March 4, 2021 Former Ukiah Police Sergeant Kevin Murray is scheduled to appear in Mendocino County Superior Court today, to be arraigned on information.
On January 26, District Attorney David Eyster filed a complaint against Murray, charging him with four felonies for crimes alleged to have occurred on November 25 of last year. The complaint says he entered an occupied motel room on South Orchard Avenue in Ukiah and violated the civil rights of a woman by intimidating her “under color of law.” Murray is also facing two charges of burglary for entering the room twice, and one of sexual battery for forcing the woman to touch his genitals.
February 24, 2021 The Board of Supervisors approved a $200,000 increase to a contract with an armed guard service to monitor people in quarantine at hotels or Whitmore Lane, the county-owned quarantine facility just outside Ukiah city limits.
The outbreak at Mountain View, a long-term care home in Ukiah, is up to 23 cases, with two people now deceased. Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren said the outbreak grew rapidly during the full week it took for a positive staff member’s test result to get back from a lab in Texas.
The eligible age for people to get the vaccine in the county has been lowered to 65, and starting in mid-March, people 16 and older with certain health conditions or disabilities will also be eligible.
Jan 29, 2021 A renewed interest in using the old Howard Hospital in Willits as a psychiatric health facility revived community outcry and intimations of NIMBYism.
The half-cent mental health sales tax enacted by Measure B has been in effect for about three of its five years. So far, a little over twenty one and a half million dollars have been collected. Some of the money has been used to purchase a training center in Redwood Valley and hire a contractor to remodel it. The architect Nacht and Lewis, which is also designing a new jail for the county, is almost finished with architectural plans for a Crisis Residential Treatment facility in Ukiah.