> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mendolocal.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 'Paying for the Knife': A Lobbyist Group Funded by Mendocino County Is Working to Defeat Forest Management Bill - URL: https://www.mendolocal.news/paying-for-the-knife-a-lobbyist-group-funded-by-mendocino-county-is-working-to-defeat-forest-management-bill/ - Published: 2026-09-12T15:42:16.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-12T15:42:16.000Z - Description: Mendocino County's own Sacramento lobbying association is urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto a bill overhauling California's demonstration forests — a bill the county's Board of Supervisors formally voted to support. - Author: Elise Cox - Tags: Fort Bragg, Willits, News Mendocino County's own Sacramento lobbying association is urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto a bill overhauling California's demonstration forests — a bill the county's Board of Supervisors formally voted to support. And one supervisor says the county's separately hired lobbying firm is working for a veto, too. "We're essentially funding lobby efforts against our assemblymember and our county's position," Supervisor Ted Williams told his colleagues at the board's Sept. 1 meeting. "It's almost like, you know, there's backstabbing going on and we're paying for the knife." Assembly Bill 2494, by Assemblymember Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, would replace the demonstration forests' decades-old mandate to manage for "maximum sustained production of high-quality forest products" with a broader set of goals and require the state to pursue [tribal co-management](https://www.mendolocal.news/tribal-co-management-of-californias-demonstration-forests-now-rests-with-newsom/) agreements. The bill will have the greatest impact on Mendocino County's Jackson Demonstration State Forest, the largest of the 14 demonstration state forests and more than half of the roughly 85,000-acre system. The bill cleared the Legislature on Aug. 27 and awaits Newsom's signature or veto by Sept. 30. The Rural County Representatives of California — an association of 40 rural counties — sent Newsom a letter on Aug. 28 formally requesting a veto. The same day, it published a public "Call to Action," "RCRC Seeks Veto on Demonstration State Forests Bill," urging its member counties, including Mendocino, to send Newsom their own veto letters. RCRC also circulated a fill-in template for them to use. In the letter to the governor, RCRC argued that although AB 2494 "has been characterized as legislation intended to advance wildfire prevention and forest resilience, that is not its principal effect." Instead, the association wrote, the bill "fundamentally rewrites the statutory purpose and management direction" of CAL FIRE's demonstration forest system "with the clear intent to limit sustainable forest management as a coequal objective." It objected that the bill introduces "novel concepts, including management for 'durable onsite carbon storage and sequestration,'" which it called undefined, and warned the changes would bring "greater regulatory uncertainty, project delays, increased litigation risk, and additional costs to the state — not improved wildfire resilience." The letter was signed by Senior Policy Advocate Staci Heaton. Williams said the county's contract lobbyist was pressing the same case. "The same thing for our lobbyist, Yoder," he told the board — a reference to the Sacramento firm Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer & Lange — who also testified against the bill on behalf of Shasta, Placer, Madera, and Tulare counties. Mendocino County's support for the bill is a matter of record. Staff sent Newsom a letter backing the bill on Aug. 31, and the board ratified that letter — along with its underlying legislative-platform support — on a unanimous 5-0 vote on Sept. 1. Williams said he was "surprised to see" RCRC seek a veto, "given that hasn't been our stance," and acknowledged that associations like RCRC are sometimes "in a difficult position where they have counties on opposing sides." Even so, he said, the group still has an obligation to note that "one county that happens to have half the acreage of the entire state system is in support." He said his constituents were "insisting that I don't fund those efforts in the next budget unless something is addressed here." Two days later, on Sept. 3, Williams and Supervisor John Haschak, of the Third District, wrote to RCRC President and CEO Patrick Blacklock asking the organization to correct its Call to Action. RCRC "is entitled to advocate the position adopted through its governing process," they wrote, but its communication "does not acknowledge that member counties hold differing positions on AB 2494" and "omits Mendocino County's formal support." Mendocino, they wrote, is "arguably the county most directly affected by the policy questions addressed in AB 2494." They asked RCRC to do four things: revise the Call to Action to acknowledge that member counties disagree; state that Mendocino's board voted to support the bill; distinguish RCRC's organizational position from those of individual counties in any further communication to the governor; and explain how it will improve consultation. They framed the request as one "for transparency and fair representation, not a demand that RCRC abandon its position." They closed by saying they were "bringing this request directly to RCRC before considering what further steps may be appropriate." Mendocino County paid RCRC $8,980.20 in fiscal year 2025-26, according to the CEO's office. Neither Blacklock nor Heaton responded to a request for comment before publication. The friction between Mendocino County's priorities and RCRC's was not new. At RCRC's strategic-plan presentation to the Mendocino board on July 21, Williams pressed the point that RCRC had taken an opposing position on AB 2494 without consulting the county, even though Mendocino's own legislators had backed the bill. RCRC President and CEO Patrick Blacklock, who presented, acknowledged the concern and said he would take it back to staff to improve the group's consultation with counties. In their letter, the supervisors wrote that Blacklock had agreed the process "had not worked to the County's satisfaction" and committed to strengthening how RCRC consults counties. Against that backdrop, they wrote, the Aug. 28 Call to Action was "especially troubling," because it asked counties to urge a veto "without disclosing that the member county containing more than half of the affected acreage formally supports the bill." Mendocino's support for reworking Jackson's management predates the bill. The letter traces it to a 2021 board request that the state undertake a scientific review of the forest and weigh a broader range of public benefits — research, tribal stewardship, conservation, recreation, and local jobs. AB 2494, the supervisors wrote, "reflects many of the ideas developed through that process," while still allowing timber harvesting when it advances the bill's management objectives.