Mendocino County Today: Saturday 12/27/2025

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Saturday morning I have 44F under clear skies with .81" rainfall collected to wrap up a 12 day storm cycle total of 9.87" here on Pearl Drive. I know many location higher up got a lot more. Cool overnight temps & clear skies take over our forecast until next Thursday when rains returns to start the new year. Forecast rainfall totals look moderate currently.

MIKE KALANTARIAN: our 10-day total on a ridge in Rancho Navarro (1100' elevation) was 13.2".

DRIER AND COLDER weather this weekend is expected to last into Tuesday. A frontal system will provide rain and high mountain snow around Thursday and Friday. (NWS)

Mendocino Bay view, yesterday afternoon (Elaine Kalantarian)

AS OF FRIDAY NIGHT:

Nearly Mendo 2,000 Households Still Lack Power

PG&E says 8,000 employees and contractors are working around the clock

by Elise Cox

At the height of the current outage, more than one in five homes in the county had lost power.

The number of households without power is creeping down slowly, but as of 6 p.m. on Friday, more than 1,800 PG&E customers were making do with candles, wood stoves, and generators — if they had them.

PG&E said a combination of heavy rain and strong winds brought down trees across the county, triggering hundreds of small outages that quickly added up.

Mendocino County was among the hardest-hit areas in Northern California, said PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian.

“At this time, Mendocino County is the fourth most impacted county throughout our service area,” Sarkissian said. “We saw significant impacts across the North Coast during this storm.”

She said PG&E mobilized about 8,000 workers across Northern and Central California, including contractors, with many crews reassigned from less-affected regions.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Sarkissian said. “Our crews have been working around the clock and through the holidays to restore power safely and as quickly as possible.”

According to PG&E, one of the biggest challenges in Mendocino County has been access, as fallen trees and debris blocked roads and delayed repairs.

Restoration times vary widely because many outages affect small clusters of homes scattered across rural areas, the utility said. When estimated restoration times are unavailable online, Sarkissian said crews are often still assessing damage in the field.

Hospitals, fire stations and other critical facilities are restored first, followed by residential customers.

Residents without power are encouraged to call 2-1-1, for updates and assistance.

(Mendolocal.news)

CLIFF C. SORENSEN passed away on 12/25/25

He was a resident deputy in Boonville for a few years before leaving to do some farming in Potter Valley in a veal operation. Deputy from 10/23/73 to 04/04/1977. He will be sorely missed. Great guy. (via Ron Parker)

RESCUERS DESCRIBE DOING EVERYTHING THEY COULD TO SAVE WOMAN CAUGHT BY WAVE IN MACKERRICHER

Despite their efforts, her pulse keep getting slower.

by Elise Cox

Marianne Black and her two daughters were just leaving the beach when they heard someone scream for help. They’d been coming to this beach for years, driving over from Ukiah to visit the tide pools near Laguna Point. It was a holiday tradition. They loved the ocean here, and they also knew when it couldn’t be trusted.

Natasha Black: We noticed that the tide was in, but the riptide was really bad.

Elise Cox: Natasha Black is 21. She says you can see the danger in the sand itself.

Natasha Black: You could just tell the way the sand goes all the way down, so it’s like when the waves pull out, it almost looks like it’s going downhill. You would get sucked under, or it pulls out really quick. Also, when there’s waves crossing square ways almost, it looked just very bad, riptide-wise. You didn’t see anybody surfing out there. Sometimes you’ll see people in wetsuits surfing out there. I saw no one out there

Elise Cox: The three women had been walking the beach near the parking lot for about half an hour. They were headed toward the boardwalk, to the tide pools, when Gianna, Natasha’s younger sister, turned to say something. That’s when she saw the tragedy unfold.

Gianna Black: So I saw the whole thing. We were walking towards our car. We had just come off of the dunes. We were walking up. We were going to, like, brush up our feet, change our shoes.

Elise Cox: An older woman was standing on the beach near some rocks. A wave knocked her down. And before anyone could react, she was pulled into deeper water.

Gianna Black: Before I could even blink, the out and she was screaming.

Elise Cox: Gianna yelled to her mom and sister. Everyone moved at once.

Gianna Black: My mom started yelling, “Call 911.” But there was another lady there who wasn’t reacting, so I told my mom to call 911 while I went down. But by the time I got down, she was already too far away for me to go swim out and grab her safely.

Elise Cox: Between the women and the victim was a river channel, fast and deep. Gianna ran back toward parking lot, flagging people down, asking if anyone had something that floated. No one did. Natasha stayed closer to the water, shouting to the woman that help was coming.

Natasha Black: I know how to swim, but not very well. And same with my sister.

Elise Cox: That’s when they got the attention of a group of young men who, like Natasha and her sister, appeared to be in their early 20s.

Natasha Black: The one guy that we met, I didn’t get his name, but he ran down there and jumped in.

Elise Cox: The risk was enormous. Not just the riptide, but the cold, cold water.

Natasha Black: You put foot in there and it goes numb right away. It was absolutely freezing cold water.

Elise Cox: As the swimmer fought his way out, people on shore scrambled. Someone handed Natasha a blanket.

Natasha Black: I put that on my shoulder and we crossed the river about, probably almost up to our stomach. It was pretty deep at that point. We were just trying to cross it and everyone ran after the guy that jumped in. That way we were just prepared by the time he got her out to have the blanket ready for her.

Elise Cox: The swimmer swam quickly, efficiently, like a pro. He reached the woman and towed her back. On the beach, his friends helped him pull her from the water. Natasha and Gianna were right behind them.

Gianna Black: It took three of them to pull her out of the water and then me and my sister made it there and we wrapped her and we tried to turn on her side to make sure all the water was leaving her body.

Elise Cox: The woman drifted in and out of consciousness. She vomited seawater. She shivered violently.

Natasha Black: We sat her up because like I said, she was nodding in and out. We thought maybe if we sat her up straight, she would kind of gain some consciousness back, but that wasn’t working. Yeah. So we just tried to warm her up, sit with her. You know, we kept checking her pulse. I was checking her pulse on her right arm and behind her everybody. You know, we took turns holding her up. It was like me and one of the guys that we kind of switched off. And like I said, we just started noticing her pulse became slower and slower. We were just trying to get her name, calm her down. But she was in shock and I believe she was, you know, got hypothermia because she was shivering. She was so cold.

Elise Cox: Natasha estimates the woman had been in the water for about 10 minutes. Another 10 minutes passed before firefighters and rescue crews arrived. The young swimmer and his friends never gave their names. The Mendocino voice has identified the woman as a 77 year old Fort Bragg resident. That information not yet been independently confirmed. What is certain is this: on a dangerous day, young strangers ran toward the water, knowing the risks and did everything they could to save a life.

(Mendolocal.news)

ERIC HART ENTERS RACE for Mendocino County District 3 supervisor seat

by Sydney Fishman

Eric Hart, a Willits resident who participates in several community organizations and nonprofits, will run for the District 3 seat on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors.

District 3 covers the region including Covelo, Laytonville, and Willits. The current District 3 Supervisor, John Haschak, will not be seeking re-election.

Hart, who has lived in Mendocino County since 2019, said in an interview that he has connected deeply to the people of Willits and wants to help strengthen the community.

“I’m not so interested in politics, but I’m very interested in improving the community,” Hart said. “I’ve enjoyed using my skills in local organizations. People suggested I consider doing something at a larger scale.”…

https://mendovoice.com/2025/12/eric-hart-enters-race-for-mendocino-county-district-3-supervisor-seat/

ARTHUR JUHL (Gualala): I ran for Supervisor but I was not a Democrat. If you are you have a chance. The problem is that no one understands the budget. I memorized it but could not discuss it as no one knew what I was talking about. The CEO at the time prepared everything for the Board rather than the Board told the CEO what to do. I don’t know what is happening now but it looks like the same! So good luck!

SHERIFF MATT KENDALL:

Over the holidays Mendocino county Office of Emergency Services (OES) was monitoring this weather and impacts to our communities. The storms are now slowing down. All in all Mendocino County isn’t much worse for wear and we fared much better than counties to our north and our south. We continue to have power outages along the coast which utility crews are continuing to work on.

Big thank you to Mendocino County Department of Transportation who have had crews out keeping the roads open since this storm began.

Mendocino DOT, Cal-Trans and utility companies will continue to have equipment and personnel out until we get all of the damage sorted out, so please drive carefully especially while these folks are on the road surface.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Let’s keep the communities who are suffering from these storm impacts in our thoughts and prayers.

Thank you

Sheriff Matt Kendall

CAROLYN HACKER

Carolyn Mailliard Hacker, age 87, of San Rafael, California, passed away on November 21, 2025, from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease.

Born in San Francisco in 1938, Carolyn was the eldest daughter of J.W. Mailliard and Margaret Field, and the eldest granddaughter of Ward and Kate Mailliard. Her family had deep roots and wide connections throughout the Bay Area, including San Geronimo, Cotati, Yorkville, and San Francisco–places that remained meaningful throughout her life.

During her early childhood, Carolyn traveled with her family while her father served in the United States Army. Following World War II, the family returned to San Francisco, where she was educated at KD Burke School, Katherine Branson Girls School, and later Connecticut College for Women. In 1963, Carolyn made San Rafael her home, where she lived for more than six decades.

Carolyn had a lifelong love of gardening and was especially proud of her beautiful plants, earning numerous awards at the Marin County Fair. She also enjoyed knitting and was deeply devoted to genealogy, spending countless hours researching and preserving her family’s history for future generations.

She was a dedicated volunteer and community member, holding many roles within the Miller Creek Elementary School District and the San Rafael City Schools District from 1972 to 1980. Her commitment to education and service reflected her belief in giving back and supporting the community she loved.

Carolyn was deeply loved by her extensive family and many friends. She is survived by her husband, Paul; her children, Barbara (Greg) and Lyn (Don); her grandchildren, Andrew (Katy), Chris, Emily (Mike), Amanda, and Kevin; and her great-granddaughter, Jocelyn. She is also survived by her sisters, Kathy and Margot, as well as many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A Celebration of Life will be held in honor of Carolyn’s birthday and Mother’s Day in May 2026. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to the San Rafael Public Library Foundation or the Marin Humane Society.

LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

DAWN TRYGSTAD:

In case my local Mendocino County peeps need to know …

Anderson Valley Grange Provides Power and Support During Outages in the Navarro River Watershed

As storm season arrives in the Navarro River Watershed, the Anderson Valley Grange is once again prepared to serve the community during power outages by providing access to electricity and essential support. (From the mouth of the river, up to Comptche, to the Yorkville Highlands and beyond)

Power outages are an expected part of winter weather in our region. While PG&E works to restore service as quickly as possible, history has shown that outages can sometimes last longer than anticipated. The Anderson Valley Grange stands ready to help neighbors bridge that gap safely and reliably.

The Grange Hall is equipped with a propane-fueled backup generator capable of powering the building to meet critical community needs. During outages, residents may access the Grange to recharge cell phones and other battery-operated devices. In addition, for individuals who rely on electricity for medical needs—such as CPAP machines, oxygen concentrators, or infusion devices—the Grange has portable battery packs and a small generator available for loan.

For individual assistance during a power outage, community members are encouraged to call 707-972-2326. In the event of a widespread outage, the Grange will open its doors as a community recharging and support center as needs arise.

The Anderson Valley Grange is a volunteer-driven organization, and community volunteers are always welcome to help staff the building when it is open during outages.

For more information, please email [email protected] or contact Laura at 707-972-2326.

Please let your neighbors who may not utilize email or FaceBook know there is a resource for them when the power is out.

Anderson Valley Grange #669

Post Box 363

Philo, CA 95466

707-684-9340

REPORT FROM A SMALL FARM IN BOONVILLE

What a long and exhausting season it's been. At last it's coming to an end. And I'm not just talking about our year of farming, which has been unusual in its moderate temps and great harvests. Our political climate has been very draining. Let's all continue to work toward a resurgence of democratic principles in the coming year, because what's been going down recently is totally unacceptable. On a happier note: We're enjoying great rains this week. The favas and the greens…chard, arugula, kale, Italian dandelion, broccoli, garlic, fennel…in all the fields, are sprouting, leafing, and flowering.

Here's a late—very late—growing sunflower which sprang up from an old seed I threw randomly in a compost pile. It's a couple of months old, over 6 feet tall, and the healthiest flowering plant I've ever seen. It's too tall for me to see if it has a flower set yet, but its existence says we haven't had any frost.

The picture below was the result of a very pink sunset on the Pink Barn and a maple tree that turned to flames.

The dogs look as if they're guarding the field from critters, humans, birds, and weeds but really they're waiting to meet and greet visitors then show off their mock fighting skills in front of them.

We hope you are well, that you have happy holidays and that you keep fighting for the good of us all.

Love,

Nikki Auschnitt and Steve Krieg

CALIFORNIA CHEFS FLOCKING TO MENDO FOG TOWN

3 hours north of SF on Highway 1, Point Arena has a population of 831

by Anh-Minh-Le

Last year, the coastal enclave of Elk in Mendocino County was lauded as “America’s Best Small Food and Wine Town” by Travel + Leisure magazine, which, among other things, highlighted Harbor House Inn’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant. During my past few trips to the area, I’ve found myself increasingly intrigued by another teeny town, 20 miles south of Elk: Point Arena, population 831.

In October, my husband and I hit the road, bound for Point Arena — a three-hour drive from San Francisco. We had previously hung out at the local pier, where Point Arena Pizza is a draw. This time around, our food itinerary focused on the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it downtown. Spanning just a quarter mile or so — Highway 1 becomes Main Street here — it dates to the 1860s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Franny’s Cup & Saucer and Little Green Bean Roastery line Main Street in Point Arena, Calif., on Dec. 20, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

In 1927, a fire devastated the commercial district. Hence, many buildings were constructed the following year, including the Arena Theater, which was restored to its original Art Deco style in the 1990s. Less architecturally compelling yet still eye-catching: Artist Nicole Ponsler’s vivid mural of hummingbirds and flowers covers the boxy structure that contains new cannabis dispensary the Goldenhour Collective.

The exterior of Izakaya Gama in Point Arena, Calif., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Two doors away, guests at Izakaya Gama are greeted by noren curtains with the restaurant and sake bar’s toad logo (“gama” is Japanese for toad). Inside, its cypress-clad dining room and bar seat 28.

Proprietors David and Elyse Hopps met while apprenticing at a sushi restaurant in Salt Lake City. The husband and wife moved to Mendocino County in 2018 to help open Harbor House. He was the sous chef; she the pastry chef.

David previously worked with Harbor House executive chef Matthew Kammerer at Michelin-starred Saison in San Francisco. Elyse honed her pastry skills at Craftsman and Wolves, and then the now-defunct Mission District restaurant Range. A couple of years after landing in Mendocino, the Hoppses were ready to take an entrepreneurial leap.

“I’ve always wanted my own place and to do something a little more casual,” David explained. “My philosophy from the beginning was: I don’t really want to have a place that only rich people can eat or people have to save up for a long time. As much as I enjoy those dining experiences and think they’re special and important for this industry, they can be very unattainable and feel stuffy.”

In 2020, a friend told them about a vacancy in Point Arena, which Elyse described as “a cool community amongst all of this beautiful nature.” The duo ran a to-go pop-up with Japanese fare for a year and a half, until Gama debuted in March 2022.

Today, David helms the kitchen, while Elyse oversees the front-of-house and beverage program. (In May, she released a new edition of her first book, “Refire,” a romance set in a two-Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant that is fictional rather than autobiographical. “Whipped,” the second in her “Chef’s Kiss” series, dropped in September.)

Owners and chefs David and Elyse Hopps at their restaurant Izakaya Gama in Point Arena, Calif., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Gama’s main menu typically has about a dozen items. An additional kushiyaki menu lists meats, seafood and veggies that are skewered and grilled over hardwood charcoal.

“The karaage is everybody’s favorite,” David said of the fried chicken. “It’s such an approachable dish.” Elyse added that “the cult-following dishes are the potato salad and karaage.”

And that following is well deserved. Like the potato salad ($10) and karaage ($16), the yuzu sesame salad ($12) that showcases greens from Wavelength Farm in nearby Manchester is always on offer. Tempura and chawanmushi are ever-present, too, incorporating what is in season; the night we dined at Gama, both featured maitake mushrooms.

I am a huge fan of Japanese curry, and Gama’s didn’t disappoint. The silky sauce — made with a house blend of spices, studded with Knights Valley Wagyu and garnished with chives — is served alongside Luna Koshihikari rice.

Gama is essentially situated at the bottom of the commercial stretch of downtown. Toward the top is the Record, a restaurant and bar launched in April by husband and wife Paul Collins and Kim Millard. The venue regularly slates live music and other events, like the Third Thursday Poetry & Open Mic.

Kim Millard and Paul Collins own and operate the Record in Point Arena, Calif., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Although Collins and Millard share a background in photography, she was more recently a server at Gama and Harbor House. At the latter, Millard met Mendocino native Makonnen Blessed, who was the lead lunch chef there. He is now in charge of the food at the Record. “It’s elevated but casual food that he can be proud of,” she said. “It’s really led by the seasons.”

The exterior of the Record in Point Arena, Calif., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

The Record is in a historic circa-1893 building that was once the headquarters for the Point Arena Record newspaper. Over the years, it has housed numerous businesses named the Record, including a cafe and market back in 2007, when Collins first came to Point Arena.

A year later, he bought land in the vicinity and subsequently built an off-grid residence. In 2020, he and Millard relocated there from Los Angeles. This past summer, they purchased the building that the Record occupies.

“We just love being here,” Collins said. “We love what we’re doing and really see the potential in our business and in town.”

The rear of their building is home to Point Arena Brewers, whose beer is brewed on-site and available on tap. “We have bigger names on tap,” said Collins, “but people see the housemade stuff and are like, ‘I want to try that.’” (My husband did.)

(SFGate.com)

THE FLOOD OF 2006

by Betsy Cawn

A major rainstorm caused widespread, severe flooding and mudslides across Northern California on December 31, 2005, and into early January 2006. The Russian River crested about 10 feet above flood stage in Guerneville, while the Napa River reached record levels in St. Helena.

In Upper Lake, flood levels rose in town, on Mendenhall Avenue, Main Street, and Washington Street, and quickly overflowed onto Highway 20. By 3:30 in the morning, the last delivery to downtown newsstands was dropped off by a delivery driver who said she feared for her life, trying to pull into the road — getting away breathlessly with zero control of the vehicle’s braking system and steered by the onrush of rising water, in the opposite direction of the route which ended, normally, in Upper Lake.

An hour later, the owner of the Upper Lake Grocery had no trouble plowing through onrushing floodwaters in his jeep, and the first thing he started working on was removal of woody debris from the storm drain outlets on Main Street, which allowed more runoff to bypass the street, but by that time the worst of the deluge was past and the rain had subsided to a mere pelting drench.

Over on Mendenhall, which filled up first from the agricultural ditch on the north side with over-gorged floodplains and the onslaught of Elk Mountain runoff that Middle Creek was quickly overwhelmed by. Eighteen inches pummeled Soda Creek in a matter of hours, and the orgiastic release had nowhere to go but down and out and over the agricultural levees and diversion channels and overgrown amphibious vegetation to the dainty drainage ditch that ends at the Treasure Cove (pizza, for those who do not know, best in the county by some accounts) and pushes under Highway through a 48-inch culvert pipe that just happened, that night, to be blocked partially by some bags of dry cement, the gift of some obnoxious asshole who was never known to be caught.

The cement and overgrown vegetation, obviously demonstrating lack of maintenance, at least, prevented further progress toward the convergence of Middle and Scotts Creek, back behind the contractor’s rock yard and off to the side of another agricultural levee that helped, back in the day, to “reclaim” the floodplain that once was the home to the Blue Lake Green Been, at the old canning factory near the highway intersection with 29. The impediment lasted just long enough to waken the residents on Mendenhall, who mostly hopped in their trucks and boogied elsewhere, but the Forest Service called the District Supervisor, who found the Public Works road crew already clearing downed trees and floating yard art in the muddy water standing 6 inches above the floors in Main Street stores and the Odd Fellows Hall.

Thinking of the evacuees, whose number were yet unknown, and the need for community assistance, the Supervisor called the Odd Fellows Hall to ask if it could be used to provide hot coffee and warm blankets to townfolk dislocated by the muck, but the hall itself was uninhabitable. The Upper Lake High School, it turned out, was the OES-designated “mass care and shelter facility,” but nobody showed up needing overnight accommodation, so the school was undisturbed.

The storm was so vast that it was declared a disaster by FEMA, which deployed a couple of high-tech RVs to the parking lot of the local park, but nobody availed themselves of their assistance, and after a few days they left without so much as a how-de-do.

The nearby auto wrecking yard (the infamous “Last Mile”) was inundated with several feet of Scotts Creek waters that breached the Army Corps of Engineers levee and infiltrated the undrained petroleum fluid systems of a few hundred hulks and variously dismantled parts cars. When the waters receded, there was a coat of greasy gray slime on the trunks of old remnant orchard specimens, stragglers from the former owner’s concession to economic failure.

For months, there was discussion about the merits of installing a “tail pump” at that vulnerable intersection of two major creeks, but the hydraulics of the lake obviated its effectivity — when the lake is higher than the creek, the creek has only one option, and that is to back up.

Backing up Scotts Creek westward toward the not-a-lake basin called Laurel Dell Lake (actually separate from Blue Lake, but dubbed by the Chamber of Commerce as one of the “lakes” called Blue, where the flow of Clear Lake used to be in the direction of the Ukiah Valley before an earthquake dumped a minor mountain foothill across Highway 20, almost at the county line) meant pushing maddened flood flows northward and Highway 20 traffic was quickly stalled near Bachelor Valley and the Eagle Ranch.

The Upper Lake Community Council and the District Supervisor held meetings to determine what needed to be done, including, of course, making sure those under-highway culverts and the storm drains are working properly before winter. However, the County had, three years earlier, decided to not fund the federally-mandated storm water management program, and the Public Works department was never tasked with that level of regular maintenance.

For at least two decades, residents in town and ranchers and orchardists and vintners in the valley have attempted to get the Public Works department (or anyone the Board of Supervisors decides to assign) to maintain the Clover Creek Diversion Channel north of town and lying eastward toward the downflows of Alley Creek and Clover Creek, coming from Elk Mountain and Twin Valley, respectively. As recently as December 17, the Upper Lake - Nice Municipal Advisory Council’s “Flood Prevention Committee” has implored the departments of Public Works and Water Resources to take action, which has been promised now for several years — or twelve or fifteen, depending on which local has your ear.

The staff of those departments is, of course, off for the long holiday weekend, although some of the emergency workers will have had their Christmas dinners go cold as they respond to trees down, taking old power lines with them. Eschewing Facebook for the pleasure of avoiding all the cheer, I have no revelations to share about the condition of the unrepaired floodgate that has needed fixing for way too long, but I expect the next meeting of the West Region Town Hall will be quite a spectacle!

Yours for the duration,

Betsy Cawn

T. J. Vental Feed & Stable, Anderson Valley, Boonville, California. c 1900

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, December 26, 2025

JESSICA BAUER, 38, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, resisting.

CHRISTOPHER GARCIA, 44, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

SHAWN JOHNSON, 52, Petaluma/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JERRY PUNIHAOLE-FIGUEROA, 36, Willits. Domestic abuse, unspecified offense.

CONNOR SADLER, 33, Covelo. Chemical extraction of controlled substance, no license, evasion, resisting.

DIEGO VALLEJO, 22, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES NEED TO BE PROPERLY RECYCLED

Editor,

Most of us don’t think twice about the batteries that power our daily lives. Phones, laptops, power tools, e-bikes and electric vehicles all rely on lithium-ion batteries, yet few people know how to recycle them when they reach end-of-life. As a result, batteries are often left in junk drawers, tossed in the trash or placed in curbside recycling. That creates fire risks and sends valuable materials to landfills.

The gap between how essential batteries are and how poorly we manage them points to a broader truth: Sustainability only works when it’s practical and scalable. The elements inside batteries can be reused nearly infinitely, making EVs and electronics among the most sustainable technologies we have — if the elements are recovered and recycled.

I am the vice president of external affairs and consumer recycling programs for Redwood Materials. It was founded by JB Straubel, the co-founder and former chief technology officer of Tesla, after recognizing this fundamental opportunity: The materials inside batteries can be reused.

I began my own career at Tesla, where I saw firsthand that sustainability requires practical, scalable infrastructure — not just ambition. That focus shapes our work at Redwood to make battery recycling scalable, economic and easy. Redwood recovers over 95% of critical minerals through our recycling operations and has quickly become the largest source of nickel, lithium and cobalt in the U.S.

Following the launch of Redwood’s “battery bins” in San Francisco — with plans to expand to other communities — Bay Area residents can now recycle mixed batteries and devices with no preparation. The bins make recycling simple and accessible, helping unlock the “urban mine” inside America’s junk drawers.

Responsible lithium-ion battery recycling keeps our community safer and strengthens America’s access to the materials needed for energy, technology and economic security. Marin has long led on environmental stewardship. By supporting modern battery-recycling infrastructure, we can turn those values into solutions that protect our communities and strengthen a sustainable energy future.

Alexis Georgeson

San Anselmo

HAVE YOU EVER seen something like this right here in Northern California?

Looking at this photo, you might think it was taken halfway around the world — in some ancient monastery tucked away in the Himalayas or deep in Asia. But no — this stunning temple-like compound is right here in Sonoma County, just a short 30-minute flight from Little River Airport in Mendocino County

It’s just one example of the incredible hidden beauty in our region — places that take your breath away from above and make you wonder how much there still is to discover.

“FORTUNATELY, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.”

— Luis Buñuel

MEDICARE FOR ALL

Editor,

A December 5 article examined the likely doubling of premiums next year with the expiration of COVID-era tax credits for Obamacare enrollees, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation (“Enrollees struggle as cost of health care set to spike”). In a commentary published Dec. 3, cardiologist Kim-Lien Nguyen argues that a Republican proposal to put money directly into individuals’ health savings and flex spending accounts would allow them to direct their money to premiums for direct payment for health care (“Subsidizing insurance premiums props up dysfunction”). This “skin-in-the-game” approach would supposedly allow patients to “have the upper hand in bargaining for lower costs with providers.”

In 1963, Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel laureate in economics, argued that health care is not like ordinary commodity economics, such as buying a car or a toaster. Uncertainty, urgency of need and lack of information make it impossible to “shop” for health care like shopping for ordinary goods. Nguyen’s implication that individuals can negotiate reduced prices with doctors, hospitals and drug companies to save health care dollars better than large insurance companies, hospital organizations or medical groups is a fantasy, inappropriate for a cardiologist at UCLA to be promoting. The solution is “Medicare for All.”

Dr. Nicholas H. Anton

Santa Rosa

Montgomery and Market, San Francisco (1909)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I'm a cat man myself, but the thing that strikes me is the outright unfriendly vibe that they emanate. I sometimes feel sad for the pooch, most often beautiful purebred, who sits waiting in a tiny apartment all day, only to be grimly marched by mom, her nose in her device and roughly yanked to and fro to avoid contact with humans and other dogs.

REASON FOR HOPE

Editor,

President Donald Trump appointed worm-brained Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, who is destroying our country’s worldwide supremacy in medical science and public health.

Funding for scientific research has been withdrawn. Science is supplanted by conspiracy theories, superstition, snake-oil hucksterism, and disregard for authentic scientific knowledge.

But there is reason for hope that Trump and RFK Jr. will fail. Gov. Gavin Newsom is hiring respected former leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish world-leading public health science for California and for a growing consortium of other states.

An emerging 15-state “Governors’ Public Health Alliance” will provide guidance from actual scientific research on vaccines, medications, testing for dangerous new diseases, and response coordination to health threats.

California became the first U.S. state to join the World Health Organization, and its health alliances will replace the MAGA-undermined CDC, and may even rescue the U.S.A. from becoming a second-rate scientific has-been.

Bruce Joffe

Piedmont

STEVE TALBOT:

Happy Boxing Day! Not a holiday most Americans have ever heard of, let alone celebrate. But one of those modest, benevolent holidays with eccentric charm…and a long tradition in other parts of the world. I confess it catches my eye because it's also St. Stephen's Day, mentioned in one of my favorite hymns, "Good King Wenceslas" with its message of charity and goodwill.

Here's the song -- a version by the Roches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-G4TWr4Zi8

During my filming trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank in October, I passed by the Church of St. Stephen, just outside the Old Walled City. I learned it is a Catholic church also known by its French name, Saint-Etienne.

From an NPR story: “The history of this Christmas carol is a rich accumulation of music, image and legend that speaks beyond any one religious tradition. Its most basic message is summed up in its final lines: ‘Ye who now will bless the poor / shall yourselves find blessing’.”

THE RACH 3

All I can promise
You is complete immersion
In Our here and now

I want You so bad
Want Us Both right now to feel
Each Other’s longing

That sweet fresh joyous
Fierce delight in Each Other
We can’t ever stop

— Rachmaninoff‘s 3rd Piano Concerto

(Jim Luther)

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all Friday night on KNYO and KAKX.

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is six or eight. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

Aurorae make sounds. Not just radio static that a radio receiver turns into sound, but actual sound from the sky that people can hear, or say they can. Like sand through an hourglass. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2025/12/listening-to-auroras.html

"All carrots must point due north, otherwise the stew loses its sense of direction." If the sound won't play, try another browser. For some reason this one confused my Firefox. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1911217652807421

And a movie and teevee playlist "for questioning the nature of reality". Check off the ones you've seen. (If your email program breaks the link, just paste-assemble it. I've had emails rejected because of some aggressive spam filters not liking tinyurl, so I'm experimenting with not using that.) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1DaJ82KdPOKsvM3_JRDBHVgjL0cS4pa5uewPy9-vGNj4/htmlview

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

“IF CHRISTMAS can do all that, and it can, it is worth the bother which it is. I marvel at the trouble people go to, the energy and money expended in the name of spreading holiday cheer. Colored lights strung in the window of somebody’s tiny and maybe even awful room in the Tenderloin hotel—a touch that makes you choke up a little. The unbounded generosity of anonymous people who feed the helpless and clothe the homeless and lug turkeys to the free food places and work in the soup kitchen—all without the recognition they don’t want or need. Tonight they can turn out their lights and read the newspaper by the light of their halos. You have to believe that somebody is keeping score and putting high marks next to their names. If you don’t believe that, the game is up and the party’s over. He knows when you’ve been naughty, he knows when you’ve been nice, is it not so, Sire?”

“The rich city of San Francisco at Christmas. From a vantage point on Telegraph Hill it’s a magnificent sight—the Bay Bridge a mammoth Meccano set, the Ferry Building tower a beloved toy, the reasonably mundane buildings of Embarcadero Center transformed into dreams by thousands of lights that out-twinkle the stars. Ah, the magic of oil-driven energy! There are carols in the streets, trees in the windows, enticing packages festooned with bows. The gift of wrapping gifts is not a minor one, and it is with a pang that one rips off the artistry. But there is the everlasting guilt among the gilt, the most egregious conflict of the blessed and damned season: the haves and the have-nots, the winners and the losers, the Scrooges and the Scrooged. The charities have done their best and millions have been raised but it is still not enough, it is never enough, it never will be, and that is the shame of the richest country.”

Merry Christmas to the beautiful city and its people. The air is crisp, the vistas endless and hope eternal.

— Herb Caen, December 24, 1990

HAPPY NEW YEAR

No more champagne and the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you, feeling lost and feeling blue
It's the end of the party and the morning seems so gray
So unlike yesterday, now's the time for us to say

Happy New Year, Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy New Year, Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't, we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Sometimes I see how the brand-new world arrives
And I see how it thrives in the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool, and he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on feet of clay, never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway

[chorus]

Seems to me now that the dreams we had before
are all dead, nothing more than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade in another ten years' time
Who can say what we'll find, what lies waiting down the line?
In the end of '99

[chorus]

— Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson (1980)

49ERS’ LYNCH: KITTLE LIKELY A GAME-TIME DECISION, EYES POTENTIAL PLAYOFF RETURN FOR WARNER

by Noah Furtado

San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (ankle) will likely be a game-time decision for “Sunday Night Football” against the Bears, general manager John Lynch said on KNBR. He has not practiced this week.

Kittle claimed a hip-drop tackle injured his ankle in the second quarter of a blowout win over the Colts on Monday night. He attempted to play through it while taped, with two catches for 37 yards on a touchdown drive to open the second half, then exited in the fourth quarter and did not return. The five-time All-Pro felt confident postgame that he avoided a high ankle sprain — Lynch confirmed he suffered a low ankle sprain — but he seemed less certain about suiting up again on a short week.

“He had it stacked up against him, in that it was a Monday night game on the eastern side of our country, so you’re not getting back till 3:30 (Tuesday morning),” Lynch said Friday morning. “The clock is just shorter. … George is the type of player that you probably give him that latitude, where hey, we’ll give you all the way up to the game.”

Kittle and wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (knee, ankle), a limited participant in three consecutive practices, are officially considered questionable for Sunday night, with starting cornerback Renardo Green (neck) ruled out for a second straight game. Head coach Kyle Shanahan said Kittle told him he would have a better idea of his availability by Saturday.

This season, quarterback Brock Purdy has a passer rating of 154.9 when targeting Kittle, not far off a perfect rating of 158.3. Purdy’s passer rating on all other throws is 89.9. Kittle missed five games on injured reserve earlier in the year after a Week 1 hamstring injury.

The 49ers must win their next two games (Bears, Seahawks) to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC. With a loss to the Bears this week, their chances to do so drops from 31% to 1%, according to ESPN analytics. The Niners could still get the No. 1 seed if they win this week and lose to the Seahawks in their Week 18 rematch, but only if the Seahawks lose to the Panthers on Sunday, with the Rams losing one of their last two games (Falcons, Cardinals).

Will Fred Warner, the highest-paid linebacker in the NFL, be ready if the 49ers play a home Super Bowl (LX) on Feb. 8? When asked whether Warner could be back for a postseason run, Lynch noted it as a possibility given his rehab progress to date.

“I’ve said this consistently, it would be well ahead of the original timeline that we were given, but Fred has the ability to move the doctors because they’re going to put objective measurements out there: ‘If you can reach these, you can get there,’” Lynch said. “And Fred has continually done that. I think it’s made a lot of people reexamine it.”

Warner fractured his ankle on Oct. 12, which Shanahan initially considered a season-ending injury. Shanahan has said the typical timeline for a broken ankle would be 3-4 months. The playoffs span from Jan. 10 to Feb. 8, approximately 3-4 months after Warner’s ankle turned sideways in a Week 6 loss to the Buccaneers.

Bears without their WR1: Set to miss a fourth straight game, Bears wide receiver Rome Odunze (foot) was officially ruled out Friday after he did not practice all week. Odunze still leads the team in targets (90) and is tied with DJ Moore for most touchdown catches (six).

Three other Bears starters are considered questionable, including linebacker T.J. Edwards, as well as cornerbacks Nahshon Wright and C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

Bringing back Saleh: It appears to be a foregone conclusion that 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh will be a head coach again. Lynch believes the when and where will matter a lot more this time around.

Saleh was the Jets’ head coach three seasons and some change, a job he took after helping the Niners to a Super Bowl appearance during his first stint as the franchise’s defensive coordinator from 2017-20. His reunion with Shanahan and company this season has reminded folks of his ability. Despite losing Nick Bosa in Week 3, Warner in Week 6 and Mykel Williams in Week 9, the 49ers rank toward the top half of the league in scoring defense (12th) and run defense (eighth).

In anticipation of Saleh being a strong candidate for head-coaching vacancies in the offseason, Lynch hinted that he would be willing to compete for his services.

“Robert has big aspirations, he always has,” Lynch said. “I don’t want to speak for Robert, but I think he’ll probably be more choosy this time in terms of where, not just going to go coach anywhere. He probably wants a really good situation because he has one here. … We can make it very attractive for him to stay and we plan on doing that.”

Briefly: Shanahan said wide receiver Jacob Cowing (hamstring) was close to having his practice window opened this week but should be back at practice next week. Cowing was placed on injured reserve ahead of the season with an aggravated hamstring injury.

(SF Chronicle)

WILLA CATHER

She dressed like a man, loved a woman, and wrote America's greatest novels about pioneer women—in an era when all three could destroy her.

In 1890s America, Willa Cather cut her hair short, wore men's suits, and insisted people call her "William." She was a teenager in Nebraska, and she was done pretending.

Born in 1873 in Virginia, Willa moved to the Nebraska prairie at age nine. While other girls played with dolls, she roamed the grasslands, befriended immigrant families—Bohemian, Swedish, German—and listened to their stories of survival, loss, and stubborn hope. The prairie wasn't pretty or gentle. It was brutal, unforgiving, and magnificent.

And Willa fell in love with it.

But the world had very specific ideas about what young women should do. They should marry. They should have children. They should stay quiet, stay home, stay small.

Willa Cather looked at those expectations and said no.

At the University of Nebraska, she showed up in men's clothing and a severe haircut, signing her work "William Cather, Jr." Classmates whispered. Professors disapproved. Society was scandalized. But Willa didn't care. She wasn't performing masculinity—she was claiming the freedom men took for granted.

She wanted to write. She wanted to think. She wanted to live on her own terms.

After college, she moved to Pittsburgh, then New York City, working as a magazine editor while writing fiction on the side. In 1908, she met Edith Lewis, a young editor with dark eyes and a quiet intelligence that matched Willa's own.

They moved in together. And for the next forty years, they were partners.

Not roommates. Not friends. Partners—in the fullest sense of the word. In an era when women could be institutionalized for "deviant behavior," when loving another woman could cost you your job, your reputation, your freedom, Willa and Edith built a life together.

They shared apartments in New York City. They traveled together. They grew old together. And everyone who knew them understood exactly what they were to each other, even if polite society pretended not to notice.

And all the while, Willa wrote.

In 1913, she published O Pioneers!, a novel about Alexandra Bergson, a Swedish immigrant woman who inherits her father's failing Nebraska farm. While her brothers want to sell and escape the brutal prairie, Alexandra sees something they don't: potential. She experiments with new crops, studies the land, and slowly transforms the farm into something thriving.

Alexandra Bergson was strong, independent, and unconventional—a woman who chose land and purpose over marriage and conformity.

Sound familiar?

Then came The Song of the Lark (1915), about Thea Kronborg, a talented girl from a small Colorado town who refuses to let poverty or gender limit her ambitions. She becomes an opera singer, sacrificing conventional happiness for artistic greatness.

And in 1918, Willa published My Ántonia, perhaps her masterpiece.

The novel tells the story of Ántonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant girl whose family nearly starves on the Nebraska prairie. Her father commits suicide in their first terrible winter. Her family is broken by poverty and grief. But Ántonia survives. She works in the fields like a man. She endures heartbreak. She builds a life through sheer resilience.

The narrator, Jim Burden, loves Ántonia from childhood—not romantically, but with deep, abiding respect. He sees in her something noble: the strength of women who built America with their bare hands while history credited only men.

These novels weren't just stories. They were radical acts.

Willa Cather took the American frontier—that mythical masculine space of cowboys and heroes—and said: "You're telling it wrong. Women built this. Immigrant women. Women who worked themselves to exhaustion. Women you ignore."

She wrote poor immigrant women as heroes. She wrote about the emotional lives of people history considered insignificant. She wrote the prairie not as a backdrop for men's adventures, but as a living force that shaped everyone who encountered it.

And she did this while living openly with Edith Lewis in Greenwich Village.

The literary establishment noticed. In 1923, Willa Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel about World War I. She was one of the first women to receive such recognition. Universities gave her honorary degrees. Critics called her one of America's greatest writers.

But success came with scrutiny.

As her fame grew, so did whispers about her "unconventional" life. Journalists asked invasive questions. She refused to answer. She gave few interviews. She was intensely private about her relationship with Edith, not out of shame, but because she refused to let her personal life become public spectacle.

In her will, Willa forbade the publication of her letters. She knew what people would look for. She knew they'd dissect her life, searching for confirmation of what they already suspected. She denied them that satisfaction.

Willa Cather died in 1947 at age 73, with Edith by her side.

For decades afterward, literary scholars performed elaborate gymnastics to avoid discussing her sexuality. They called Edith her "companion" or "friend." They analyzed her novels while carefully ignoring what those novels revealed about their author.

But her books told the truth anyway.

She wrote strong women who rejected conventional marriages. She wrote deep, intense friendships between women that felt like love because they were love. She wrote characters who didn't fit society's boxes and survived anyway.

Willa Cather understood something profound: the American West wasn't tamed by rugged individualist men. It was settled by communities—by immigrant families, by women who did backbreaking labor, by people who didn't fit the mythology but built the reality anyway.

And she understood this because she was one of them.

A woman who loved women. A writer who dressed like a man. An artist who refused to perform femininity or hide who she loved or write the stories she was "supposed" to write.

The prairie taught her that survival requires stubbornness. That beauty and brutality coexist. That the people history overlooks are often the ones who matter most.

Willa Cather gave America some of its greatest literature—novels that capture the immigrant experience, the pioneer spirit, and the reality of building a nation from nothing.

She did it while living a life that could have destroyed her in a less courageous person's hands.

She dressed like a man when women couldn't wear pants.

She loved a woman when loving women was criminal.

She wrote novels about strong, unconventional women when literature was supposed to center men.

And she became one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

Not despite who she was—because of who she was.

The same courage that made her cut her hair and call herself William at age sixteen made her write Alexandra Bergson and Ántonia Shimerda: women who refused to be small, who claimed space in a world that wanted them invisible.

Willa Cather proved that the most American story of all is the story of refusing to fit in.

She was told to be quiet, conventional, acceptable.

She chose to be loud, unconventional, and unforgettable instead.

A "reader" in a Havana cıgar rolling factory, 1933. Reciting classic books was done both for mental stimulation and to prevent idle conversation among the workers.

"IN THE GENERAL UPROAR of gifts and unwinding of wrappers it was always a delight for me to step out on the porch or even go out on the street at one o'clock in the morning and listen to the silent hum of heaven diamond stars, consider the trees that seem frozen in sudden devotion, and think over the events of another year passed."

— Jack Kerouac, 'Not Long Ago Joy Abounded at Christmas'

'THERE ISN'T a man alive who had to hustle more for his daily bread. I was as far down as a fellow could go when I took on my first fight. I was a silver miner, earning five dollars a day and working like a sIave, but the work agreed with me. I didn't mind it, but with a big family sharing that salary, there was nothing in it for me. I liked fighting and I took on a few amateur bouts. But I didn't remain an amateur Iong.

I fought my first professionaI fight in Colorado, and my opponent was a fellow named the Fighting Blacksmith. They called me Young Dempsey, and Young Dempsey scored a knockout in the third and got two-and-a-half dollars. Wasn't that sweet? Well I spent that money on a couple of tramps who looked hungry. We all had a hearty meaI on that prize money and, believe me, we all enjoyed it. That's why that bird who just caught me got that five bucks.

I can't resist giving that type a helping hand for they always bring back to me the days when I was hungry and tired and didn't have the guts to ask others to give me some help or I didn't know whom to ask. I'd roam and roam. I'd hop the freight and sell my services at any kind of work, just to get enough to buy myseIf some grub.'

— Jack Dempsey

“THE WORLD IS VIOLENT and mercurial…it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love…love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”

— Tennessee Williams

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

What Went Wrong Before Hong Kong’s Apartment Inferno

Snow Piles Up as Winter Blast Moves Through New York City Area

Trump’s Claims About Nigeria Strike Belie a Complex Conflict on the Ground

What to Know About U.S. Military Action in Nigeria

Why Sears’s Last Great Hope Was a Promise That Never Materialized

"IMAGINE explaining this to future generations. Arresting people with signs that oppose genocide, while letting the people committing it go free."

– Assal Rad

A HISTORY OF WEATHER

It is the kind of spring morning — candid sunlight
elucidating the air, a flower-ruffling breeze —
that makes me want to begin a history of weather,
a ten-volume elegy for the atmospheres of the past,
the envelopes that have moved around the moving globe.

It will open by examining the cirrus clouds
that are now sweeping over this house into the next state,
and every chapter will step backwards in time
to illustrate the rain that fell on battlefields
and the winds that attended beheadings, coronations.

The snow flurries of Victorian London will be surveyed
along with the gales that blew off Renaissance caps.
The tornadoes of the middle Ages will be explicated
and the long, overcast days of the Dark Ages.
There will be a section on the frozen nights of antiquity
and on the heat shimmered in the deserts of the Bible.

The study will be hailed as ambitious and definitive,
for it will cover even the climate before the Flood
when showers moistened Eden and will conclude
with the mysteries of the weather before history
when unseen clouds drifted over an unpeopled world,
when not a soul lay in any of earth's open meadows gazing up
at the passing of enormous faces and animal shapes,
his jacket bunched into a pillow, an open book on his chest.

— Billy Collins (1988)