The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors is considering regulating low-intensity camping, commonly known as hip camping. According to the Hipcamp marketing organization, there are currently seventy active private hosts in Mendocino county with a total of 250 individual camping sites.

Turmoil in the cannabis market has affected the property values of agricultural land //turning once-valuable farms into stranded assets. In Humboldt County property owners are lining up for reassessments, only to discover that the relief they seek is still more than a year away. And, in other news, n other news, Mendocino Poet Laureate Devreaux Baker has added a few laurels. 

 In Mendocino County, and across the United States, Americans gathered on Monday to peacefully protest what they describe as executive overreach. In Ukiah, a crowd outside the courthouse chanted "No kings, no crowns," while Trump supporters across the street said they stood for unity. One thing both sides agreed on, however, was the value of the democratic process.

Cannabis is legal for recreational use in nearly half of all U.S. states. And, it’s an increasingly common substitute for beer or wine. Numerous scientific studies back up the assertion that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol in terms of physical harm, dependence, and social harm. But as a new series by NPR’s Brian Mann and Sydney Lupkin point out, safety is relative and highly dependent on where your weed is sourced. A trusted dispensary may be your best protection against contaminants.

Attorney General Rob Bonta filed another lawsuit against President Trump and Elon Musk on Thursday. This one challenges what Bonta and many others say, is Elon Musk’s unconstitutional exercise of power. And, in other news, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum renaming Fort Liberty, in North Carolina, back to Fort Bragg. But the namesake of the base will no longer be Braxton Bragg, the confederate general for the base was originally named, but instead an unsung hero from World War II, a private named Roland Bragg. Hegseth’s act introduced the idea of flexibility in renaming debates in general and flexibility for Fort Bragg, California in particular.  We spoke leaders on both sides of the local renaming debate.

PG&E’s announcement in 2019 that it would decommission the Potter Valley Project led to years of uncertainty. Stakeholders in the Eel River and the Russian River Basin struggled to agree on a common vision for what would happen after the dams were removed. A new memorandum of understanding, announced this week, between the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Humboldt County,  Sonoma County, the Sonoma County Water Agency, CalTrout, Trout Unlimited, the Round Valley Indian Tribes, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife represents a big step forward.

One of the first actions taken by the new board of supervisors last month was to agree on rules and procedures that included calling for supervisors to ask questions about the agenda prior to the meeting and limiting public comment to ten minutes. On Tuesday, one resident raised concerns about Brown Act compliance in relation to the first change and the board rolled by the ten-minute rule in response to public input; In Willits a homeowner without insurance is coping with the aftermath of devastating house fire.

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meets today, starting at 9:00 a.m. We spoke with board chairman, Supervisor John Haschak about two issues that are very likely to generate substantial public comment. The first, has to do with, well public comment, and how much the Board should allow and at what point in the meeting. The second topic has to do with the cannabis ordinance and whether it covers grows of 10,000 square feet or twice that size.

Here in Mendocino County, we all need to be prepared for fire… but do we all have the skills? Lourance Hall of Round Valley Prescribed Burn Association and Terry Warlick of Torchbearr endeavored to both empower the public, and train fire professionals, during a five-day workshop in Covelo held at the end of January.

In a political environment characterized by tumultuous change at the national level, the Ukiah City Council met Wednesday and adopted an advocacy platform focused on maintaining local control; in Sacramento, Assembly member Chris Rogers, who represents Mendocino County an District Two, on Thursday introduced a bill that would require the Governor to include an assessment of funding opportunities for offshore wind seaport infrastructure in his Five-Year Infrastructure Plan; in Humboldt, Congressman Jared Huffman  responded to critics of his approach to the Israel - Gaza conflict.