Mendo Local Weekly Roundup — October 24, 2026

🗳️ Election 2026

Why Are There So Many Bonds on the California Ballot? Here's What $44 Billion Would Buy
By Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters · Oct. 24
California voters will weigh $44 billion in bond spending in November, including Prop. 1's $11.25 billion housing bond, which the Legislative Analyst's Office estimates would produce about 40,000 rental units, and Prop. 38, which would steer $4.2 billion to a single nonprofit research institute whose main funder wrote the measure. The state currently spends $6 billion annually to repay about $80 billion of bonds. Voters and lawmakers have also approved $40 billion in bonds that have yet to be sold.
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What to Know About California's Other Tax-the-Rich Measure: Prop. 3
By Carolyn Jones, CalMatters · Oct. 23
Proposition 3 would permanently extend the income tax on individuals earning more than $371,000 and couples earning more than $743,000, a tax first approved in 2012 and set to expire in 2031. The tax raises $5 billion to $15 billion a year, most of it routed to K-12 schools and community colleges through Proposition 98.
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Vote-by-Mail Returns Build As Election Nears; But Many Towns Lack Drop Boxes
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · Oct. 20
Laytonville, Leggett and Covelo have no ballot drop box because the county hasn't been able to meet the lighting and 24-hour surveillance requirements there, Registrar Katrina Bartolomie told supervisors; Albion, Anchor Bay, Elk, Manchester/Irish Beach and Westport also lack one. Where boxes exist, they're drawing heavy use, with one collecting more than 300 ballots in a single day.
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Escondido Committee's Mailer Hits Ukiah Incumbents Over 73% Council Pay Raise
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 19
Days after receiving $5,000 from Ukiah businessman Ross Liberty, an Escondido political committee spent $5,722 on mailers saying council incumbents Susan Sher, Juan Orozco and Mari Rodin "voted to give themselves a 73% pay increase." City records back the figure: in 2024 the council raised its pay from $490 to $850 a month, its first raise since 2006.
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How Would Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton Manage California's Most Precious Resource, Water?
By Rachel Becker, CalMatters · Oct. 18
California's next governor will inherit groundwater overuse, sinking farmland, a cratering fishing industry, and hundreds of thousands of residents without safe, affordable water. Republican Steve Hilton promises to clear environmental regulations to build more water storage and conveyance, while Democrat Xavier Becerra leans on his record as attorney general but offers no specific water proposals.
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🏛️ Mendocino County

Mendocino County FAIR Plan Policyholders Face Statewide 29% Average Rate Hike
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 23
A rate hike for the California FAIR Plan approved by the state Department of Insurance has started to take effect in Mendocino County, hitting 4,873 homeowners.
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Mendocino Coast Ocean Runs High Ahead of Holiday King Tides, Forecaster Warns
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 22
A new UC Davis flood report on El Niño covering high-risk roads skipped the Mendocino coast. Storm surges are still expected.
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Mendocino's New CEO and County Counsel Land Pay Near the Top for a County Its Size
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · Oct. 21
Supervisors voted 5-0 to make interim CEO Sara Pierce permanent at a $275,000 salary, about $481,000 with benefits, and to hire Santa Clara County attorney Michael Rossi as county counsel at $271,000. Their salaries are about 4.7 times what a typical full-time Mendocino County worker earns.
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UnitedHealthcare's AARP Medicare Advantage Plan Leaves Mendocino County Jan. 1
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 21
UnitedHealthcare is pulling its AARP Medicare Advantage plan out of Mendocino County Jan. 1, and any of its 1,441 local members who do nothing will drop back to Original Medicare and lose their drug coverage. That leaves Pasadena-based Imperial Health Plan as the county's only Medicare Advantage seller, and its 2027 directory lists one local hospital, Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, not those in Willits or Fort Bragg. Members have until Feb. 28 to choose a new plan; free counseling is available from Senior Advocacy Services at 707-526-4108.
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Supervisors Weigh Second Amnesty for Homes Built Without Permits, Sea Level Rise Policies
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · Oct. 20
About a dozen activists and residents urged supervisors to open a more forgiving path for homes built without permits. California state law already provides a path to legalize Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and Junior ADUs (JADUs) built without permits before January 1, 2020. Supervisors will review how that applies to the current housing stock and look into applications that stalled during the last amnesty.
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🌊 Fort Bragg

Noyo Center Celebrates Whale House Ribbon Cutting and Fall Fundraiser
By Carole Brodsky, Ukiah Daily Journal · Oct. 22
The Noyo Center for Marine Science opened its Whale House LaBONEatory on the Noyo Headlands Oct. 18, the first new building there in generations and the new home of the skeleton of a 73-foot blue whale that washed ashore in 2009. The ribbon cutting launched the center's fall campaign to raise $80,000 for its marine science, education and conservation programs.
Read more (Ukiah Daily Journal subscription required)

Humane Society Head Warns of a 'Pet-demic' After Losing Its Only Vet
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 21
Mendocino County has had $408,000 to spay and neuter cats and dogs since last November and has committed about $41,000 of it, citing a shortage of veterinarians. Meanwhile, the Mendocino Coast Humane Society's only vet left Oct. 2; she did about 1,500 low-cost spay and neuter surgeries last year for pet owners from Point Arena to Willits. Fort Bragg pays the Humane Society a monthly stipend to take in strays from inside city limits, but the county has no such contract, even though, director Judy Martin says, it sends coast residents with animals to her group.
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🍇 Hopland

Hopland Neighbors Put Years of Wildfire Preparation to the Test During the Feliz Fire
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · Oct. 20
The Feliz Fire destroyed no homes when it broke out Aug. 1 near Hopland, which is ringed by three Firewise neighborhoods that had spent years preparing with address signs, cleared roads and, on McNab Ranch, 21 roadside water tanks.
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🎨 Town of Mendocino

It's Tuber and Pumpkin Season at EarthSpoke Farms
By Carole Brodsky, Ukiah Daily Journal · Oct. 22
EarthSpoke Farms, a family-run regenerative flower farm south of Mendocino, grows more than 430 dahlia cultivars, nearly 10,000 plants a season, and ships the tubers to customers nationwide each winter. Its free Pumpkin Wonderland, the only pumpkin patch on the Mendocino Coast, is open Wednesdays through Saturdays in October.
Read more (Ukiah Daily Journal subscription required)

💡 Point Arena

Increased Crime, Emergency Response Time Discussed at Point Arena City Council Meeting
By Chelsea Randall, Independent Coast Observer · Oct. 22
The 78 calls and activities represented exactly twice the number of calls the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office reported at the July council meeting.
Read more (Subscription to the Independent Coast Observer required)

🍷 Annapolis–The Sea Ranch—Timber Cove

Plane Skids off Sea Ranch Airstrip, No One Injured
By Karen Elowitt, Independent Coast Observer · Oct. 22
A small aircraft veered off the runway at The Sea Ranch Airstrip on Saturday morning, hitting an embankment and damaging the plane.
Read more (Subscription to the Independent Coast Observer required)

Timber Cove Resort Acquired by Snowmass Creek Capital
By Karen Elowitt, Independent Coast Observer · Oct. 22
An Oklahoma City-based investment firm has bought Timber Cove Resort, which it plans to renovate and expand while preserving its character.
Read more (Subscription to the Independent Coast Observer required)

🏙️ Ukiah

Ukiah Man Convicted of Murder in 2022 Heat Death of 1-Year-Old
By Roger Coryell, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 22
A Mendocino County jury found Edward Two Feathers Steele, 36, of Ukiah guilty of second-degree murder in the death of a 1-year-old boy, one of two brothers left for hours beside the railroad tracks in Ukiah on a hot August afternoon in 2022. It was Steele's second trial on the same facts.
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Flock Camera Alert Leads to Wrong-Way Pursuit of Stolen Vehicle Through Talmage
By Elise Cox, MendoLocal.News · Oct. 20
A Flock license-plate camera alert led Ukiah police to a stolen vehicle Oct. 16, starting a pursuit in which the driver went the wrong way on Talmage Road and struck another car, police said. Ashtyn Taylor, 20, of Ukiah, was found hiding in a backyard and booked on vehicle theft and evading charges; police say he also drove in an earlier pursuit with Fort Bragg officers.
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Mendocino College Presents Pride and Prejudice
By Carole Brodsky, Ukiah Daily Journal · Oct. 20
Mendocino College's Theatre Arts Department is staging Kate Hamill's fast, irreverent, gender-bending adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, directed by Lucas Verbrugghe, with a 16-actor cast of students, alumni and stage veterans. Final performances are Oct. 22–24 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 25 at 2 p.m. at the college's Center Theatre in Ukiah.
Read more (Ukiah Daily Journal subscription required)

Ukiah Man on Parole Booked After Allegedly Attacking Woman, Threatening Two With a Knife
By Mendo Voice Staff, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 19
Andrew Horse, 26, a Ukiah man on parole for assault, was arrested Saturday night after allegedly beating a 24-year-old woman on Pinoleville Drive, then returning more than two hours later with a kitchen knife and saying he "was going to stab her," according to the Sheriff's Office.
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Ukiah Pumpkinfest Parade Puts Community on Display
By Savana Robinson, The Mendocino Voice · Oct. 18
Ukiah's 2026 Pumpkinfest kicked off Saturday with a parade from the fairgrounds down State Street and through downtown, led by grand marshal Ukiah Host Lions Club. First responders, student bands, youth sports teams and giant pumpkins from the annual weigh-off filled the route.
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🚂 Willits

Rocky Horror
By Mathew Caine, Willits Weekly · Oct. 22
Two sold-out shows at the Noyo Theater celebrated a 50-year counterculture tradition on Saturday, Oct. 17, with the message "Don't dream it, be it."
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🐻 CalMatters

Thousands of California State Workers Walk Off the Job in Contract Dispute With Newsom
By Lynn La and Kate Wolffe, CalMatters · Oct. 23
The largest union in California state government held a one-day strike, drawing thousands of workers off the job. It's pressing Gov. Gavin Newsom for raises and more flexibility to work from home.
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Medi-Cal Cuts Could Push Seniors and People With Disabilities Off of Coverage
By Kristen Hwang, CalMatters · Oct. 22
California's budget, approved in June, will cut the Medi-Cal asset limit for low-income seniors and people with disabilities from $130,000 to $21,000 in July 2027, counting savings, some retirement accounts and life insurance but exempting a home and one car. About 600 people lost coverage when the $130,000 limit took effect this year; the state released no estimate for the new cap, but advocates expect many more.
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