An Honest Economy for Mendocino County
Rugged coast, redwood forest, vineyard country — and communities fighting to hold on
Mendocino County has everything — world-class wine, towering redwoods, a wild Pacific coastline, and some of the most productive farmland in California. But homeowners across the county are losing insurance coverage because of wildfire risk models they can't see or challenge. Fort Bragg's fishing families can't survive another closed salmon season. And the old Georgia-Pacific mill site in Fort Bragg has waited more than 20 years for the economic anchor this region deserves. These three bills are where the comeback starts.
A County That Has Everything — Except a Fair Deal from Washington
Mendocino's problems are connected. When insurance companies flee fire zones, families are priced out before any fire arrives. When salmon seasons close, Fort Bragg loses its economic backbone and fishing families have nowhere to turn. When mill sites sit empty for decades, Ukiah and the inland communities lose the high-wage jobs they need to keep the next generation here. These three bills attack the root causes — not with campaign promises, but with drafted federal legislation that has real funding, constitutional analysis, and sunset provisions. Read them yourself.
Federal Wildfire Insurance Stabilization Act
Your home hasn't burned — but your insurer already left. This bill brings them back.
Mendocino County has stronger claim to this bill than almost any other county in CA-2. The 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire — including the Ranch Fire — was the largest wildfire in California history at the time, burning over 450,000 acres. Communities from Redwood Valley to Willits to Covelo have watched insurers flee, leaving homeowners with nothing but the state FAIR Plan, which costs more and covers less. This bill builds a permanent fix. It creates a federal reinsurance backstop modeled on the FDIC — the same kind of backup that keeps your bank deposits safe, applied to homeowners in fire-prone zones. It replaces the insurance industry's proprietary black-box risk models with a transparent, open-source National Wildfire Risk Model so every Mendocino homeowner can see exactly how their property is being scored — and challenge it if the score is wrong. It establishes "Zone Zero" noncombustible buffer standards with a 5-foot defensible perimeter, and gives homeowners who meet it real, mandatory premium discounts — not suggestions. It creates Firewise Community Certification that rewards entire neighborhoods for collective action, because one house can't protect itself if the neighbor's deck is made of cedar. And it funds low-income home hardening grants so that wildfire safety isn't only available to those who can afford it.
From Seashore to Stockyard — CA-2 Food Security and Economic Resilience Act
Fort Bragg's waterfront built this coast — this bill makes sure it survives
Fort Bragg was a fishing town before it was anything else. Noyo Harbor is Mendocino's working port, and the salmon closures have hit the fleet harder than almost anything in recent memory — multiple consecutive years with no commercial season. Boats are being sold. The next generation is leaving. This comprehensive food security and fishing economy bill — written specifically for the nine counties of CA-2 — provides immediate salmon disaster payments so fishing families can keep their homes and boats while the fishery recovers. It funds crab fleet resilience support during domoic acid delays and whale entanglement season restrictions, and a Fisher-to-Kelp-Farmer transition program that gives Noyo Harbor fishers a path into regenerative aquaculture as bull kelp restoration — 95% of the Mendocino coast's kelp has been lost since 2014 — becomes a viable ocean economy. Beyond the harbor, the bill supports Mendocino's diverse agricultural economy: food hubs with cold storage in each CA-2 county give Anderson Valley wine growers, inland ranchers, and small organic farms access to distribution networks that currently require driving to Sonoma or Marin. Enhanced reimbursement for school meals sourced locally creates a guaranteed market for Mendocino producers. And 25% of food security funds go to tribal food sovereignty programs — critical for the Cahto, Pomo, and other Mendocino tribal nations whose food systems were systematically dismantled.
CA-2 Comprehensive Affordability, Fair Housing, Education, and Community Health Act (CA-2 CAFE-CH)
Mendocino is named in this bill. The Fort Bragg mill site finally gets an economic anchor.
This is the most wide-ranging CA-2 bill in the platform — 19 divisions addressing nearly every challenge facing the district. For Mendocino County specifically, Division M explicitly names Mendocino as a priority county alongside Del Norte, Humboldt, and Trinity for the Redwood Country Rural Prosperity and Biomass Energy program. That means real, targeted investment. Mass timber manufacturing grants up to $15,000,000 per facility can finally bring a 21st-century industry to the former Georgia-Pacific mill site in Fort Bragg, which has sat largely idle since 2002 — more than two decades of lost high-wage jobs. Cross-laminated timber (CLT) and engineered wood products are the fastest-growing segment of the construction industry, and Mendocino has the forest resources and workforce history to lead. The Biomass Circular Economy Program converts forest slash and timber residuals into biogas energy and compost — creating rural jobs in Willits, Ukiah, and Laytonville while reducing the wildfire fuel loads that put the whole county at risk. 100/20 Mbps broadband to every home in Mendocino — large parts of the Round Valley and inland communities still have no reliable internet — with gigabit speeds for schools, hospitals, and libraries. The bill also funds behavioral health loan forgiveness with mobile crisis teams serving Mendocino's rural communities, $18 million per year for substance abuse programs, and a physician loan forgiveness program up to $300,000 for providers who commit to working in rural shortage areas — because Mendocino needs doctors who can afford to stay.
Every Bill Meets These Standards
Not talking points — tested principles. Every bill was drafted with constitutional analysis, fiscal scoring, and real accountability built in.