WILLITS, CA., 5/1/25 — Every weekday around 11:45 a.m., a large group of seniors gather at the Willits Senior Center on Baechtel Road for a hot meal prepared by the center’s trained kitchen staff. 

The scent of lasagna, fresh salad and chocolate chip cookies fills the dining room as guests enjoy their lunch, leaving satisfied and happy. On some days, the seniors enjoy recipes like chicken teriyaki stir-fry, while on others they have a celebratory meal like turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce.  

In addition to enjoying a fresh, homemade lunch, seniors at the center have the opportunity to socialize with friends, participate in activities such as bingo and music classes, and experience a sense of community. The center also offers transportation services for seniors who need rides to medical appointments, grocery stores and other essential errands around town. 

Despite the support the center provides for the elderly community, it faces ongoing funding threats. As of July 2026, the center will lose $34,100 in funding from Mendocino County, according to documents provided to The Mendocino Voice by the Willits Senior Center and the county. The department that has initiated the funding cuts is the Mendocino County Department of Social Services. 

The center has been a supportive network for seniors since it was founded in 1974. In the late 1970s, the center was operating out of a slowly deteriorating facility, prompting local businessman and philanthropist Robert Harrah and his wife Jayne to donate land and fund the construction of a new building. The project was completed in 1987 and is the current building on Baechtel Road. 

Richard Baker, the executive director of the center, spoke passionately about his time working with seniors and how he’s seen older folks get so much joy from the food and outreach provided by the facility. 

Baker, originally from Salt Lake City, relocated to the Willits area in 1995, shortly after his father passed away there. Around 2010, he began working at the senior center as a driver, assisting seniors with tasks ranging from taking them to important appointments to delivering newspapers to their front doors. He also occasionally picked up supplies for them from grocery or gardening stores. 

In 2017, Baker was promoted to executive director of the senior center, taking on responsibilities that included organizing employees and volunteers, as well as managing funding strategies to keep the facility up and running. Above all, Baker ensures the center provides everything it can for the seniors of Willits. 

“The bottom line is, we do wellness checks, go to people’s houses and check on them,” Baker explained in an interview. “When a senior in Willits has a problem, they call us. Whether it’s something we are getting funding for … we do it.”  

Baker said the Meals on Wheels program, which provides meals to homebound and disabled seniors in Willits who cannot cook for themselves, has been a key support for many people who would otherwise go without food. 

“I was delivering a meal to a woman in a trailer park off Walker Road. She was sitting alone, and when I gave her the meal, she started crying,” Baker emphasized. “She said, ‘If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had a meal today. I don’t have any friends or family.’ I took a moment to sit down with her and explained that even though I’m the one delivering the meal, there are many people behind the scenes who make it possible.” 

According to the documents from Mendocino County, $34,100 will be cut from an outreach contract previously funded by the county’s Department of Social Services. 

According to Baker, the center also experienced a funding cut of $15,999 this year from the department’s CalFresh unit. In total, the Willits Senior Center is facing $50,099 in funding losses in less than two years — cuts that Baker said will significantly impact outreach services. Outreach departments are responsible for identifying seniors and caregivers in need of assistance and resources from the center. 

“Currently, we have a two-person outreach department, but at a minimum, it would be reduced to a one-person contract … we’ll need to reconfigure our outreach department and determine what we can and cannot afford to do moving forward,” Baker added. “Right now, we can’t sustain an extra $30,000 to $40,000 in expenses every year. You can’t hire an employee without having the funds to pay them.” 

Fortunately, the senior center has other funding from sources like its on-site thrift store, which brings in about $300,000 annually. It also receives significant funding through grants, such as those from the Mendocino Transit Authority. 

But for the senior center’s outreach department, $50,099 is a significant amount of money, and Baker is still considering different ways the center can reach its budget goals next year without losing employees. 

“By January 2026, I’ll start reaching out to the city of Willits and the [county] Board of Supervisors to see if any additional funding will be available,” Baker said. “We’ll make adjustments at that point, but people are still going to need help, and they’re not going to stop calling us just because the funding disappeared. The senior center is a trusted resource, and we want to be able to direct people to someone who can help them instead of just telling them they’re out of luck.” 

To sustain its finances and increase donations, Baker said the senior center is creating a fundraising platform called the Redwood Society, a program where elders could dedicate their estates or other assets to secure the center’s future. 

“We’re shifting our strategy and trying to become more independent, moving away from reliance on government funding. One of the key steps we’re taking is setting up the Redwood Society,” Baker stated. “We plan to reach out to the community and ask people to consider including the senior center in their wills, trusts, or estate planning — whether it’s a percentage of their estate or their entire estate if they have no relatives and want to support us in that way.” 

Through the creation of the Redwood Society and other plans to build an endowment that will provide funds to the center annually, Baker hopes the senior center can rely less on outside funding sources. However, these plans will take time to implement. He explained that Willits Senior Inc., the nonprofit behind the Willits Senior Center, has already created an endowment for the center.  

Baker said Willits Senior Inc. has a $1 million endowment, which provides $30,000 to $35,000 each year in operating revenue. 

“If we can grow that to $3 million, we’ll generate $100,000 annually, which would eliminate the need for county funding,” he said. “This will help us reduce our dependence on outside funding sources. It’s going to take time, but it’s part of our current plan.” 

Baker said creating the Redwood Society will not only allow seniors to contribute to a cherished community resource but also give them a chance to leave their mark in a unique way. He hopes to acquire a large piece of redwood to display in the center’s lobby, where members of the Redwood Society can sign their names. 

“We’ll make it nice and place it in the lobby. As people donate, we’ll add their names to it,” Baker said. “These ideas are all important, especially the endowment. Many seniors who have benefited from the center and understand how important we are will want to contribute.”  

To contribute to the center, either financially or by volunteering, visit their website. To donate by check, mail it to 1501 Baechtel Road, Willits, CA. 

People can also donate items to the thrift store or consider becoming a board member. The senior center will be sending updates on the creation of the Redwood Society.

The post $50,000 in funding cuts puts strain on Willits Senior Center’s services   appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

After hours of public interviews yesterday afternoon, April 30, Shasta County’s Board has selected a new Registrar of Voters (ROV). Clint Curtis is a Florida-based attorney with no ties to Shasta County and no experience running elections.

He’s also an outspoken opponent of the use of voting machines who highlighted his connection to MyPillow CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell during his interview. 

Curtis will replace ROV Tom Toller whose resignation became official on April 29th. Toller, who was also appointed by supervisors, held the role for only eight months before stepping down for health reasons.

Supervisors Kevin Crye, Chris Kelstrom and Corkey Harmon cast the deciding votes for Curtis late afternoon after interviewing a total of four candidates. Curtis was the only one of the four with no previous experience in elections management.

Other candidates included long-term Shasta County election staffer and Assistant Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut; Elle Leigh Sharpe, a staffer at the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office with previous experience at the Placer County Elections Office; Robin Underwood, a City Clerk based in Michigan. The fifth candidate invited to interview for the position did not appear.

Board Chair Crye made the motion for Curtis’ appointment, saying while he doesn’t believe there are any significant issues with Shasta County elections, “its time for change” in a “directio n that may be unknown” to do things “way out of the box.”

“I think now is the time to do things differently and lead in a different way,” Crye continued, without further explanation.

What Curtis plans to do differently, he told supervisors, is film the entire Shasta County elections process, a step he says will allow the community to see for themselves if voting machines are accurate. He provided no details about the practicalities of such a plan including how much it would cost, whether and how he’d adjust current state-regulated election processes to implement it, or how exactly the public will be able to use the filming process to verify accurate election processes. 

Nevertheless, Supervisor Kelstrom immediately seconded Crye’s motion to select Curtis. He aid he had no concerns with the work of Assistant ROV Francescut, who has 17 years of experience in the local Elections Office, but wanted to go with Curtis instead. 

This is the second time Francescut has applied for the position in a year. She was passed over both last year and this year, despite strong public support from a majority of the vocal public, while the Board majority consistently chose candidates with no experience in elections management. She’s faced a litany of accusations from a small but vocal group of locals who believe widespread election fraud is occurring across the United States, many of whom are associated with New California State, a secessionist movement that hopes to separate from the “tyrannical” California government.

Harmon, who provided the swing vote on the vote to select Curtis, also expressed support for Francescut. But he told Shasta Scout after the meeting that he agrees with Crye that a new approach to elections is needed, saying what’s at stake is bigger than Shasta County. 

“It’s about election integrity across the country,” Harmon said. “California-wide, country-wide…  Everybody knows there’s issues with elections. And I think there’s stuff coming (federally) that’s going to change some things, for the better.” 

The idea that the Trump administration’s recent executive order might impact local elections was a recurring theme throughout interview questions and Board conversations. In response to questions from Supervisor Crye about whether they’d follow the will of the Board or the will of the state when it comes to elections, all four candidates emphasized that they would follow election law, which is currently set primarily at the state level.

Curtis’ selection was strongly opposed by Supervisors Allen Long and Matt Plummer, who both raised concerns about Curtis’s work history and qualifications for the role. Curtis has long been a controversial figure. He’s a former computer programmer who claims he wrote a code that could be used to flip election machines, then later blew the whistle saying he didn’t know what the code was intended for when he wrote it. He told supervisors yesterday that he wanted to work in Shasta County elections to atone for his mistake in writing that code decades ago.

While Curtis has previously claimed publicly to have been fired from one of his former jobs, he wrote in his ROV application that he’d never been discharged or forced to resign from a position. When asked about that discrepancy by Supervisor Crye during his interview, Curtis defended himself, saying he wasn’t technically terminated from his former employment because he was a contractor, not an employee.

Faced with a similarly tough question from Plummer about how many election cases he’d won as an attorney specializing in election law over the last twelve years, Curtis first said none then hedged saying he thinks he won a small one once, “but nothing much.” 

Curtis’ lack of success in the courtroom, along with his’ four unsuccessful runs for Congress, prompted Plummer to refer to Curtis as not having a track record of success, adding that it would be unwise to appoint someone whose goal is to address alleged illegalities at the elections office that have never even been documented. 

Supervisor Long spoke similarly, saying what Shasta County needs in the ROV role is experience, qualifications and stability — not an outsider with new ideas on how to change election processes in order to address unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

Long said he didn’t believe Curtis met even the basic qualifications that had been set by the Board for the ROV appointment making a motion that Curtis be eliminated from consideration based on his lack of qualifications for the role which wasn’t seconded.

Curtis’ application was screened by an ad hoc committee that included both Long and Crye, which means Long originally approved him to interview for the role before changing his mind. Speaking to Shasta Scout after the meeting, Long said he approved Curtis for the interview process because he and Supervisor Crye were told by Shasta County’s Director of Support Services Monica Fugitt that Curtis met qualifications for the role. 

It was only after checking the video of the Board’s vote on qualification requirements and reviewing details of the agenda packet, Long said, that he became convinced Curtis didn’t actually qualify to be interviewed at all. Fugitt told Shasta Scout last week that she would not comment on whether Curtis met qualifications for the role.

During a fifteen-minute speech to the Board in an attempt to dissuade them from choosing Curtis, Long also addressed concerns about various aspects of Curtis’ work history, as reported by Orlando Weekly. Neither Crye nor Kelstrom offered any response, but Harmon summoned Curtis to the dais. The candidate offered hard-to-follow rebuttals to Long’s concerns, saying Long should have done better research and recommending he read a specific blog for accurate facts.

The meeting was briefly disrupted during Long’s comments to the Board after community member Christian Gardinier called out from the chamber floor for the second time, after a first warning. In response to Crye’s commands to leave the room, Gardinier held his ground saying he was willing to be arrested. Chair Crye called a meeting recess and asked everyone but the press to exit the chamber before calling on the two Sheriff’s deputies in the room to assist Gardinier to vacate the room. After a few moments, in response to a request from Long, Gardinier chose to leave on his own. He remained outside the chamber for the rest of the meeting.

After being selected, Curtis offered brief comments to the press. He took a cavalier tone, delivering mostly vague answers to questions about how he intends to run the Elections Office. Last his interview last year, Curtis said that he might want to “start over” with fresh staff at the Elections Office. This year, he said he’s going to wait and see how “retraining” goes before making a decision. Asked specifically about maintaining the employment of Assistant ROV Francescut, Curtis said he might be able to work with her, “if she was telling the truth during her interview.”

Francescut has worked in Shasta County elections since 2008 and held the Assistant ROV role since 2018. She has administered over 30 elections and ran the March 2024 primary on her own while ROV Cathy Darling Allen was out on medical leave.

She told supervisors yesterday that she was willing to continue in her role as Assistant ROV if not selected for the lead role. Speaking to Shasta Scout after the meeting, she expressed respect for the Board’s decision to choose Curtis. Within a few hours of the Board’s decision, she issued a press release publicly announcing her candidacy for the ROV role in 2026.

“Shasta County deserves experienced and trusted leadership in the elections office,” Francescut wrote, “I’m committed to this work that I’ve done locally for 17 years and I’m running to bring stability, experience, and integrity to the role at a pivotal time for local elections.”

Now that Curtis has been selected, he must pass a background check, move to Shasta County, and register to vote before he can legally become Shasta County’s next ROV. If appointed he’d hold the role until at least January 2027. That’s when the winner of the June 2026 election for the ROV role will take their seat.

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.

Lea este artículo en español aquí.

Hollister’s weekly Farmers’ Market reopened on April 16 on San Benito Street and drew a fine turnout despite the cold weather.

Bri Rodriguez, who manages the market, said it has been in operation for 38 years and has grown to include more than 90 vendors—from fruit and vegetable stands to food trucks. 

DJ E-Poki performed during the event.

“We sell Belgian Liege waffles made out of a brioche dough with sugar pearls inside,” said Nick Belaski of Wafflz & Pearlz. “There are many different varieties: dipped waffles, waffle pops, and classic waffles with fresh toppings.

Customer Jay Guardro’s favorite menu item is the Wafflz & Pearlz Strawberry Pop, a recently introduced item made with Dubai chocolate and strawberries. 

Belaski said he thinks the new pop will be a big hit, but their most popular item is the dipped Cookies and Cream waffles.

“This is our second year doing the Farmers’ Market,” Belaski said, “and the flavors people have liked have been pretty consistent. They tend to be creatures of habit.”

Market-goer Aliana Reyes said this is the fourth time she has been to the market. Her favorite spot is an area next to the bookstore where you can create your own slime.

She said, “I love to come here with my family because there are so many things to do.”

Cassandra Garcia said she got a baked potato and a piña colada.

“I moved here around two years ago,” she said. “It’s our first time here at The Farmers’ Market and it’s one of the funniest things ever.” 

Brook Sword said her favorite vendors were the farmers and BR Beef, where she buys the organic beef jerky.

“I love the delicious vegetables and the good weather,” she said. “I come every single week and buy dinner, so I’m so happy that it’s back.”

Andrew Avila of Hollister’s Valois Family Farm said the most popular items are mushrooms and strawberries.

“The trend changes,” he said, “It’s surprising to me that a lot of people have recently been buying carrots.” 

Customer Zuleyka Reyes said she saw online that it was the first day of the Farmers’ Market and decided to attend.

“I try to come every now and then,” she said. “Ivan’s Baked Potato is probably my favorite. They are really good. And there is a vendor here that sells really pretty fresh flowers.”

The post Hollister Farmers’ Market kicks off another season appeared first on BenitoLink.

Fall River Joint Unified School District’s March 12 Board meeting began with business as usual, including an announcement from student representatives praising a recent art fair and the athletic teams’ triumphs. 

The room’s atmosphere shifted, though, when Teresea Spooner, Fall River’s longtime Chief Business Officer (CBO), segued to a more consequential matter. In statements to the Board, Spooner cautiously yet firmly announced a looming financial predicament that, according to her calculations, simply cannot be ignored: an approximate operating deficit of $2.5 million in the next academic year. 

Her statements prefaced a Board agenda item that could have resulted in the elimination of approximately eight staff positions for cost savings, a recommendation made by Spooner and District Superintendent, Morgan Nugent. Their recommendation to cut positions was voted down by the Board. It’s a decision which leaves Fall River staffing intact but doesn’t address the District’s looming fiscal crisis.

In a recent interview with Shasta Scout, Spooner explained the series of events that have brought Fall River to its current financial dilemma. They include an end to one-time pandemic funding and decreasing enrollment, which together have posed a serious challenge for the District’s ability to maintain its current staffing levels. 

According to Spooner, the District added 17 full-time employees as extra support staff, using federal funds using pandemic funding administered to schools throughout the nation. Now, with the discontinuation of federal pandemic revenue, she said, the District is struggling to rebalance its budget.

“No one likes to cut, no one likes to reduce,” Spooner said to those in attendance at the District’s March 12 Board meeting. “You can add programs and add people, but you have to be able to recover from it when you need to.” 

Concurrently, the Fall River District has been adjusting to declining enrollment. The District lost approximately 53 students between the 2019-2024 school years, a result of parents choosing charter or homeschooling instead of traditional public schools, as well as a relatively low population of full-time home-owner residents in Fall River, according to staff members who spoke at the meeting and afterwards.

The drop in enrollment significantly impacts revenue. That’s because, across California, the Department of Education (CDE) uses each school’s average daily attendance (ADA) data to calculate a significant portion of school funding. 

“If I did a quick calculation of funds received that are ADA driven, I would say we would get around $16,000 per student which would equate to approximately $848,000 loss (from declining enrollment),” Spooner said. “A broad projection would lend to a loss of 4.38% (from loss of) attendance in five years.”

According to the District’s profile, Fall River, located in rural area within eastern Shasta County, serves approximately 1,160 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. According to the District’s website, Fall River comprises two elementary schools, two junior-senior high schools, two continuation high schools and one community day school. 

Both during the March 12 meeting and later in an interview with Shasta Scout, Spooner said she had urged former leadership to think past the pandemic years while stimulus funds were still flowing. Since no changes were made earlier, she explained, the District is now faced with significant cuts to rebalance the budget as COVID funds halt.

“And there was the missing link. We didn’t have a recovery plan,” Spooner continued. “We kept thinking, ‘well, we’ll just do a little here and a little there and then we’ll get there’, but we haven’t done really much of anything to get there. And that’s where we are.”

During the Board’s March 12 discussion on whether to cut staff, Board members offered few comments, only chiming in at times to elaborate upon statements by Spooner and respond to school staff. 

The staff report suggested cutting approximately seven teachers as well as a campus groundskeeper and potentially an administrator, the latter of which would assume a teaching role instead. The Board declined to cut any of the positions but without offering any real comment as to why, or what alternatives they had in mind to mitigate the pending budget crisis. 

Superintendent Nugent, who only assumed his role in July spoke to Shasta Scout after the meeting. He highlighted the lack of sustainability in one-time federal funds, specifically addressing COVID dollars provided to the state’s public school system at large.

“Some schools decided to use those funds on different projects, some schools spent a lot of money on personnel, and unfortunately one-time money is unsustainable, especially if you have a declining enrollment across California,” he said. “It’s almost a double-whammy for districts having a declining enrollment and hiring staff with one-time funds, so we’re having to go ahead and get those rebalanced.”

“There are times anywhere you’re not going to have everyone on board,” Nugent continued, addressing community pushback to reduction in forces. “This time they [the Board] decided to go ahead and not take away those positions.”

March 15 was the final deadline for districts statewide to notify staff members of layoffs, meaning the Board’ vote on the 12th closed the door to additional terminations this year. The only exception, according to Nugent, would be staff termination resulting from disciplinary issues which could occur later. 

At this month’s Apr. 9 meeting, which a reporter from Shasta Scout attended virtually, no notes were shared regarding how the District would proceed to navigate its looming fiscal crisis. To put the approximately $2.5 million pending deficit into perspective, Fall River’s 2024-2025 budget is only about $16 million according to the District’s First and Second Interim Budget Report.

According to Nugent, District staff are looking to modify school transportation, technology purchases and curriculum to try to shrink the budget as much as possible.

“There’s still some [bus] routes that are not full,” Nugent said. “Basically for a mile of driving a bus is $5.50. So for us if we can go ahead and use vans for sporting trips or some of those other ones, that cost drops all the way down to $0.90.”

Nugent also stated that Fall River, like most school Districts, purchases different sources of curriculum for a variety of subjects and grade-levels. 

“Some of those [curricula] are not being utilized,” he said. “So we’re making decisions based on similar programs that we already have in place to minimize duplication or replication.”

Fall River’s financial predicament appears to reflect a larger trend regarding the effect of declining enrollment and loss of COVID funding on the nation’s public schools. Several districts within Shasta County are reportedly struggling to rebalance their budgets amid decreasing student enrollment and a halt to COVID funds. Layoffs have also been reported across the state – including in Oakland, San Francisco and Pasadena.

In addition, Nugent addressed how a lack of affordable housing for those who reside in Shasta County, and California at large, has contributed to declining enrollment in the state’s public schools, saying many local homes in the Fall River area are being bought up as vacation properties.

“A lot of our homes are also second or third homes for people who don’t reside in the community. It makes it hard for people to raise a family up here,” he said. “It’s a (losing) situation for us when we have such a beautiful place to be and have amazing teachers and programs, but it’s harder for families to stay in California or in our community… and then we have to make cuts.”

Spooner, the District’s Chief Business officer, is also retiring at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. In a recent interview with Shasta Scout, Spooner stated the District recently hired her replacement, however she fears they will lack the experience to face Fall River’s finances alone.

Despite these obstacles, both Nugent and Spooner expressed a deep desire to achieve a balanced budget as soon as possible, without external interference from the county or state, and without shedding personnel.

“We’re going to continue to do the best we can for our students and continue to develop a plan on how we address the budget shortfalls,” Nugent stated. “We will work tirelessly to do the best for our community, students and staff.”

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.

MENDOCINO CO., 4/20/25 – The Trump tariffs have been a hot-button topic among Mendocino County small business owners in recent weeks. The ups and downs of the tariffs have made it hard for businesses to plan, but one thing we do know – if you import anything from outside the country, you are going to be paying more for it.  

That tasty guacamole you get from your favorite Mexican restaurant? It likely consists of avocados, chili peppers and tomatoes from Mexico and onions from China.  

“The price increase of chocolate, vanilla, coffee, eggs, avocados, just to name a few things have gotten and are crazy scary expensive for us,” shared one restaurant owner in the Mendocino County Foodies group on Facebook. Business is definitely down from last year, and I don’t think we will have as busy of a summer if people don’t travel from other countries to vacation here, so yeah, definitely scary times ahead,” she posted.  

And those eco-friendly, compostable take-out cups and packages? Those are made in China, including the Rohnert Park-based World Centric brand. According to a sales representative for the product, the price of World Centric products increased 25% effective April 1.  

The Trump administration placed baseline tariffs of 145% on all Chinese imports early this month.  

The owner of a cooking store in Ukiah shared that her vendors have increased pricing already and cited tariffs as the reason – and more increases could take place. “We’ve always tried to focus on U.S. [made] goods, but their cost has also increased exponentially over the last few months,” she wrote. “I suspect due to the supply chain and anticipation of what transpired over the last couple weeks.” 

Coffee enthusiasts are already being impacted by the tariffs, according to one Fort Bragg entrepreneur who imports coffee. They received word from a distributor last week that a one-pound bag of coffee is increasing by $1.20. That’s about a four-cent increase per cup even before retail mark-up.  

Coffee prices hit an all-time high in March at $7.38 a pound. That’s an 84% increase from January 2020. Given that 99% of the coffee we drink is imported, expect more records to be broken.

One local caterer reported that wedding clients are already reducing their commitments. She shared that the current economic situation “smells like 2020,” referring to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy. 

“I am not optimistic about this whole situation. The wedding and event industry is predicated on disposable income,” she wrote. “That is evaporating for our clients at the same time costs are spiking.” 

In contrast, a local rancher in Covelo who raises grass-fed, grain-finished lamb, goat and pork shares that the tariffs “shouldn’t affect my business at all, and besides I firmly believe that when everything settles down [the tariffs] won’t be an issue.” 

But no matter what your political leaning, there is no doubt that many of the local restaurants and food businesses we cherish will be impacted by the tariffs. 

And for consumers, that means it all comes down to supporting local businesses. 

If you have the means, consider dining out at least once a week at a local restaurant. Tip generously, too. A downturn in the economy means working-class folks, the servers and back-of-house staff, will be hit hard and even a few extra bucks in the tip jar can make a difference.  

Consider joining a local community-supported agriculture program (CSA) like the Mendo Lake Food Hub. The weekly deliveries of fresh produce you’ll receive can benefit your body, mind and the farmers that grow the produce. 

Visit a local farmers’ market and pick up groceries from locally owned markets, co-ops, fishermen, fishmongers and butcher shops. Don’t forget locally owned shops and boutiques for cookware and foodie gifts.  

Be sure to share dining, shopping and eating experiences on social media. Heck, it might even warrant a Yelp or Google review. Your kind words can make a huge difference for a small business.  

The post How will Trump’s tariffs impact local restaurants and food businesses? Owners share their thoughts appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

Daniel Herrera Carbajal
ICT

In March, Gila River took out 10,000 acre-feet of their allotted water from Lake Mead after the Trump administration’s Unleashing American Energy executive order froze money for any program related to the Inflation Reduction Act. The act, which Congress passed during the Biden Administration in 2022, allocated money for tribes and states in exchange for giving up some of their shares of Colorado River water.

The Trump administration later unfroze the Inflation Reduction Act funds that would be used for water conservation projects and to build canals. The act allocated around $4 billion to compensate tribes, states and other organizations to not take water out of the Colorado River to use to generate revenue like crops.

Gila River Governor Stephen Roe Lewis wrote a letter to the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Feb. 11 before removing Colorado River water from Lake Mead.

“We have given the department every opportunity to avoid what could be a calamitous break in our longstanding partnership, with terrible consequences for the entire basin,” he said.

If water levels continue dropping, hydroelectric dams on the Colorado River will not be able to generate electricity. But the compensation to not take water out of the river has been seen as a short-term solution by many experts, including Mark Squillace, a professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in natural resource law.

“My concern is that the Biden administration seemed to be focused on short-term buyouts of water consumption,” he said. “I just don’t think that kind of approach is sustainable. What we need on the Colorado River are permanent reductions in consumption, and so spending a lot of money to temporarily buy out the rights of people to use all of their water, right, is just not something that is going to solve the problem.”

Thirty tribes have rights to the Colorado River. The river is a resource, but for the Zuni Pueblo it is the source of life.

“For the Zuni people, the Colorado River is really important because the river and the Grand Canyon are our homeland. That’s where the Zunis emerged,” said Councilman of Zuni Pueblo Edward Wemytewa.

The Colorado River has important cultural significance to each tribe that has water rights to it, but the Colorado River compact that outlined how the river would be divided was not drafted in consultation with tribes.

“Laws were created by the US governments, by the US agencies, and during those times, the federal government, in the name of public interest, they started delineating territories. They start creating laws about water usage, water compacts,” said Wemytewa. “Well, in those earlier years, when the laws were being developed and implemented, the Zuni was not at the table. Many Native peoples weren’t at the table.

“Under federal law, those tribes have the right to take their water, usually in priority over everybody else, because the date of priority for Indian water rights is the date of their reservations, which is typically within the 19th century,” said Squillace. “So those water rights tended to date back before other non-Indian users.

“Those are legal rights that they are entitled to. And so one of the things I’ve suggested in my article is that maybe we should think about closing down the river to new appropriations. Why are we continuing to appropriate new water rights when we have this crisis and we have early water rights from Native American tribes that are currently legal but not being utilized for a number of different reasons?” he said.

The current compact being used was created in 1922, and it divided the river into two basins – upper and lower.

Each basin was allotted no more than 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year, equaling 15 million acre-feet of water each year. Mexico was also allocated 1.5 million acre-feet a year. The amount of water the river produces was vastly overestimated at the time of the compact’s creation.

“At the time that they negotiated the compact, it was thought that there was maybe 18 million acre feet of water on an annual basis in the river, which turned out not to be true,” said Squillace.

Currently, the Colorado River is producing about 12.5 million acre-feet a year. A vast over-allocation of water has led to states battling over water and how to use it.

Squillace proposed a new Colorado River compact. It proposes to update states’ water usage laws and to bring tribal nations into the conversation.

“I’ve suggested that maybe we could come up with a new compact, which would look very different from the current compact, but would basically be an agreement among the states to modernize their water laws,” he said. “Right now we have a number of principles in the various state water laws that I think allow for, I don’t want to call them wasteful, but at least inefficient uses. We could increase our efficiency in terms of the amount of water that we use if we sort of refined what we call beneficial use. There’s a principle in western water law that you only get as much water as can be beneficially used.”

For the Zuni Pueblo, a history of strong-handed negotiations and a lack of knowledge of a government system that is not their own led to signing deals that did not benefit them.

“When there were any land settlements or water settlements, tribes were never provided attorneys.Tribes were never given a heads up, They were never given funding to educate ourselves as Indigenous peoples,” Wemytewa said. “We are stewards of the water. We find the corn seed central. The corn seed is central. In fact, our abstract name is Children of Corn because we’re farmers, we’re agricultural people. What agricultural people would give up their water rights? What agricultural people would give up their watershed? We didn’t have much choice.”

Tribes have priority over everyone else when it comes to their water rights pertaining to the Colorado River, which means they must have a voice in the conversation.

“There are 30 Native American tribes with water rights along the Colorado River. And it may be impractical to basically have all 30 tribes represented during negotiations. We’ve got seven states, two countries, 30 tribes. That would be a very difficult kind of negotiation,” he said.

“But you could certainly have some representatives. The reason it’s tricky is that not all tribes agree on the best approach here. And so it’s important that we treat individual Native American tribes as people who can have their own views that might be different from other tribes. And so how do you ensure fair representation of all the tribal views without actually putting all those tribes at the table during negotiation?”

For Wemytewa, a new compact with tribes involved is necessary.

“Today, as a tribal leader, I submit comments to federal agencies, whether it’s the National Park Service or the Bureau of Land Management or (U.S. Geological Survey). We submit our comments trying to provide guidance to the federal agencies that you have to consider that you can’t continue to open up the lands. You cannot continue to give away water, because by doing so, you continue to remove Indigenous peoples from their aboriginal lands to make room for other people, other cultures.” 

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When an outbreak of deadly tornadoes tore through the small town of Mayfield, Kentucky, in December 2021, one family was slow to act, not because they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know that they should do anything.

The family of Guatemalan immigrants only spoke Spanish, so they didn’t understand the tornado alert that appeared on their cell phones in English. “I was not looking at [an information source] that told me it was going to get ugly,” Rosa, identified only by her first name, told researchers for a study on how immigrant communities responded to the warnings. 

Another alert popped up in Spanish, and Rosa and her family rushed downstairs to shelter. Ten minutes later, a tornado destroyed the second floor where they’d been. 

For at least 30 years, the National Weather Service had been providing time- and labor-intensive manual translations into Spanish. Researchers have found that even delayed translations have contributed to missed evacuations, injuries, and preventable deaths. These kinds of tragedies prompted efforts to improve the speed and scope of translating weather alerts at local, state, and national levels.

Early into the Biden administration, the agency began a series of experimental pilot projects to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the country. The AI translating company Lilt was behind one of them. By the end of 2023, the agency had rolled out a product using Lilt’s artificial intelligence software to automate translations of weather forecasts and warnings in Spanish and Chinese.

“By providing weather forecasts and warnings in multiple languages, NWS will improve community and individual readiness and resilience as climate change drives more extreme weather events,” Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said in a press release announcing the 2023 launch. Since then, the service also added automatic translations into Vietnamese, French, and Samoan. The machine learning system could translate alerts in just two to three minutes — what might take a human translator an hour — said Joseph Trujillo Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose work supported the program. 

And now those alerts are gone. The National Weather Service has indefinitely suspended its automated language translations because its contract with Lilt has lapsed, according to an April 1 administrative message issued by the agency. The sudden change has left experts concerned for the nearly 71 million people in the U.S. who speak a language other than English at home. As climate change supercharges calamities like hurricanes, heat waves, and floods, the stakes have never been higher — or deadlier. 

“Because these translations are no longer available, communities who do not understand English are significantly less safe and less aware of the hazardous weather that might be happening in their area,” said a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee familiar with the translation project, whom Grist granted anonymity to protect them from retaliation. Hundreds of thousands of alerts were translated by the Lilt AI language model, the employee said.

An internal memo reviewed by Grist showed that the National Weather Service has stopped radio translations for offices in its southern region, where 77 million people live, and does not plan to revert to a previous method of translation — meaning that its broadcasts will no longer contain Spanish translations of forecasts and warnings. The move enraged some workers at local NWS offices, according to conversations relayed to the employee, as the decision not to restart radio translations was due to the workload burden as the service’s workforce faces cuts under the Trump administration.

No clear reason was given as to why the contract lapsed and the agency has discontinued its translations, the employee said. “Due to a contract lapse, NWS paused the automated language translation services for our products until further notice,” NOAA weather service spokesperson Michael Musher told Grist in a statement. Musher did not address whether the NWS plans to resume translations, nor did he address Grist’s additional requests for clarification. Lilt did not respond to a request for comment.

Fernando Rivera, a disaster sociologist at the University of Central Florida who has studied language-equity issues in emergency response, told Grist the move by the administration “is not surprising” as it’s in “the same trajectory in terms of [Trump] making English the official language.” Rivera also pointed to how, within hours of the president’s inauguration, the Trump administration shut down the Spanish-language version of the White House website. Trump’s mandate rescinded a decades-old order enacted by former President Bill Clinton that federal agencies and recipients of federal money must provide language aid to non-English speakers. 

“At the end of the day, there’s things that shouldn’t be politicized,” Rivera said.

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Of the millions of people living in the U.S. who don’t speak English at home, the vast majority speak Spanish, followed by Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Now that the contract with Lilt has lapsed, it’ll be difficult to fulfill the Federal Communications Commission’s pre-Trump ruling on January 8 that wireless providers support emergency alerts in the 13 most common languages spoken in the U.S., said Trujillo Falcón, the researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

The gap will have to be filled by doing translations by hand, or by using less accurate automated translations that can lead to confusion. Google Translate, for example, has been known to use “tornado clock” for “tornado watch” and grab the word for “hairbrush” for “brush fires” when translating English warnings to Spanish. Lilt, by contrast, trained its model specifically on weather-related terminologies to improve its accuracy.

While urban areas might have news outlets like Telemundo or Univision that could help reach Spanish-speaking audiences, rural areas don’t typically have these resources, Trujillo Falcón said: “That’s often where a lot of multilingual communities go to work in factories and on farms. They won’t have access to this life-saving information whatsoever. And so that’s what truly worries me.” 

It’s an issue even in states with a large population of Spanish speakers, like California. “It’s assumed that automatic translations of emergency information is commonplace and ubiquitous throughout California, but that’s not the case, particularly in our rural, agricultural areas where we have farmworkers and a large migrant population,” said Michael Méndez, a professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine. 

Méndez said that Spanish speakers have been targeted by misinformation during extreme weather. A study in November found that Latinos who use Spanish-language social media for news were more susceptible to false political narratives pertaining to natural disaster relief and other issues than those who use English-language media. The National Weather Service alerts were “an important tool for people to get the correct information, particularly now, from a trusted source that’s vetted,” Méndez said.

Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the nonprofit Migrant Clinicians Network, sees it only placing a “deeper burden” on local communities and states to fill in the gaps. In the days since the weather service contract news first broke, a smattering of local organizations across the country have already announced they will be doubling down on their work offering non-English emergency information. 

But local and state disaster systems also tend to be riddled with issues concerning language access services. A Natural Hazards Center report released last year found that in hurricane hotspots like Florida, state- and county-level emergency management resources for those with limited English proficiency are scarce and inconsistent. All told, the lack of national multilingual emergency weather alerts “will have pretty deep ripple effects,” said Liebman. “It’s a life or death impact.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Millions of Americans don’t speak English. Now they won’t be warned before weather disasters. on Apr 14, 2025.

UKIAH, CA., 4/12/25 —A new partnership between three organizations will explore options for raising the dam at Lake Mendocino to boost the water supply supporting agriculture and recreation. 

State and local politicians, tribal officials and representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers met Friday at Lake Mendocino to formalize a cost-sharing agreement for the Coyote Valley Dam General Investigation Study.  

According to the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Lake Mendocino provides drinking water for over 650,000 people in Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties and plays a role in flood control.  

The study, led by a partnership between the commission, the Lytton Rancheria and the Corps of Engineers will assess the prospects of greater water supply and potential federal interest in reducing flood risks. 

The cost of the study is estimated at $3 million, with funding coming from federal sources secured by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, the Corps of Engineers, the commission and other potential partners. 

The study will begin by evaluating water storage options in the watershed and explore upgrades to Coyote Valley Dam infrastructure. It will also examine ways to restore aquatic species, like the local salmon and steelhead population.  

“We are going to look at a lot, and one of the most obvious options is a dam raise,” said Allison Conn, project manager for the San Francisco District of the Corps of Engineers. “Raising this dam to the originally authorized height would increase the conservation and the body of water that can be stored.”  

Conn said the study will also explore how to make the water supply less “turbid,” meaning murky. She added that the study will investigate a different dam outlet, which refers to a location inside the dam that allows water to exit the reservoir.  

“We will look for a different location of an outlet that would allow for cleaner water in the reservoir,” Conn said. She said that cleaner water will allow for a better environment for the native fish population. “The less turbid the water, the better for the fish.”  

Huffman said the project will enhance a plan to improve water supply by coordinating transfers between the Eel and Russian rivers. 

“If this reservoir is enlarged, it’s going to work even better,” Huffman said in an interview. “We are going to be able to store more water and not have to dump it for flood control purposes. That will help people in the North Bay get through droughts better, and the fisheries in the Russian River will benefit.”  

As PG&E moves ahead with plans to decommission the Potter Valley Project—a historic system that has transferred water from the Eel River to the Russian River for years—concerns about water supply are increasing among local politicians and residents. 

For Ukiah City Councilmember and commission representative Mari Rodin, it’s more important than ever for regional and state agencies to adopt new approaches to water supply. 

“The dam and the region’s entire water system must evolve,” said Rodin. “The climate is changing, the infrastructure is outdated, and PG&E’s exit means we need a new, coordinated approach.”

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A harmonious, almost jubilant tone pervaded the crowd on April 5 as more than 1,000 community members rallied in downtown Redding to show their opposition to the policies of President Donald Trump. The event was one of at least 1,200 “Hands Off” protests held across the United States. 

Friends greeted friends, coworkers mingled, and faith families caught up as they joined in solidarity against the policies of the new federal administration. Many said they were encouraged by the number of people who attended. Shasta Scout’s count estimated the crowd at 1,200, which is three times the number who showed up to a similar protest in February. 

A woman who asked to be identified only by her first name and last initial said she found the size of the crowd “very heartening”. Katy R explained that her perspective has been influenced by being raised by parents in the legal profession.

“Dinnertime conversations were about no one being above the law,” Katy R said, “whenever a situation came up (they told us) to make sure we relied on the facts and to be very careful about passing judgment and again that no one is above the law, even the president.”

She said she was surprised and encouraged to see so many she recognizes in the community including doctors, nurses and lawyers.

“So for those that like to think that the only people out here are rabble rousers,” Katy continued, “I am seeing lots of people who truly care about this country.”

Protester Demetrius Dumdum helped lead chants during Shasta County’s 2020 protest over George Floyd’s murder. He was out again yesterday with a megaphone, rallying the crowd. In a conversation with Shasta Scout, Dumdum said he and others were protesting against threats to jobs, Social Security, other government programs, and the well-being of veterans, immigrants and people of color.

“I personally feel that they are doing this on purpose”, Dumdum said, referring to recent actions by President Trump and others in the federal administration that have affected the economy. “They want to collapse and crash the economy… it makes it easier for them to get a deeper grip on America.”

But Dumdum also emphasized how proud he felt of the community, especially older residents, for coming out to protest. 

“I know we live in MAGA country”, he continued, “but it’s okay to come outta your houses and say how you feel. Stand on business. Because it’s going to affect everybody. Even those people who are MAGA. A lot of people are already regretting their vote.”

While Dumdum did not choose to obscure his identity at the protest, he said he was concerned about the possible effects that speaking out could have on his professional life. Other protesters who spoke with Shasta Scout did so only on the condition of anonymity.

Some, including a woman who asked to use the pseudonym Ms. Patriot, also wore a mask. Patriot said she’s been impacted by seeing videos of American residents who have been arrested by immigration police.

“I’ve been following closely the stories of doctoral students who have been absconded from their homes and the streets by people who are hiding their identities and it is terrifying to me that the rule of law has been overridden in this country.”

Patriot said she thinks many Americans are currently experiencing something called “betrayal blindness,” a psychological phenomenon which involves choosing to “not know” something you’re aware of, in an attempt to maintain loyalty to an individual or institution. 

“This nation knows that masked people are stealing folks from the streets,” Patriot continued, “but everyone is moving around as if that’s not happening.”

While these kinds of arrests by the federal government have focused so far primarily on those who support Palestinian liberation, Patriot said, she believes it’s only a matter of time before the administration broadens its net to arrest those who protest Trump and his unofficial right-hand man Elon Musk.

“Right now I think we are very close to massive amounts of people, Patriot continued, “who are protesting against this administration… being called terrorists and being absconded by this administration. It’s just a matter of time… I am very frightened.”

A single counter-protester provided the only counter-narrative. Ken Michaud, who applied to become Shasta County’s top election official last year, said he believes within a few years his fellow community members will see what Trump’s done for them.

“I’m just here to support the Trump administration,” Michaud said. “You know it’s not a short-term thing, obviously people are going to take hits, but in the long run the policies are good. Two or three years from now everyone is going to say ‘oh yea, I see what he’s doing.’”

Global tariffs implemented by Trump earlier this week, Michaud said, are “negotiation tactics” that are “for the good of everyone”.

Despite being outnumbered 1,000 to 1 at the protest Michaud said he felt safe and did not experience harassment.

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.

MENDOCINO CO., 4/5/25 – Protests took place across Mendocino County on Saturday, including in Fort Bragg, Gualala, Point Arena and Ukiah as part of an orchestrated day of protest called Hands Off!  

The event was organized by Indivisible, a progressive movement generated in response to the 2016 election of Donald Trump, MoveOn, a grassroots political action group formed in 1998, and other activist groups.  

The protests in Mendocino County were meant to demonstrate opposition to the Trump Administration, Elon Musk, recent tariffs that have touched off a trade war, mass layoffs of federal workers, and other actions of the new administration.  

Two reporters from The Mendocino Voice covered the protests, Susan Nash in Fort Bragg and Sydney Fishman in Ukiah. 

In Fort Bragg, a noisy crowd took off on an unplanned march

The crowd in Fort Bragg was estimated at nearly a thousand people, with dozens more drivers honking their horns in support as they drove by the city’s Town Hall. Wandering musicians and a moving street play of masked men taking Lady Liberty away in chains created a festive atmosphere alongside heartfelt demands for action. 

Fort Bragg resident Bob Kelsey came out with a “Hands Off Our Democracy” sign because he is “pretty upset with the government right now,” he said. That sentiment, and some creative sign-making, were evident along the crowded sidewalks and street corners, with some protesters picking their pet issue (“Hands Off Libraries”) and others using a broader brush (“Hands Off Every Damn Thing”). 

“Don’t blame me, I voted for the prosecutor, not the felon,” said one sign. Another was more predictive: “American will be Trump’s 7^th bankruptcy.”  

Even penguins made it into the mix. “Send Trump to Heard Island,” said one sign, referring to an uninhabited Australian territory that is a marine reserve for penguins and other wildlife that was included in Trump’s tariff announcements earlier this week. 

Well-known local artist John Hewitt worked on a new watercolor from the vantage point of the Fort Bragg Town Hall green. “I’m capturing the mood,” Hewitt said. 

And the mood was patriotic. American flags were everywhere, from big ones on the back of pickup trucks to the upside-down version that is the universal sign of distress. Although Mendocino’s voting population is far from monolithic (of 62,651 registered voters, 25,483 are registered Democrat, 12,577 Republican, and 22,688 people decline to state), no counter-protesters appeared, and only a few drivers yelled out obscenities.  

The crowd finished the event by transforming itself into a march around a two-block radius, behind a banner reading, “The Future is in our Hands.”   

In Ukiah, demonstrators leaned on music and signs to signal their displeasure 

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Mendocino County Courthouse in downtown Ukiah.  

The sidewalks along South State and East Perkins streets were packed with people holding signs, flags, and other colorful emblems to show their displeasure with the Trump administration.  

Attendees included teachers, veterans, medical professionals, high school students and other activists. Some older demonstrators, drawing on their experience protesting during the 1960s and ’70s, wore colorful outfits and peace sign necklaces.  

One elderly protester held a sign reading, “Keep your tiny, filthy hands off the American people.”  

Cars drove past the event honking in solidarity, with some drivers displaying signs in the rear windows of their vehicles.  

At the height of the event, as many as a thousand protesters crowded the streets surrounding the courthouse, with some sitting on chairs and blankets, playing instruments and treating the demonstration like a festival. 

“My husband is a veteran — they are at the top of my list,” said Buffy Edwards. Edwards has lived in Mendocino County for about 45 years. “If veteran benefits have not been cut, then they are going to be cut. Trump is not for the veterans; he doesn’t have a clue when it comes to that stuff. He is firing generals, and no one in his family has served.”  

Another protester, whose husband was also a veteran, noted that going to the protest was one of the only ways to make her feel like she was creating change.  

“This was one way I could try to help,” said Clare, who declined to give her last name due to possible backlash. She moved to Mendocino County from Georgia 50 years ago. “My husband was a Vietnam veteran, and right now, jobs that would have helped veterans are being cut.” 

She said she feels hopeful that young activists will be able to bring about change in Mendocino County and beyond.  

“I feel like the whole situation is unreal, but I do feel hope, that somehow things will get better,” she said. “Young people just need to keep their eyes open and listen to whatever is going to be beneficial.”  

Lynda McClure, a member of the Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition, a group dedicated to getting more women engaged in politics and policymaking, and an activist for several decades who has attended many rallies, said this was one of the largest demonstrations she had witnessed in Ukiah. 

She said without continued activism, there will be no change in how the government operates. “As it’s always been, it takes the people of this country to make our government get back on track. We have to do it,” she explained. “We are in a monumental time, and I am very encouraged today by people coming out.”  

She added that she’s particularly hopeful because of the actions she’s seeing in other states in the Midwest and South. 

“I am encouraged by the vote in Wisconsin for the liberal woman judge,” she noted. “There’s a shift going on in Florida, with marches going on there. I am encouraged by the direction that some parts of the country seem to be moving.”  

A small group of counter protesters showed up at the beginning of the event, including one Trump supporter holding a sign reading “Let’s Go Brandon,” an anti-President Joe Biden slogan.  

Demonstrations were held all over Northern California, including Eureka, Oakland, San Francisco, and Santa Rosa. According to the Associated Press, more than 1,200 events took place across the country.  

Lin Due and Sarah Stierch contributed to this story.

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