On January 27, 2025, the White House issued a late-night directive that paused federal grants and funding in order to locate and eliminate “woke” government spending. The pause seemingly included funding for public schools, such as the Farm to School Program that provided schools with locally-sourced food.

It wasn’t long before Jared Cordon, superintendent of a rural school district in Roseburg, Oregon, started receiving calls from concerned community members. “If kids can’t eat, where can I drop a check off?” they asked.

On January 29, the White House rescinded the sweeping pause, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s order. 

One funding crisis was temporarily averted. But with mounting uncertainty and anticipated cuts on the horizon, rural school administrators are working tirelessly to balance next year’s budget. They do so for the students, families, and faculty who rely on strong public schools — and for their rural communities at large, whose well-being is closely tied to the fate of their local schools.

The Perils of Public School Funding

In addition to the Trump Administration’s chaotic management of federal grants, other funding challenges loom. 

Some rural districts are already facing steep funding cliffs, as Covid-19 emergency funds phase out over the next few years. Other rural districts are set to lose over $200 million of annual federal funding due to Congress’s failure to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS), which helps support school districts in counties with public lands exempt from local property taxes. 

Some states experienced underperforming returns on their Public Employees Retirement System, which will require school districts to make higher payments to the system. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states continue to push for universal school voucher programs, further diverting critical funds away from rural public schools.

Beyond these immediate funding challenges, even more drastic shifts in federal education policy are unfolding. On March 20, the President signed an executive order to facilitate the eventual closure of the Department of Education. 

Congressional action is required to legally close the department or relocate key programs like Title I funding for low-income students or IDEA funding for special education to other departments. However, the administration already took some actions to slow the department’s ability to distribute these funds by firing half of its staff. It remains unclear what additional actions Education Secretary Linda McMahon will take to further dissolve the department.

A major role of many employees at the education department is to make sure federal dollars reach the right students, said Will Ragland, a former rural public school teacher and former Department of Education employee who now researches for the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy institute.

“[Federal funding] is intended to target, by-and-large, low-income students and students with disabilities. There are also programs that directly target rural areas, including grants to ensure their transportation needs are met and that rural kids can make it to school.”

Ragland said he worries that programs could meet the same fate as USAID funding, which the White House continues to block, despite numerous federal court orders. The administration has continued to follow the conservative Project 2025 playbook, according to Ragland, which outlines a 10-year phase-out of Title I funding.

“Even though [Trump] said that [legally-protected education] funding is not going to be touched, I worry they’re going to start to phase out this funding,” Ragland said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “I worry that they say what they need to say at any given moment, but the larger plan is to eliminate the federal role in education altogether, including the funding.”

Rural Administrators Working Overtime

This growing uncertainty puts rural school districts, which often rely more heavily on federal funding and whose smaller budgets are hit harder by reductions, at greater risk.

Rural school leaders, already working at a high capacity, are facing unpredictable finances by working overtime to create multiple contingency budgets.

Jamie Green is a superintendent at Trinity Alps Unified School District in rural northern California, which is at risk of losing $3.5 million in SRS funding. He and other rural superintendents he’s connected with put in 12- to 16-hour days when creating budgets or filling out federal grant paperwork.

“During the day you have to support your kids, your parents, your teachers, and your principals. [Budgets and grant paperwork] have to be worked on after hours,” he told the Daily Yonder. “It’s difficult, but you signed up to lead, you didn’t sign up to be a victim. You don’t make excuses to your community. We won’t make excuses.”

Oftentimes, the only way to balance the budget is by delaying essential maintenance or cutting teachers in art, vocational, or special education programs. In states like Oregon and California, this challenge is compounded by the fact that the final budget deadline arrives before schools have a clear picture of the funding they’ll have for the upcoming year.

Superintendent Cordon highlighted the importance of federal funding at a crowded February school board meeting in Roseburg, Oregon. About 12 to 13% of the district’s budget comes from the federal government, Cordon told the crowd.

“Not having federal funding would dramatically impact our ability to serve children,” he said.

Micki Hall, a former Roseburg teacher and school board member who now sits on the board’s budget committee was in attendance. For Hall, budget cuts dredge up memories from her time as an educator.

“Back in 2001 we faced a lot of budget crunches. The French teacher was laid off and they cut one of the German teachers,” she said in an interview. “It’s just frightening because it also has a chilling effect in the building. If you’re not cut, you might be moved into a different, unfamiliar position.”

Across the country, rural districts are grappling with similar challenges, forced to make tough decisions that affect not just budgets but the very education and well-being of students and their communities. 

It’s clear that the need for adequate and reliable support from state and federal governments is urgent, but superintendents like Cordon and Green — and the communities they serve — can’t afford to focus solely on problems or delay action. The buck, Green said, stops with them. The only option they have is to do the work, put in the time, and find solutions.

“Rural schools will not fail,” Green said. “We’re working as hard as we can for our students. We cannot fail.”

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The post Amid Threat of Massive Funding Cuts, Rural School Administrators Work Overtime to Balance Uncertain Budgets appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Fresno County officials notified nearly a dozen nonprofits this week that $11 million in federal grants for community health have been canceled, according to a county memo acquired by Fresnoland.

The immediate cuts – effective March 24 – are a result of the Trump Administration’s move this week to cancel more than $12 billion in funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Across Fresno County, a nascent network of about 120 community health workers for rural communities, farmworkers, and some of Fresno’s poorest neighborhoods took direct hits.

“I’m devastated,” said Yolanda Randles, executive director for the West Family Fresno Resource Center, who had to lay off seven community health workers in southwest Fresno on Friday, due to the funding cuts.

“I feel sorry for the government. They’re so naive,” said Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers’ League, whose $340,000 grant to deliver testing kits and education materials to farmworkers was cut short.

Fresno County’s community health worker network was built with federal funds during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Community health workers don’t just link residents with information about vaccines and disease prevention, they also help them navigate healthcare enrollment, get them transportation to appointments, and link them to food and housing resources.

UCSF Fresno received some of the funds to launch 200 mobile health clinics in rural parts of the community, providing early detection and treatment for chronic disease, in addition to routine vaccinations.

The network has been essential for the county to build relationships in communities that have language, transportation and information barriers – especially rural parts of the county, according to Joe Prado, assistant director of public health for Fresno County.

“When we see issues brewing in the emergency room, we communicate with our community health worker network to get the word out,” he said, referring to recent measles and avian bird flu outbreaks.

Fresno County has been recognized for its innovative approach to making sure people with the highest risk factors for chronic disease in the region – the disabled, the elderly, farmworkers and people of color – are connected with more preventative resources, rather than just relying on emergency care.

“For someone in Huron to get to their doctors’ appointment in Fresno, it can cost $100 for a taxi. So we’re making sure people can get support,” said Sarait Martinez, executive director of Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño, an organization that serves indigenous communities in the valley.

Community health workers are often residents from the community who can more easily build trust with those who need it.

Martinez’ organization is often providing interpretation support for a variety of indigenous and Mixtec dialects rarely found in the county’s healthcare system.

“They’re the frontline workers that actually help to carry out prevention, because they’re connecting people to the immediate resources where they’re not getting stressed and their mental health is being preserved because they found food or got their utility turned on and paid,” said Genoveva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud. 

Cultiva had two grants – one to address health disparities, another as part of the Fresno Community Health Innovation Partnership – or FCHIP – hub, that funded 12 community health workers in Parlier, Orange Cove, Easton, Sanger, and south Fresno neighborhoods.

Each community worker had a caseload of about 30 residents per month.

Islas said she’s trying to find additional resources to keep the workers on staff, even if their hours are reduced, for the next few months, because she’s afraid to lose a critical workforce that’s been trained for the last five years.

“My staff knows much more than I could ever hope to know about the application processes for MediCal, food delivery programs, the utility payment supports that exist in the community, right? All of that is a huge loss,” said Genoveva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud. 

The goal was always to use the federal funds for community health workers as startup capital – Prado said they just didn’t expect the resources to dissipate so quickly.

“When you lose this type of significant public health infrastructure over a short period, yes, there’s going to be more risk. At the same time, I’m very hopeful that as a community, we can come together and find other resources and reach out to other groups to be able to keep some of this infrastructure in place,” said Prado.

Some of the community organizations have had luck negotiating with healthcare plans to reimburse some of the support community health workers provide, as they divert people away from emergency rooms towards preventative care, like Exceptional Parents Unlimited, who work with families that have children with disabilities, whose community workers are also supported through CalAIM, a program of MediCal.

Not all organizations that have community health workers can rely on CalAIM, at least in the short term, said Islas. 

She said that her organization, and other small nonprofits, don’t have readily trained staff to navigate the complexities of MediCal billing.

Not to mention that the state’s MediCal program – which 53% of Fresno County residents rely on for health care – is facing potential cuts from both the state and federal government. 

Prado said that the county is working on bringing a contract to the Board of Supervisors in April for additional funding through national and local private philanthropy to help plug some of the gaps created through the loss of federal funds.

Supervisor Luis Chavez said he’s working to bring community organizations and county leaders together to triage the situation.

“At the county we’ve built a great public health system. The progress they’re making is in jeopardy. People will get hurt, and this will cost them their lives,” Chavez said.

“We would be so much better off as a society if we just simply invested in caring for people to stay well instead of caring for people when they’re sick, right? And that’s the beauty of the community health worker,” emphasized Islas.

Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela contributed to this report.

The post ‘I’m devastated.’ Trump administration guts millions from health programs in Fresno County appeared first on Fresnoland.

The billions of dollars approved by Congress to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells have been frozen as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to government spending, creating concerns that the cleanup will be halted just as it’s getting started.

President Trump’s barrage of executive orders included a January directive called “Unleashing American Energy,” which, among other provisions, ordered that federal agencies stop distributing money appropriated by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

The Trump administration titled this section of the order “Terminating the Green New Deal.” But in freezing this congressionally approved spending, the administration halted a program that paid for plugging and reclaiming so-called “orphaned” or abandoned oil and gas wells. The order stated that agencies should “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from those two Biden laws. It set a 90-day deadline, upcoming in April, for agencies to review their spending programs and make sure that they align with the Trump administration’s goal of increasing U.S. energy production.

The orphaned well program, which was modeled on a North Dakota initiative, had been widely used by oil states, including several in the West.

The program — which set aside $4.7 billion, a historically large sum, for plugging wells — was distributed to states via grants from the Department of the Interior. In January, days before Trump took office, New Mexico announced that it would be receiving $5.5 million to clean up abandoned wells in the state. California also received a $9 million grant.

California, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico had each plugged over 100 orphaned wells using the Biden funds, according to an Interior Department report in 2024. Wyoming alone plugged 1,021 wells in just one year using federal grants.

As of last fall, the U.S. government had released over half a billion dollars in grants. Wells have been plugged in the people’s front yards, in national park areas and deep in the remote Alaskan wilderness. More than $3 billion are still left to be distributed, but previously available information about the grants appears to have been removed from the Interior Department’s website.

In response to questions from High Country News, an Interior Department spokesperson said that the grant program is “under review.”

“President Trump’s decisive actions are necessary steps to eliminate bureaucratic waste and refocus our agency on its core mission: serving the American people and managing our nation’s natural resources with integrity and efficiency,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Orphaned wells negatively impact current and future oil and gas development activities and pose significant risk to national energy security and public safety.”

In addition to supporting jobs that address oil patch pollution, these federal dollars are used on wells that lack any owner to pay for reclamation. Left unplugged, such orphaned oil and gas wells leak huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere and can contaminate local water sources with salty water and benzene.

Now the future of that work is uncertain, in legal limbo alongside many of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting policies. The funding in question had already been appropriated by Congress, making it unclear that the Trump administration can indefinitely cancel it.

On March 20, more than 30 House Democrats sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, asking him to clear up the lingering confusion surrounding orphaned well funding and restart the grant program.

The funding “protects our communities, cleans up our environment, and builds our economy.”

“We have already begun to hear from IIJA funding recipients impacted by this pause who now face an uncertain future after DOI issued a stop work order on their orphaned well remediation projects,” the letter states.

The letter goes on to say that the Interior Department has issued no guidance on the funds’ status.

“We urge you to resume distribution of this Congressionally directed funding immediately,” the letter stated. “It protects our communities, cleans up our environment, and builds our economy.”

ORPHANED WELLS represent the final stage in what ProPublica recently described as the oil industry’s “ playbook”: When oil wells are no longer productive, large companies sell them off to smaller companies and thereby shed their obligation to plug those wells.

Oil industry profits don’t pay for cleanup

The increasingly marginal wells change hands, eventually landing with operators who lack the financial means to plug them. And when these companies go bankrupt, the wells become orphaned, meaning that the plugging costs then fall on American taxpayers.

The Biden administration’s infrastructure law was the first significant federal attempt to address the growing problem of orphaned wells across the United States, although the funding it provided paled in comparison to the scale of the problem.

The Interior Department estimates that there are about 157,000 documented orphaned oil and gas wells nationwide. This figure is likely a dramatic undercount: The Environmental Protection Agency stated in an April 2021 report that there could be as many as 3.4 million abandoned wells nationally.

“Undocumented orphaned wells may emit nearly 63 million grams of methane per hour into the atmosphere,” according to a November 2024 report, “the equivalent of over 3.6 million gasoline-powered passenger cars driven per year.”

Many state regulators are aware that their financial requirements for oil and gas operators are are aware of this pattern and struggle to prevent it.

Several state oil regulators stated this explicitly in a 2024 survey conducted by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a quasi-governmental body that represents dozens of oil states. The documents were obtained via a records request by Fieldnotes, an industry watchdog, and shared with High Country News.

“Yes, this is the common life of a well,” regulators from Louisiana said, referring to the pattern of marginal wells being passed along to smaller companies.

Utah regulators agreed: “It is definitely a problem when wells are transferred to ‘poor’ operators.”

The plugging program was supposed to address these dysfunctional state programs, primarily by providing money. The Interior Department released its first round of grants in 2023, offering up $658 million to 26 states, including most of the oil states in the West.

The subsequent grants were intended to actually push states to fix their well-plugging programs and require that operators submit more money up front — enough to ensure that the industry and not the public ends up paying for the cost of plugging.

Known as regulatory improvement grants, these pools of funding required that states demonstrate higher financial assurance standards, increase scrutiny on well transfers, improve their plugging standards or show other reforms to their orphaned well regulatory regimes.

These grants essentially became the sole tool for the federal government to incentivize tougher state regulations. But the attempt immediately ran into headwinds: Oil states pushed back on these conditions. Some of this occurred via the IOGCC, which collaborated with the federal government on the rollout of the infrastructure law. This included initiatives to reduce orphaned well numbers, program implementation and data collection. Public documents show the inter-state commission lobbied to keep the federal guidelines as weak as possible. 

“Undocumented orphaned wells may emit nearly 63 million grams of methane per hour into the atmosphere.”

In a meeting of the Texas Railroad Commission in May 2022, Commissioner Wayne Christian – also an appointee to the IOGCC – said that he was working to remove the requirements from the federal grants.

“I’m part of the negotiation with IOGCC on the dollars coming down,” Christian said. “The Interior Department kind of have slowed things down, because all of a sudden, surprise, surprise, they decided they wanted to tell us how to do our work. And so we’re kind of fighting back on that.”

Interior devotes billions to plugging old oil wells. Is it enough?

Regulatory improvement grants would have made available an additional $40 million per state. Now the future of those grants and the improvement incentives are in jeopardy, though some groups are challenging the legality of Trump’s decision to freeze funds that had already been appropriated by Congress and passed into law.

Several environmental groups and many Democratic states have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, seeking to release the unspent funds from the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction acts, the Biden administration’s landmark spending bills.

“The Trump Administration has continued to block funds needed for our domestic energy security, transportation, and infrastructure provided under the IRA and IIJA,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement in February, after filing an injunction alongside 23 Democratic attorney generals, attempting to halt the administration’s funding cuts.

Bonta’s statement noted that the administration was blocking funding that “creates well-paying jobs while simultaneously reducing harmful pollution.”

The post Trump halts historic orphaned well-plugging program appeared first on High Country News.

Medicaid — which provides health coverage for almost 15 million Californians and about half of the state’s children — could face billions of dollars in federal cuts under a budget proposal from House Republicans.That’s alarmed families like the Pequeños, who rely on Medicaid, called Medi-Cal in California, to pay for medical care and other support for their children with chronic conditions.

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Medicaid Cuts Could Upend Lives of Children With Disabilities. Can California Do More to Prepare? was first posted on March 19, 2025 at 9:37 am.
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MENDOCINO CO., 3/14/25 – On Tuesday, swarms of social media posts indicated that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen near the Holiday Inn and the Costco on Airport Park Boulevard in Ukiah.

However, according to Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, there have been no reports of ICE agents enacting raids in the county, but he can confirm that federal agents were in town for a separate investigation.

In a statement to The Mendocino Voice, Kendall noted that federal agents did use the interview room at the Sheriff’s Office to investigate a crime, but it was not related to immigration.

“People were here from a federal agency to use our offices,” Kendall said. “But I checked with the agents to make sure it had nothing to do with immigration.” 

He also noted that Senate Bill 54, known as the California Values Act, prohibits law enforcement and public institutions in the state from sharing information or coordinating with ICE agents on deportations.

Before Kendall verified and informed the public that there were no ICE agents organizing deportations, several social media posts were published by community members, inciting fear and anxiety in the local immigrant community.

Even though federal agents were conducting an investigation in the county, both the Ukiah Police Department and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said there have been no reports of ICE agents conducting raids. The agents, according to Kendall, were part of a special response team investigation and were not involved in immigration enforcement.

According to Richard Beam, a communications officer for ICE’s Los Angeles office, although SRT agents operate under ICE’s jurisdiction, they often handle investigations involving criminal records, drug cartels, or other gang activity. SRT agents must have specific search warrants to conduct investigations. These specialized teams rarely enter communities to carry out immigration enforcement without a warrant or a specific criminal history tied to an individual or group.

The confusion and surge of social media posts about immigration raids have been common since President Donald Trump issued executive orders to increase deportations across the U.S., and the spread of misinformation has been increasing in California.

According to Berkeley immigration attorney Cara Jobson, while the information can be confusing, there are key indicators to consider before assuming an ICE agent is in the area.

“Usually their uniforms will say ‘ICE police’ or something like that,” Jobson said in an interview. “The vehicles will usually have a federal government logo and be white with a large blue stripe.”

Jobson said that before jumping to conclusions, people should contact local authorities or the nearest rapid response network, which is an organization of volunteers that assist in verifying the presence of ICE agents in local communities. These organizations can also assist with legal questions and educating immigrants about their rights. Before immediately posting on social media that ICE agents are in town, Jobson recommends that you contact one of these networks.

“You don’t want to create unnecessary panic, but you want people to have good information,” Jobson said. “It doesn’t hurt to call a couple places like a rapid response network and say I’m on this street and I see a bunch of ICE trucks or vans. That is reasonable.”

Jobson also said it’s crucial to know your rights if you encounter an ICE agent and find yourself in a difficult situation. She emphasized that, whether you’re an immigrant with or without legal status, you should carry a “red card” describing your rights, which can be downloaded and printed online.

“These cards are available to citizens and non-citizens alike, you’re not outing yourself as having any particular status by presenting the card,” she said. “Many people are ordering them and they’re in lots of different languages like English and Spanish. The importance of the card is so if someone gets stopped by ICE or approached on the street or wherever the location is they know exactly what to do.”

If you or someone you know has seen or heard that there is an ICE agent in your county, several organizations in Northern California can help verify the information before you report it to your local community.

Here is a list of places you can contact to verify if there are ICE agents in your area:

• The North Bay Rapid Response Network, though centered in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties, can still help verify information and review photos or videos to determine whether they show ICE agents or other federal officials. You can contact them at (707) 800-4544.

• Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa has an immigration department that can be contacted if you believe ICE agents are in your area. You can reach them at (707) 578-6000.

• You can also contact Nuestra Alianza de Willits, located in Willits, to report any possible sightings of ICE agents and ask them to help verify your photos or videos. Reach them at (707) 456-9418.

• Legal Services of Northern California, which has an office in Ukiah, can assist with immigration paperwork and explain your rights as an immigrant. You can contact them if you have questions about what to do if you see an ICE agent in your area. Reach them at (707) 462-1471.

The post How to combat misinformation and fact-check ICE sightings in Mendocino County appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

Despite recent political momentum, the tiny Tulare County community of East Orosi remains without a clear path forward to solving its decades-long struggle with contaminated drinking water.

Disputes between local and state officials, coupled with deep divisions and infighting among local district water board members have thwarted efforts to clear up the community’s water for many years.

Formal efforts to consolidate East Orosi’s water system with the Orosi system have been underway since at least 2018, but little progress has been made.

The slow crawl towards a solution has left East Orosi residents in fear of their own tap water. Many rely on bottled water deliveries, despite living less than a mile from Orosi and its safe, clean water.

“Imagine children knowing that water only comes from a bottle and not from their own tap,” said Eddie Valero, a native of Cutler-Orosi who now represents District 4 of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors.

“People are just tired; East Orosi residents go to Orosi, they frequent the restaurants, the supermarkets [and] also take their kids to schools in Orosi, they are part of the fabric of our communities.” 

What’s wrong with East Orosi’s water?

Since 2003, state and federal authorities have cited East Orosi for at least 99 clean water-related violations, according to online state water board records, including numerous nitrate-related violations.

Nitrates disrupt a blood cell’s capacity to carry oxygen through the body. Infants are most vulnerable as nitrates can be absorbed into their bloodstream and cause “blue baby syndrome.”

Self-Help Enterprises, a nonprofit organization, has helped the East Orosi and surrounding communities by delivering bottled water to residents through the use of a state grant, even going as far as installing plastic water tanks in homes that they refill every two weeks. They have even reimbursed homeowners who qualify for a new private water well.

However, this is not nearly enough to keep up with the demand for water. In 2022, Self-Help Enterprises estimated that around 8,000 wells would dry up in just a couple of years, with the cost to remedy this estimated clean-up cost of to be around $1 billion over the next 20 years.

How did we get here?

East Orosi’s long struggle for clean water has been fueled by years of political clashing between the neighboring Orosi Public Utility District (OPUD) and the California State Water Resources Control Board (CSWRCB), dysfunction by the East Orosi Community Services District (EOCSD) and, most recently, resistance from three OPUD board members who refused to leave office for several weeks, despite losing their reelection campaigns last year.

A new study, that was expected to be released Friday by the California State Water Board, examines the feasibility of consolidating seven rural water districts in Tulare County, including Orosi and East Orosi. Public comments can be submitted until March 13.

The feasibility study drops at a time when the state water board’s Office of Public Engagement, Equity, and Tribal Affairs (OPEETA) have begun hosting meetings between seven water districts and their constituencies to discuss potential long-term and sustainable water solutions for rural communities in northern Tulare County.

The meetings will take place between Orosi, East Orosi, Cutler, Yettem, Monsoon, Seville and Sultana’s water districts.

The meetings are being held to get community and local government feedback on the individual water issues affecting the seven communities to determine a potential regional water solution and is a part of the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) program.

At the first meeting on Feb. 26 at the Monson-Sultana School Cafeteria, Laurel Firestone, a member of the state water board, explained that while a regional water system solution is possible, it would require all seven communities to collaborate together to attract the most amount of funding from the state.

“In order to be able to be competitive for the kind of funding that’s needed to develop a bigger regional infrastructure, we need the region to have a vision for what that looks like,” Firestone said. “Not just be a band aid, but be something that lifts the whole region.”

But bringing the various groups together under a united vision has proven easier said than done.

Particularly in East Orosi where recent political disputes and internal fighting grew loud enough to draw the attention of California’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Three East Orosi board members made headlines earlier this year when they refused to accept their re-election losses and tried to force Tulare County to hold new elections. They continued to serve on the board even after the three candidates elected by voters were sworn in Dec. 6. 

Bonta stepped in, ordering the members — Reynaldo Rivas, Maria C. Gonzalez and Johnny Sandoval — to step down under threat of legal action.

The board members quickly relented, stepping down in mid-January, but not before making some controversial changes to the board’s rules and bylaws. According to the three candidates that defeated the incumbents — Alejandro Brito, Nancy Cerda Serna and Angela Ruiz-Alvarez — the changes added new requirements for elected members to serve in leadership positions.

“You tied our hands before we even got here and I don’t understand why,” said Serna during the Feb. 11 meeting. “I don’t believe there was a need for an ordinance like that.”

Both Serna and Ruiz-Alvarez called for the ordinance to be reviewed by a third-party counsel and questioned both the legality of the ordinance and the reasoning behind its implementation.

During a special meeting on Feb. 25, Board President Alex Marroquin said that the previous board passed the ordinance because they felt the three new incoming members were “coming in with maybe other desires.”

Both Serna and Ruiz-Alvarez explained that they entered the election out of a desire to better represent the community and not because of ulterior motives.

“I want to be on this board, there’s no hidden agenda, I want to do it because I wanted to give back to my community,” Cerna said.

Board members agreed to revisit the issue at a still unscheduled meeting.
But despite the effort’s long track record of political gridlock, many involved remain hopeful that things will be different this time around.

“Thankfully, these conversations are coming back,” Valero said, “hopefully to unite us once again in order to see a solution to the problems that exist.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the release of a new feasibility study. The study was expected Friday, but had not been released as of Monday, March 10, 2025.

The post After years of political clashes, is this Central Valley community finally on a path to clean water? appeared first on Fresnoland.

MENDOCINO CO., CA., 2/21/25 — Even with a microphone, Redwood Coast Seniors Executive Director Jill Rexrode would have had trouble getting her message heard over the cacophony of the daily lunch. Every table in Fort Bragg’s senior center dining room was filled. Lunchers enjoyed meatloaf, green salad, potatoes, and veggies. Volunteers and staff bussed carts burgeoning with cold and hot drinks and desserts. Everywhere the delicious aromas, storytelling, laughter, and clinking of crockery created a din that partly drowned out the piano player in the front. Rexrode needed to talk to the crowd and ask them to write letters and make phone calls about looming cuts to federal funding of these lunches, so she got the piano player to take a break and stood next to the American flag with a microphone and called for attention. Some went silent.

“I really need to talk to you to get your help in getting the Older Americans Act renewed,” Rexrode said. She asked those enjoying the meatloaf, the most popular lunch every week, to take a brochure provided at the door and write and call “all of those” on a long list of politicians and nonprofit groups. She asked the roomful to each send the message to get Congress to return funding used nationwide for senior nutrition.

“Please do this so we can continue to provide our lunches and Meals on Wheels here,” Rexrode said.

A looming federal funding crisis for the Area Agency on Aging of Lake & Mendocino Counties (AAA) could upend the budgets of all the senior centers in Lake County and three in Mendocino County, but only Fort Bragg’s Redwood Coast Seniors has chosen to make a fuss after the AAA alerted all its client senior centers that trouble was brewing.

Redwood Coast Seniors got $268,000 in federal money last year through AAA, Rexrode said. This provides much of the cost of one of the county’s largest Meals on Wheels and senior center dining programs.

Willits and Ukiah senior centers don’t get the federal feeding funds but are dealing with a separate issue, cuts to their outreach programs by Mendocino County. All the senior centers said the current uncertainty and talk of federal cuts is taxing an already thin line in two counties with poverty rates about 20 percent above the statewide average.

The noisy brouhaha coming from the Mendocino Coast has involved dozens of people calling a long list of state, local, federal and elderly activist groups. The call content shows up on local radio, news sites, billboards and social media, but pretty much only in Fort Bragg. The AAA says it’s a problem that does need action and has gotten local political help in fixing it. But many of those being called say they can’t fix the problem in the way callers from Fort Bragg are asking.

Understanding the problem that created the activism involves untangling a Gordian knot of partisan politics. Rexrode, like Alexander the Great, cut to the point instead.

“All of that is moot right now. We don’t want ‘he said, she said.’ Who gives a flip about that at this point? The point is we have to work together to renew the Older Americans Act, or thousands of seniors will go hungry.”

Zo Abell, on the Redwood Coast Seniors board at the senior center put it like this: “Support has always been and remains bi-partisan.”

While no payments have stopped yet, a little fix right now could prevent a crash by March, Rexrode said.

Omission of Older Americans Act funds

A December federal budget showdown led to a continuing resolution in place of approving a new budget. The Senate’s version of the continuing resolution included a funded Older Americans Act (OAA). But the version that passed the U.S. House of Representatives failed to include the OAA. There is widespread partisan debate about who is to blame for the omission or exclusion but for now, funding continues to flow based on the old budget.

There has also been some misinformation that President Donald Trump caused the problem when in fact it happened in December, while Joe Biden was still president.

Yet whoever is to blame, the intentional or unintentional omission has created a situation where an appropriation that could have been put to bed for five years now is vulnerable to a new federal budget where Trump and both houses of Congress will have to sign off.

The approach being pushed in Fort Bragg might not be the solution, other advocates for seniors say.

When advocacy groups and representatives on the list provided to seniors and the community in Fort Bragg were contacted they said the funding was continuing to flow at last year’s levels. While they praised Rexrode for bringing the matter to light, they did not feel there was any action that could be taken outside the continuing budget process.

Redwood Coast Seniors prepared 55,000 meals last year, served to seniors in the lunchroom or the grab-and-go program or Meals on Wheels. The Anderson Valley Senior Center serves lunch two days a week. Coastal Seniors in Point Arena  also gets federal funds through the Area Agency on Aging for Mendocino and Lake Counties.

Senior centers in Willits and Ukiah do not get the federal funds and are thus not impacted.

Ukiah Senior Center Executive Director Liz Dorsey said the Meals on Wheels program there is conducted by Plowshares, a Ukiah nonprofit that serves the homeless. Dorsey said Ukiah serves about 6,000 lunches per year.

“A large part of the problem is the fear of what might or might not happen. Senior centers are not funded as well as maybe they should be,” Dorsey said.

“We have always operated with uncertainty. But with these fears that people are experiencing right now, with everything in our society in flux, those who have been so generous in the past are potentially less likely to donate. Today I talked to about six or eight businesses, and across the board, I’m hearing ‘I am being slammed right now with donation requests.’”

Richard Baker, executive director of the Willits Senior Center said they serve about 21,000 meals per year, half in hall and drive up and half Meals on Wheels.

“Every senior center is run differently. We have a thrift store that generates probably about $330,000 a year. So right now, we have not had to reach out and seek federal funding,” Baker said.

“I could have applied for AAA funds and probably got money there. But why do that when other agencies depend on that money? It’s a pool of money, and if we get into it the pool has less to offer the others,” Baker said.

While Trump may not have created the current crisis, he has advocated for across-the-board cuts to social services, including recommending a cut of 25 percent to food stamp programs. The directors say all of this has added much anxiety to those overseeing thin budgets.

The Mendocino County senior centers all also face county cuts in the $25,000-$50,000 range to outreach programs. Those cuts came during the county’s budget process and will take effect July 1. The directors said they were working to raise that money but faced headwinds of uncertainty.

Lake County Social Services Director Rachael Dillman Parsons described what happened that led to this in a presentation to the board last week. The AAA is integrated into Lake County’s social services department, and all five Lake County senior centers depend on the imperiled federal funding for their meal programs.

California’s population made it one of the youngest states in the 1970 census, but the average age has been getting older since.

And the population is aging quickly in Mendocino and Lake Counties.

Census figures show that in 2022, 23.9 percent of Lake County’s population was 65 and older, up from 17.8 percent in 2010 In 2022; 24.6 percent of Mendocino County’s population was 65 and older in 2022, up from 15.5 percent in 2010, census figures show.

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Classes have moved to the newly completed campus on Fairview Road.

This artcle was written by BenitoLink intern Meghan Lee. Lea este artículo en español aquí.

Since opening on Jan. 27, Gavilan College’s campus in Hollister has expanded the services in the community. Administrators say that enrollment has nearly doubled, from 473 students in the 2024 spring semester to 879 in the current semester. 

Judy Rodriguez has been the instructional site director of the Hollister campus for 28 years. She said that the new, larger building accommodates a wider range of course offerings than the old site did in the Briggs building in downtown Hollister. 

“Students are so appreciative and they’re acclimating to the new campus. They’re excited about being able to take science classes here,” Rodriguez said. 

Jaime Rosales is a communications major at Gavilan, where he serves as a peer mentor. He started taking classes in Hollister in 2015, and said the difference between the old and new facilities is huge. 

“It’s a big leap forward, I’ll tell you that much. State-of-the-art stuff, huge compared to the other one, it’s a lovely site,” Rosales said. “It hasn’t been without its issues. There’s things to iron out still as far as the building goes. But everything’s been working as it should.” 

The campus now offers biology and chemistry classes, which were unavailable at the Briggs site. It also has a cafeteria, library, food pantry and community room. Rodriquez said these new resources are for the whole community, not just students. 

“Having a community room that can be used for meetings and workshops provides an opportunity to build relationships with outside entities and opens the door to welcome our community,” Rodriguez said. 

Rosales said he hopes to see the campus grow even more. 

“Growth is always good. It means people are going to school, so that’s pretty exciting,” Rosales said. 

Gavilan’s Board of Trustees is considering a short-term update for the campus using what remains of Measure X bond money: either a chain link fence around the developed property, or an outdoor athletic facility. 

Gavilan Capital Projects Director Serafin Fernandez will be consulting with his team and community members to assess the need for larger projects and secure funding for them.

The BenitoLink Internship Program is a paid, skill-building program that prepares local youth for a professional career. This program is supported by Monterey Peninsula Foundation AT&T Golf Tour, United Way, Taylor Farms and the Emma Bowen Foundation.

The post Gavilan doubles its Hollister student body for spring semester appeared first on BenitoLink.

As a result of significant storms in early February, which resulted in high runoff inflows into Northern California reservoirs, the federal Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) is implementing flood control operations at the Shasta Reservoir. Those operations include doubling water releases from the reservoir, beginning Friday, February 7. 

The actions are being undertaken with close coordination between Federal, State and local agencies, according to a press release from Mary Lee Knecht, a spokesperson for the BOR. The BOR coordinates its flood management operations in order to maximize hydropower created by releases from Central Valley Project facilities, including Shasta Dam. 

“Federal pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta are currently operating at maximum capacity and storing water in San Luis Reservoir to support south-of-Delta delivery to farms, communities, and wildlife refuges when needed later this year,” according to a press release from the BOR on February 6.

Releases from the Shasta Reservoir will be double from the current rate of 30,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000 cfs, beginning Friday, February 7. The releases will be implemented over the day on Friday, increasing to 40,000 csf by 2 pm, and reaching a full 60,000 by 10 pm. 

Keswick Dam, which is located not far downstream from Shasta Dam, will help regulate the flow of the releases from the Shasta Reservoir, which are expected to last at least through the weekend and could be adjusted next week as needed. 

Similarly, on the Trinity River, the BOR said, Lewiston Dam releases will increase from 1,500 cfs to 3,500 cfs on Friday. Whiskeytown Dam releases, which are currently at 300 cfs, will remain in place. 

Since January 31, the Shasta Reservoir has risen by more than 22 feet, the BOR says. A coordinated team that includes local and state agencies as well as the United States Army Corps of Engineers is working together to implement the water releases.

2.7.25 10:18 pm We have corrected a misspelling in the article’s subheading.

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