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Posts published in “News”

Sheriff Reno Bartolomie, In His Own Words

 (Reno Bartolomie was Mendocino County Sheriff from 1955 to 1975. He died in 1990.) I was born in Fort Bragg on April 17, 1916 in Redwood Coast Hospital. Dr. Campbell delivered me. My folks lived…

Anderson Valley Blasts Into Fall

Although some might argue that August 27th isn’t really fall, everyone must admit that fall is in the air. The AV Senior Center under the able leadership of Director Renee Lee and the generous services…

County Proposes To ‘Dissolve’ Citizen Committees

Let’s see, for the past 18 months we’ve heard from the Board of Supervisors that the County is broke but they don’t quite know how that happened. Supervisor Ted Williams says the County “has three…

Local School Adopts Baby Oaks

I live next to a very tall Valley Oak that drops a lot of acorns in my yard. If those acorns sprout I usually pluck them, but one spring when I found a bunch of…

County Notes: Stonewalling & Ducking The Issues

The only mention of the pending employee strike (possibly in early September) due to the County’s failure to provide even a token cost of living increase offer to the nearly 700 member Service Employees Union…

Who Closed Mental Health Hospitals In California?

Given the UDJ’s series on the homeless-mental health-substance abuse issue, I thought it would be timely to take a look at one chapter of mental health history in California that I’ve written and spoken about…

AV Schools Phone-Free

Some Mendocino County students were asked to do the “unthinkable” this week when school began — put their phones away all day. “I saw students walking and talking instead of with their heads down and…

A Moment of Bravery

In 1974 I was trying to get my house plans through the Mendocino County Building Department for a building permit. I had presented my drawing of a two-story house to be constructed of redwood logs…

The Mystery of Graveyard Creek

One sunny day more than a few years ago, Don Pardini was working in Evergreen Cemetery when a couple of odd-looking bones caught his eye. They weren’t hog bones, deer bones, dog bones, cat bones,…

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