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Editor-
The Mendocino County Farm Bureau (MCFB) is a non-governmental, non-profit, voluntary membership, advocacy group whose purpose is to protect and promote agricultural interests throughout the county and to find solutions to the problems facing agricultural businesses and the rural community. MCFB is submitting comments on the City of Ukiah’s proposal for annexation and reorganization.
Mendocino County Farm Bureau is opposed to the City of Ukiah’s Annexation plan. We have serious reservations regarding the scope and scale of the annexation plan and deep concern regarding the negative fiscal implications this would have for County finances. Mendocino County Farm Bureau’s stated mission is to protect and promote agricultural interests in our county and to preserve our rural character. Such a rapid expansion of the City of Ukiah would endanger farmland through urban sprawl that would lead to an increase in conflicts between agricultural producers conducting everyday farming activities and neighboring urban residents. Rural residential residents would see the rights and entitlements they currently enjoy being eroded, their taxes increasing, and the rural character of our community destroyed.
The County is experiencing serious financial hardships and structural deficits. It is struggling to finance and provide many of the core services, such as law enforcement and road maintenance, that residents look to the County to provide. If the City of Ukiah’s annexation plan is approved, it would have extremely negative consequences for the County’s budget to the detriment of its ability to provide services. Rural residents in unincorporated areas would see a profound decline in County services and quality of life would decline as a result.
Even for the residents that would be annexed or live near the City of Ukiah, it is unlikely that annexation would be beneficial. We have serious doubts that the City of Ukiah’s is able to provide at minimum the same level of service that the County currently delivers, much less provide better. MCFB is requesting that the County conduct an in-depth analysis on the potential economic and operational impacts on County departments, services, and long term liabilities if the proposed annexation is approved.
We believe that when the Master Tax Sharing Agreement was approved in June 2024, the potential annexation plans presented by the City of Ukiah were different from what is being proposed today, and that the City of Ukiah is operating in bad faith. We request that the County insist that the City of Ukiah abandon their annexation plans, and if they will not, that the County rescind the Master Tax Sharing Agreement. We look to your leadership in protecting the vested interests of the rural residents and agricultural operations of Mendocino County by opposing the City of Ukiah’s annexation plans.
Estelle Clifton, President
Mendocino County Farm Bureau
Thank you Mendocino County Farm Bureau for your sober view of the proposed annexation.
I agree stopping the annexation and rescinding the tax sharing agreement as it exists is important and likely existential to the future viability of our beloved County.
Totally agree with this letter from the MCFB. As a county resident, the services are lacking right now. The county roads are in desperate need of repair and I believe the worst in the state. Our agriculture land is diminished as it stands today. No to annexation.
County incompetence/ corruption isn’t a reason to stop the annexation plans. The City has more reasonable utilities and higher development standards than the county currently has or will have. The city also has access to more grant opportunities and has more resources to access the grants. The County will have declining services whether or not the annexation plans move forward. Ukiah has more new businesses coming in than most of the county. Not sure where the claim of bad faith exists. Ukiah is taking its development in a different direction than the County isn’t a bad faith proposition. County finances are in ruin because of the direction the county leadership has been going in and now it is running deficits. Water is going to cost a lot more in the future which the city is better positioned to handle in the future due to its long term planning and infrastructure improvements. The city is likely to bring in more tax revenue and appeal to new businesses coming into the Ukiah Valley which benefits every one. The county would benefit from a more robust city of Ukiah since tax revenue would still be going into county coffers along with the city’s. Not to mention higher property values in the area along with more sale tax generation.
So, out with the Rural Ag Land,and in with Urban sprawl. San Jose USED to be beautiful surrounded with Rural Producing Farmland, Now it’s just Big City. Bring it closer to Home, same happened to Santa Rosa!
The county is more likely to have urban sprawl than the city. Most of the sprawling for the last few decades has been under the county’s planning directives. Ukiah has been doing more city infilling of under used parcels.
It isn’t 1865. Your roads are shot. Your infrastructure is old and declining. Water delivery requires maintenance and utility upgrades should’ve been done decades ago. You need the tax revenue just to stay relevant.
The City finally grew a pair. The City and County need the revenue so F the “Farmer Alarm.” The last thing any city official should do is rely on some dumpy farmer’s opinion. The City needs the tax revenue to function properly. Farmers want to live in 1832. You cannot trust farmers anymore. They have betrayed the entire country.
“some dumpy farmer’s” opinion? You cannot trust farmers anymore? WTH? How insulting and uninformed. Personally, I like to eat fresh food, and thank the farmers and ranchers that work so hard so I can eat better!
The comment may be harsh from stack, but 89% of US farms are family farms, and use 45% of agriculture land, but only produce 18% of production value as a whole.* (USDA*) Farming isn’t what it used to be and most of it is a subsidy for 89% of US farms. Mendo local farms depend on expensive/subsidized infrastructure to stay relevant and even under these optimistic terms they still wouldn’t grow enough food to feed its 90K Mendocino locals.
It’s true. My rancher family owns hundreds of acres of wine grapes and pretends they’re growing food for the masses. Miles and miles of river front access and water rights , countless tax breaks, cheap immigrant labor you name it. I don’t feel bad for farmers any more unless they’re growing rice beans and tomatoes
It is incredible what local agriculture is currently experiencing. New groundwater issues and fees due to the SGMA of 2014. New vineyard waste water order of
6.12..2025 increased operating costs. Reduced market prices etc.
No county crop reports since 2021 Reduced county pest detection efforts.
Many vineyards on the real estate market.
And now the City of Ukiah wants to add more grief for local growers.
s
People aren’t drinking wine! Good!
Once again the farmers are getting their panties twisted forgetting other people exist. Oh no, how awful! Farmers will have to be considerate of the general population, how awful!! (Insert sarcasm)
People are not drinking wine are you serious?
Nasty Nancy Pelosi is probably uncorking her third bottle of chardonay of the night as I’m typing!
The very same more than likely applies for Kamala Harris.
And our slimy slithering snake of a Governor pretty boy Gavi is most likely sitting in his lavish gated mansion in Kenwood enjoying a one thousand dollar bottle of Napa Valley Silver oak cabornet in lieu of doing his job.
Terry those people are old and dying. Have you heard of boba?
Press Democrat just printed an article the winery touring in down 14%. It’s an antiquated thing that snobby alcoholic women liked to do for the last 30 plus years, and the trend is waning.
Terry, even if those boogeymen of yours were drinking wine, it’s three people. Do you really think three people prop up an entire industry? Talk to the wineries, or read reports from the industry. Wine consumption is way down. Just because you chug a bottle down before diving into a propaganda rabbithole on Youtube doesn’t mean the rest of the world is like you.
Finally someone standing up for the right thing very well said. The annexation is a money grab pure and simple without even easy questions being answered properly. No annexation
That’s because there are no easy answers.
Yay to farmers! No to annexation! City of Ukiah has poor planning and just want the dough! Less for more money. Just say no!
The report from the state controller was requested by the Board of Supervisors, which had grown frustrated with the county’s inability to get timely financial reports from its own auditor-controller department.
The struggles were exacerbated by the board’s decision to merge the auditor-controller and treasurer-tax-collector’s offices in December 2021.
The merger was unpopular with employees in both offices, resulting in low morale, according to the controller’s report, and a peak employee turnover rate of 40%.
At the same time, the woman chosen to lead the new office was erroneously accused of misappropriating $68,000 in public funds, adding to the disarray.
Charges against Chamise Cubbison were dismissed Feb. 25, after investigators recovered long-lost emails and records from a discontinued county email archival system. The tranche of missing correspondence helped prove that Cubbison had acted appropriately, and not misused the funds in question.
She has since returned to her job.
During Cubbison’s absence, interim auditor-controller-treasurer-tax collector Sara Pierce discovered the county had around $200,000 less in reserve than originally thought.
Cubbison did not reply to an email requesting comment on the state’s latest look into Mendocino County’s books.
In the report released in July 2024, the state controller found that the county’s reporting delays were also the result of its decentralized accounting system. The county maintained 14 separate bank accounts. Some departments, it reported, tracked transactions using Excel spreadsheets.
“It’s nothing nefarious,” Supervisor John Haschak said at the time. “But it was a surprise to find out we had all of these accounts we didn’t know about.”
Still, Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams said in a statement on Wednesday, the use of Excel spreadsheets “instead of a modern integrated system” was a result of “fragmented oversight” that “falls short of current standards and complicates the ability to oversee how third-party vendors and agencies use public funds.”
He, too, welcomed this latest independent audit, which will “shine a light on inefficiencies, offer a road map for improvement, and ensure each dollar is properly tracked, reinforcing transparency, accountability, and public trust in government operations.” – Your County Gov’t
Check out all the brands of wine these days! The wine market is saturated with cheap wines. Generally that tends to fall back on the grape growers.
When will the next crop report be released?
Bravo MCFB! Looks like a skunk, smells like a skunk, it probably is.