requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that an officer committed a crime; a civil jury weighs whether the force was unreasonable under a lower standard. The two can reach different results on the same facts.

Houman Sayaghi, an attorney with West Coast Trial Lawyers who is representing Bakewell’s three young children and his mother, did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

At 81, Jeannie Storm has her life in boxes. The knickknacks she loves are packed away. The pots and pans are next — as soon as she finds a place.

She’s been searching for months. Then her timeline shrank.

At the end of April her landlord told her she needed to be out of the trailer she lives in by July 1.

Storm’s been in this leaking trailer on Franklin Road for two years. It holds everything she has after fifty years on the Mendocino Coast. She’d gladly fold everything up and carry it away, but her $300 a month housing budget has left her with few options.

At first she was optimistic she’d find something as good — or better. But those hopes have faded away. It’s hard to live so long and have no place to call home.

Storm was born in Madera, in the flat heat of the San Joaquin Valley, in 1945. She went to high school in Morro Bay where she met her first husband, Victor, during sophomore year. She got pregnant, they got married, and she had a little boy, Kurt. The marriage didn’t last.

Storm went back to the valley and married again — a man twenty years older. That marriage lasted five years. She moved to Santa Cruz and made friends who became family. One of them moved north. Storm followed. That was 1976.

There were good times in Fort Bragg followed by a gulf of grief that threatened to swallow her. Kurt died in a car wreck, ten days before his twentieth birthday. He would have turned 65 this year. “We were really close,” she says. She keeps letters he wrote her as a boy, telling her he loved her “a million, million, million times or more.”

The wall of the trailer bears his pictures — it’s the main reason it feels like home.

When Kurt was small he’d curl up beside Storm and suck his thumb. They’d trade the old refrain — I love you more than the moon, I love you more than the stars — and she’d ask him, who loves who the most?

Sadness made time stand still. “When he died, I drank and cried for five years,” she said. “And then after five years of drinking and crying, I quit drinking and cried another five years. After ten years, I could make it through the day without breaking down.”

Even now, she says, it doesn’t feel like forty-five years have passed. “It just seems like it was a couple of months ago that he died, no matter how many years it was.”

Just before the new millennium, Wayne came into her life. They were together twenty-seven years. Wayne worked at Jack Smith Dodge and, on weekends, for Johnny Gray at her ranch out on Ten Mile. When Johnny Gray died and her daughter took over, Wayne went to work for her, and he and Jeannie moved to the foreman’s house on the ranch. They lived there around twenty years, with Jeannie driving down the hill to her work as a caregiver.

Then Wayne got cancer. He had been sick for about a year when an infection turned into sepsis. He died Christmas Day 2023. Three days later, the grief still raw, the ranch told her she had three months to move.

Ann Gittings says she did not want to rent the trailer to Storm and that she regrets it. The two women do not get along.

Gittings confirmed that she asked Storm to leave. She said she needs to make repairs to the trailer and that she wants to rent it to the daughter of her caregiver. She said Storm has offered to share the trailer with the caregiver’s daughter until Storm finds a new place — the trailer has three bedrooms, so there is room to spare. Neither Gittings nor the caregiver think that is a good idea. The rancor between the women is palpable.

Gittings said she recently paid $900 to fill the propane tank Storm uses, because an empty propane tank is dangerous. She says Storm didn’t reimburse her and that she didn’t ask for the money. Gittings also says that Storm agreed to pay $500 a month plus utilities and that Storm then decided she could only afford $300.

The agreement, whatever it was, was not recorded in a lease.

Storm contends she is paying plenty for a trailer that is falling apart around her. The roof leaks in almost every room, rats have chewed through a cupboard, and black mold blooms on a bedroom ceiling, conditions that may violate California habitability standards.

But as bad as it is, Storm appreciated the trailer’s proximity to the doctors at Adventist, who have so far enabled her to continue to live independently despite having Stage 4 breast cancer, which has spread to her back and ribs. In addition to cancer, her hearing is shot in one ear, and she has macular degeneration that can make it dangerous to drive.

She covers up her health challenges by taking care of her appearance. Her carefully styled blond wig is an older, subdued version of her natural hair, which she lost to chemotherapy. She bustles around, going from store to store to grocery shop, making her limited income stretch further.

She’d like to move to town and stop driving. Her plan has been to land a spot in senior housing.

But there are none. She has put in applications everywhere — Duncan Place, Cypress Ridge, Plateau, Moura — the waiting lists run for years. A friend, Melanie, just got into Cypress after waiting for six years. Cypress is where Storm hopes to go — she worked there for years.

Then, on April 29, she got a message on her answering machine: “Hi Jeannie, it’s Anne. I just want to let you know for sure the house is spoken for as of June 1,” Gittings said. “Just giving you a heads-up.”

“I already paid June,” Storm says, when she plays back the message for a reporter in mid June.

Gittings then corrects herself on the answering machine. “July,” she says. And then she laughs. That stings.

An answering machine message is not an eviction notice. A social worker pointed this out to Jeannie, after MendoLocal.News asked DeDe Parker, the Director of Social Services, what help was available for seniors like Storm.

Parker directed MendoLocal.News to contact Deputy Director Jesse Van Voorhis. “I would also like to take a moment to recognize the incredible work of our Adult & Aging Services team,” she wrote. “Every day, they serve some of the most vulnerable members of our community through programs that support older adults, dependent adults, veterans, caregivers, and individuals with disabilities.”

Van Voorhis said in an email on June 12 that the standard response to a situation such as Storm is to interview the senior, conduct a risk assessment, and develop a service plan. “The standard time frame for completion of the investigation and referral to appropriate resources is 90 days, but we always prioritize those situations when timely action is necessary.”

The social worker visited Storm around this time, shortly after MendoLocal.News reached out to the department heads. Separately, Supervisor Bernie Norvell also reached out after hearing about Storm’s case from her social worker at the Cancer Resource Center and MendoLocal.News.

A month later, Storm says she’s received no further assistance. “One lady came by but nothing happened,” Storm said. Then, when Storm tried to pay July rent, Gittings refused.

Reached by phone, Gittings confirmed she had not yet given Storm a written eviction notice, but she said she was planning to. And she said she was not going to accept any additional rent payments from Storm.

“It’s my two houses, my two acres,” Gittings said. “She can find another place to live.”

Storm’s belongings remain packed in boxes. They’re stacked high by the door of the trailer, waiting for an address.

Storm is ready, too. “I just want to get out of here,” she says.

Addition: Jeannie Storm said Ann Gittings has never paid for propane since she moved in to the trailer on Franklin Road. (July 14, 2026 2:22 p.m.)

Update: The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed The arrests of Jesus Hernandez Sosa, Franklin Ironbear Oliver, and Laura Gabriela Menta were all related to the illicit marijuana cultivation operation that investigators located at the property in the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road where the homicide was reported on 7/09/2026.(July 13, 2026 3:47 p.m.)

Three people were arrested on July 10 on suspicion of illegal marijuana cultivation on the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road on the outskirts of northwest Covelo. The night before a 31-year-old mother of four was found fatally wounded by multiple gunshots on the same block at what authorities described in a press release as “a large illicit marijuana cultivation.”

The individuals were arrested on warrants signed by a judge on allegations that involved the unlicensed sale and cultivation of marijuana and illegal diversion of water. No one has been charged in the July 9 homicide, and authorities have not linked the arrests to the fatal shooting.

An arrest is not evidence of guilt. Being booked into jail means only that officers believed there was cause to make an arrest. It is not a criminal charge, much less a conviction. All three individuals are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

According to police records, the following individuals were booked into Mendocino County Jail on July 10:

• Laura Gabriela Menta, 46, on suspicion of cultivating marijuana with an illegal water diversion, possession of marijuana for sale, renting or leasing a place to distribute a controlled substance, and possession of a controlled substance.

• Franklin Ironbear Oliver, 36, on suspicion of cultivating marijuana with an illegal water diversion, possession of marijuana for sale, renting or leasing a place to distribute a controlled substance, and a felony probation violation.

• Jesus Hernandez Sosa, 35, on suspicion of cultivating marijuana with an illegal water diversion, possession of marijuana for sale, and maintaining a place for selling or using drugs.

Court records showed none of the three was listed for arraignment on July 13, and police records did not list a bail amount for any of the three people.

A MendoLocal.News analysis of individuals recently arraigned in Mendocino County Superior Court found that the typical arrest-to-arraignment gap is ~3–5 weeks.

The 22000 block of Rifle Range Road is a rural byway flanked by fields. According to Mendocino County assessor records, it contains nine parcels across seven addresses.

The arrests occurred on 22550 Rifle Range Road. According to assessor records, the owner lives in residential home in Stockton, CA.

The fatal shooting remains under investigation.

According to a press release from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road after dispatchers received a 911 call from a woman who reported finding a deceased family member. Logs link an 8:58 p.m. 911 hangup call to 22550 Rifle Range Road.

Deputies found the victim — identified by her family as Josepha Littlewolf Thunderheart Basurto, 31 — inside a silver 2007 Toyota Tacoma pickup with what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds.

The sheriff’s office later stated in a press release that multiple suspects appear to have been involved. They are requesting people with information to call the tip line at 707-234-2100.

Basurto was remembered by her family as a loving mother of four children between the ages of 4 and 13. She was also a skilled horse trainer and a California Native and powwow dancer.

The family has launched a GoFundMe to cover funeral costs and travel for family members coming from Utah, as well as other expenses associated with Basurto’s killing.

A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help the family of 31-year-old Josepha Littlewolf Thunderheart Basurto, who was found dead July 10 in a pickup truck on Rifle Range Road northwest of Covelo in what authorities are investigating as a homicide.

The fundraiser, organized by Basurto’s mother, Sharlisa Mountainlion Unca Sam and her aunt, Shelly Minthorn, seeks to raise $8,000 to help cover funeral expenses, travel, lodging and meals for family members traveling from Utah. The family also hopes to attend future court proceedings as the criminal case moves forward.

Basurto leaves behind four children between the ages of 4 and 13. She is survived by her mother and two sisters, Sadacia, 34, and Kashya, 27. Her father Joseph Littlewolf Basurto was murdered in 1995.

According to her mother, Basurto spent parts of her childhood in both Covelo and Utah, where she lived with her grandparents. She learned to shear sheep and helped to raise horses. She became known for her ability to train horses to bow. She also enjoyed basketball and was an accomplished powwow and California Native dancer.

“She was so caring and giving,” her mother said. “Even in her hard times, she was always willing to help everyone.”

Her mother said Basurto deeply loved her children, her sisters, and her extended family.

“We didn’t have an easy life, but we made it happen with what we had,” she said. “We have big hearts, and we love each other.”

The family said they are still searching for answers about the circumstances surrounding Basurto’s death.

Donations to the GoFundMe will help the family with funeral expenses and allow relatives to return to Mendocino County for future court hearings.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is continuing to investigate the homicide. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Sheriff’s Office.

A 31-year-old woman was found dead Thursday night inside a pickup truck at what authorities described as a large illegal marijuana cultivation site northwest of Covelo, prompting a multi-agency homicide investigation.

According to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the 22000 block of Rifle Range Road at approximately 9 p.m. on July 9 after receiving a 911 call from a woman who reported finding a deceased family member.

The caller told dispatchers the victim was inside a vehicle. Deputies who were already in Covelo responded with emergency lights and sirens, arriving about 15 minutes later. They found the victim inside a silver 2007 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and confirmed she was dead at approximately 9:17 p.m.

According to the sheriff’s office, deputies observed what looked like numerous bullet holes in the pickup, and the victim appeared to have suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

Investigators said family members had been searching for the woman for several hours before learning she might be on Rifle Range Road.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that multiple suspects appear to have been involved. They are releasing limited information to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.

The agencies involved in the investigation included the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office, the County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team, and criminalists from the California Department of Justice’s Eureka laboratory.

Anyone with information related to the homicide is encouraged to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office by calling the non-emergency tip line at 707-234-2100.