Ben Stocking

Marin has approved an updated emergency operations plan aimed at making its disaster response nimbler, faster, and better equipped to support rural areas like West Marin. It is the first update since 2014. “This has been a big lift and I think a very important one,” Marin County Fire Department Chief Jason Weber told the Board of Supervisors in June. Running more than 500 pages, the document is a heavy lift indeed. The plan removes…

AT&T has won an important round in its ongoing battle to end traditional landline service for 184,000 California households, including many that rely on copper-wire phones as an essential connection during natural disasters such as fires, storms, and earthquakes.

Before voters renewed Measure A—which funds the maintenance and acquisition of county parks, open space preserves, and protected farmland—the county spent a lot of time rethinking how to allocate the revenue it generates. Now, just four years later, the Marin County Civil Grand Jury wants to rethink it again.

The owners of a Seadrift home who broke rules designed to protect delicate waterfront ecosystems have received a permit to legalize landscaping and construction work. Last Friday, the California Coastal Commission granted William and Stephanie Mellin a coastal development permit with conditions, including a requirement that they donate $25,000 to an as-yet-unnamed nonprofit that supports coastal education and stewardship. The Mellins’ 2,200-square-foot home sits on a half-acre lot on Dipsea Road, partially perched on stilts…

Ranchers and dairy operators were paid a combined $30 million in the legal settlement last year to relinquish their leases in the Point Reyes National Seashore. But the people they employed or to whom they rented housing—ordinary folks woven into the fabric of West Marin, nearly all Latino—received nothing.

The grassroots campaign against the use of herbicides in a Tomales Bay State Park forest health and wildfire-mitigation plan is gaining force as Assemblyman Damon Connolly, Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, the Inverness Association, and the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin join the chorus of opposition.

Drivers might not even notice the three bridges on Levee Road, but one of them is targeted for replacement. The planned six-month full road closure has the Inverness Association worried. (David Briggs / Point Reyes Light)

Bob Raines, a former superintendent of the Shoreline Unified School District, began serving a 210-day sentence in July for molesting a child at district offices. Mr. Raines, 72, was convicted of engaging in lewd conduct in 2023. He was arrested at his Petaluma home in 2021 and charged with a felony, but the Marin District Attorney’s Office later dropped the charge to a misdemeanor. The lower charge did not require proving that he had touched…

Consultants for the county are conducting a study of traffic flow and parking in Point Reyes Station, where heavy summertime visitation can mean circling blocks and stalled lines of cars. (Tess Elliott / Point Reyes Light)

Some Inverness residents have received a surprise in the mail in recent days: They must begin paying $110 a year for their post office box or install a mailbox at their house if they want to continue free delivery. For customers who have never been charged for their box, the news was most unwelcome. “F— the f—— post office!” said William Barrett, an Aberdeen Way resident who has had a free P.O. box for 25…