Governor Gavin Newsom is standing his ground, with the support of other state officials, against the extradition of a Sonoma County doctor for sending abortion pills through the mail to a patient in Louisiana where they're illegal, citing a California telemedicine abortion protection law.

As SFist reported last week, officials in Louisiana are pushing California to allow Dr. Rémy Coeytaux, a Stanford-trained doctor in the Sonoma County town of Healdsburg, to face charges for “criminal abortion” in violation of Louisiana law. As KRON4 reports, the violation carries a penalty of one to 50 years of hard labor. Louisiana was the first in the country to classify abortion pills as “controlled dangerous substances,” even though they're considered very safe, per KRON4.

Per KRON4, Louisiana officials, who were able to locate Coeytaux through the tracking number on the package containing the pills, determined that the woman obtained them through an Austria-based company called AidAccess.

As KQED reports, Newsom is refusing to send Coeytaux to Louisiana, emphasizing that California enacted a set of laws geared toward protecting abortion providers from out-of-state legal action. Per KQED, Louisiana officials reportedly doxxed Coeytaux by posting his personal information online, potentially endangering his life.

“Louisiana’s request is denied,” Newsom wrote in a statement, per KRON4. “My position on this has been clear since 2022: We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services.”

“Not today. Not ever,” he concluded. “We will never be complicit with Trump’s war on women.”

“I am proud that our Governor is standing up to attempts to drag this country backward by criminalizing health care and threatening doctors for doing their jobs,” said East Bay Assemblymember Mia Bonta in a statement. “California saw this grim reality coming, and our law is clear: our state will not comply with extreme, bad-faith extradition requests designed to punish medical professionals for  providing lawful, essential reproductive care.”

“Abortion is health care, protected under California’s Constitution, and California will stand firmly in defense of patients, providers, and that fundamental truth,” Bonta continued.

“California is a safe haven for reproductive rights,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote on X Wednesday. “We will not be bullied by anti-abortion states.”

Image: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND - APRIL 13: In this photo illustration, a bottle of Misoprostol tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023 in Rockville, Maryland. A Massachusetts appeals court temporarily blocked a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling that suspended the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug Mifepristone, which is part of a two-drug regimen to induce an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy in combination with the drug Misoprostol. (Photo illustration by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

This post has been updated with a revised quote from Assemblymember Mia Bonta, per her press release.

Previously: Louisiana Officials Have Indicted a Bay Area Doctor for Prescribing Abortion Pills

In what will be the 19th annual iteration of the festival, Bay Area chef Charlie Palmer's renowned Pigs & Pinot returns to Healdsburg in a new location in March, with a unique, all-star roster of father-son chef teams.

Pigs & Pinot has announced dates for its 19th year in Healdsburg, March 20 and 21, and this year the two-day pork-and-Pinot-Noir extravaganza will move from the Hotel Healdsburg to the newly opened Appelation Healdsburg resort, celebrity chef Charlie Palmer's latest big hospitality project. And as we learned in August, just prior to the opening of the hotel's main restaurant, Folia Bar & Kitchen, the chef de cuisine at the new restaurant is none other than Palmer's son, Reed Palmer — who is working under Executive Chef David Intonato.

In addition to the annual grand tasting opening event that will feature pork-y bits alongside 60 Pinot Noirs to taste — from California, Oregon, and maybe a few from France — this year's fest will feature a gala dinner with an all-star, father-son roster of chefs.

Palmer and his son will be cooking alongside the great Wolfgang Puck and his son Byron Lazaroff-Puck, who is President of Fine Dining at his father's restaurant group; Emeril Lagasse will be cooking with his son EJ Lagasse, who is now chef at his New Orleans restaurant Emeril's, which just landed two Michelin stars in the first-ever Michelin Guide to the American South; and New York chef and restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten will cook alongside his son Cedric Vongerichten, the executive chef and owner of restaurants Wayan and Ma·dé in NYC.

They will also be joined by Dr. Tim Ryan, chancellor of the Culinary Institute of America, and his son, Jackson Ryan, who is currently chef de partie at The French Laundry.

"For nearly two decades, Pigs & Pinot has brought people together through incredible food, wine, and a shared sense of purpose, and 2026 promises to raise the bar even higher," says Charlie Palmer in a statement. "To bring the event to its new home at Appellation Healdsburg — a place we’ve built to reflect everything I value in hospitality — feels like a full-circle moment. It’s the perfect setting to honor our roots while celebrating the next generation of chefs, winemakers, and sommeliers who are shaping what hospitality means today."

Palmer created the event in 2006  part as an ode to his favorite pairing of pork with Pinot Noir, and in order to benefit local schools. It took off in popularity in part because Palmer then appeared to judge Pigs & Pinot-themed challenges on Top Chef.

Proceeds from the event will benefit the Palmer Family Education Foundation, which provides funds to non-profits and educational institutions with a focus on culinary and wine accreditation, and the arts.

Tickets for the grand tasting event, on sale now, start at $308 per person, but some pricey VIP packages are available as well, getting guests into the gala dinner and more.

Two female suspects from Oakland are in custody following an alleged assault, robbery, and carjacking on Sunday evening at a Healdsburg park in which they allegedly kidnapped a husband and forced him to drive them home after assaulting his wife.

The incident unfolded at Byron Gibbs Park, located at 1520 Prentice Drive in Healdsburg, on Sunday. According to Healdsburg police, around 5:27 pm, the two victims, a husband and wife, had stopped at the park to use the restroom. On their way back to their car, they saw a woman nearby who needed help — and who may have been faking some kind of injury? They stopped to help her, and the suspect allegedly produced a handgun and demanded the woman's belongings and their car.

The female victim was allegedly struck in the head with the handgun during the altercation, and the suspect, along with "two additional individuals," then allegedly took the couple's car keys and went to steal their car. Finding that they couldn't operate the car themselves, they then confronted the husband and forced him at gunpoint and knifepoint into the car, instructing him to drive them away.

At somepoint, the gun was apparently fired, because discharge of a firearm is among the potential charges listed in the case. And the victims may have been senior citizens, according to an elder abuse accusation.

Healdsburg police responded to the park, and the female victim was hospitalized with injuries.

Then, according to police, "A short time later, [the] Petaluma Police Department located the vehicle traveling south on Highway 101 and a pursuit ensued."

The husband was still driving the vehicle at this point, and it's not clear how much further south they got. Healdburg police say that the pursuit was assisted by CHP, Marin County Sheriff's deputies, the San Rafael Police Department, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.

The pursuit reportedly ended when the husband drove the vehicle off the road.

Police say that there was an additional 18-year-old "victim," and it's not clear if this was the child of the couple, or if this was the third suspect from the scene.

Ultimately, only two suspects were taken into custody, and they have been identified as 51-year-old Davina Humphrey of Oakland, and 24-year-old Amina Vaden of Oakland. No information was provided about any connection between the two women.

They now face possible charges of kidnapping during the commission of carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, child abuse, elder abuse, assault with a firearm, willfull discharge of a firearm, possession of an undetectable firearm, carrying a loaded firearm in public, and conspiracy.

Both women were being held in Sonoma County Jail, and bail was set at $1.02 million for each.

Photo via Healdsburg Police Department/Facebook

OG celebrity chef Charlie Palmer, who opened Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg in 2003 and has had a big hand in putting the tony wine country town on the proverbial map, is still making moves in his hometown.

After making a name for himself in the 1980s and 90s in New York City with restaurants like Aureole, Charlie Palmer settled down in Healdsburg, California a few decades ago. Like many celebrity chefs after him, he built an empire and opened restaurants in Las Vegas, including a second location of Aureole and Charlie Palmer Steak. And in the last decade, he also worked on a hotel and restaurant in San Francisco, the Mystic Hotel and its Burritt Room + Tavern — which he sold to Palihotel in 2018.

And recently we learned that his restaurant group is taking over and revamping several properties in Paso Robles, including the Paso Robles Inn and The Piccolo.

But his local flagship has always been Dry Creek Kitchen at the Hotel Healdsburg, where he became famous — both locally and on the Food Network — for throwing his Pigs & Pinot benefit bash each spring, which also briefly became an annual pairing challenge on Top Chef.

Now, as the Chronicle reports, the 66-year-old chef and entrepreneur will have a shiny new project to call his own in Healdsburg, a new hotel called Appellation Healdsburg, and a 200-seat restaurant called Folia Bar & Kitchen. The 108-room property, just north of the quaint town square, will also boast an 89-seat rooftop bar and lounge called Andys Beeline Rooftop, which Palmer describes as a "nighttime hideaway" that he also hopes will become a sunset cocktail destination in the Dry Creek Valley.

The Chronicle describes, via Palmer, features of Folia which will include "a live carving station for charcuterie and bread service delivered via custom-designed carts." The restaurant will serve a daily selection of five to six fresh breads from Quail & Condor Bakery, Palmer says.

The restaurant, which will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, will focus its dinner menu on fresh pastas from house-milled flours, and meats roasted via "live oak ember cooking." Large format meat dishes, meant for sharing, that Palmer mentions to the paper include a ribeye steak for two, legs of lamb, racks of Kurobuta pork, and Liberty duck. Seafood will be sourced from Hog Island Oyster Co.

"Healdsburg is becoming the culinary capital of Wine Country,” Palmer boasts, speaking to the Chronicle. "There’s not much we don’t have, but this is going to add to it."

The hotel has just opened up reservations starting in September, and the Chronicle says the restaurants should be open by late September.

Appelation Healdsburg - 101 Dovetail Lane, Healdsburg

A May 23 TikTok video of a Healdsburg woman hurling a racial epithet at a team of movers racked up millions of views and became a viral “Karen video,” but that woman, who’s since moved out of state, blames the whole thing on being bipolar.

The latest viral “Karen” video comes from the upscale Sonoma County town of Healdsburg. (The video below may not be the original, as many TikTok bottom-feeders have swiped the video and posted it as their own. A KRON4 report from immediately after the incident mentions a cease-and-desist request on the original video, so the original video may have been deleted.)

@jay.a0l “This is what we still face in 2025. Racism isn’t ‘over’ — it’s just behind screens now. #Exposed #StopRacism #SayNoToHate ♬ original sound - Jay Money

Regardless, the fact remains that a white woman confronts a group of movers, angry that apparently their moving truck had been blocking her car. “I live here, I can’t get out of my house! Fuck you,” she yells at them. Upon one Black mover’s reply that “I think a simple ‘Can you move your truck please’ would have sufficed,” the white woman turns around and calls him a s “stupid n*****.”

The video racked up more than two million views, and the woman was outed and tormented online. Her name is Caleigh Buchignani, and now she’s speaking out publicly, and local station KRON4 says she “reached out” to them to give her side of the story. Buchignani has since moved out of state, and dyed her hair purple in an apparent attempt to avoid recognition.

“I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry I wanted to hurt you, but it’s not because I’m a horrible person, it’s because I have been struggling recently,” Buchignani told KRON4. “I had to change my number, turn off all social media. I had people calling me, giving me death threats.” She added that she has “Multiple people a day calling me, harassing me, telling me what a horrible person I am. My parents still get phone calls.”

But the mover Keonta Gilmer spoke to KRON4 in their initial report in May. “That being in your vernacular, like you said for it to slip out so fast it just shows it’s common for you,” he told the station. “It wasn’t a slipout, you didn’t feel bad for it. It didn’t take a lot out of you to say it.”

In her own defense, Buchignani insisted she is bipolar, not racist. “I think it is important that people with mental health [issues] are heard,” she told KRON4. “We don’t talk about this in our society. It’s shameful.”

Shameful, indeed. Though to her credit, Buchignani has not started a crowdfunding campaign in defense of her being caught using the N-word on video, as one Minnesota woman did last month. And depressingly, that woman’s crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $675,000.

Related: Alameda County Firefighter Placed on Leave as Racist Confrontation Goes Viral on TikTok [SFist]

Image via TikTok

Two separate attacks allegedly committed by teenagers rocked both Santa Rosa and Healdsburg on Tuesday, and a total of seven teens have been taken into custody in relation to a stabbing and a pistol-whipping.  

There were two separate attacks in Sonoma County on Tuesday, and both victims survived, but both had to be hospitalized. And while the two attacks seem unrelated, the common thread is that both the Tuesday morning stabbing in Santa Rosa and the Tuesday evening pistol-whipping in Healdsburg were allegedly committed by juveniles, and the Chronicle reports that a total of seven teens have been arrested and placed in juvenile detention facilities.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat has the details on the Tuesday morning stabbing, wherein police discovered a 15-year-old male victim stabbed and suffering from serious wounds at around 8:20 am at a bus stop at Boyd Street near Sebastopol Avenue. (He had multiple wounds, and has been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.) Witnesses told police that four or five suspects had jumped out of a car, harassed the victim and his friend using gang-related taunts, and a fight broke out in which the victim was stabbed and had his hat stolen.

Santa Rosa Police located that vehicle about 40 minutes later, and determined it to be stolen. They approached the vehicle, and three juvenile suspects fled. One was tased, all three were arrested, and a fourth suspect was found later in the day. The stolen hat was in the car, as was the knife police say was used in the stabbing. One of the teens was also in possession of three folding knives.

All four were booked into Sonoma County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of attempted murder, robbery, gang participation, and possession of a stolen vehicle. They are described as being three 15-year-olds and one 16-year-old. Police say there may be more suspects at large.

Later that day, at around 6 pm in Healdsburg, the Chronicle reports that three teens were arrested on suspicion of pistol-whipping a victim with firearms. Police say one of the suspects had an unregistered pistol in his waistband when arrested. All three were booked on charges of suspicion of assault with a firearm, brandishing a firearm, and battery causing serious bodily injury. Their ages were not released.

There is no information on the victim, who was hospitalized at Healdsburg District Hospital.

The attacks are not considered related, and Santa Rosa and Healdsburg are a little over 15 miles apart.

Related: Five Teen Suspects, Allegedly Affiliated With Local Gang, Arrested for Murder of San Jose 15-Year-Old [SFist]

Image: Handcuffs, police and hands of police man with criminal in city for justice, crime or corruption. Illegal, arrest and law enforcement officer with suspect, thief or gangster for jail, robbery or fail (Getty Images)

The Michelin organization has just released its first ever guide to and rankings of US hotels, and like the Michelin Guides to restaurants dole out stars, the new guide has given "key" rankings to 124 hotels across the country.

While we know that three Michelin stars are a distinction reserved for very high-end, typically very expensive and refined restaurants across the world, Michelin "key" rankings are new. Michelin inspectors fanned out across the cities and regions that Michelin currently covers for their restaurants: Atlanta, California, Chicago, Colorado, Florida, New York, and Washington D.C.

Reflecting the standards that Michelin is setting for hospitality and hotel quality, only 11 hotel and resort properties across the country received three-key ratings.

"Just like the famous Stars that indicate the best culinary experiences in the Michelin Guide restaurant selection, the Michelin Keys reveal accommodations in the Guide’s hotel selection that offer the most outstanding stays," the company says. "They are a new benchmark for travelers, qualifying each hotel experience in broader terms than simple amenities."

Three keys indicates an "extraordinary stay," two keys an "exceptional" one, and one key is "a very special stay."

The local places getting three keys include SingleThread Inn in Healdsburg, Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, and both Meadowood and Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley. Canyon Ranch Woodside, on the Peninsula, also received three keys, as did two hotels in Los Angeles, The Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air.

SingleThread, in particular, "might be one of the most luxurious experiences" in California, the inspectors wrote.

Thirty-three hotel properties received two Michelin keys, including the recently renovated Madrona Inn in Healdsburg, The Battery in San Francisco (which has just 14 guest rooms), and the Four Seasons Hotel Embarcadero (which is actually at 222 Sansome).

Others in the two-key tier include The Montage in Healdsburg, Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito, the Milliken Creek Inn & Spa in Napa, the Stavrand in Guerneville, the North Block in Yountville, and Bardessono in Yountville.

NorCal spots that were deemed one-key or "very special" places to stay include Stanly Ranch in Napa, and 1 Hotel in San Francisco (the former Hotel Vitale).

All the hotel listings and rankings are now available for free on the Michelin website.

To date, Michelin has only done a hotel guide for France, and they are getting ready to announce hotel guides for Spain, Italy, and Japan in the coming weeks.

Top image: The Madrona Inn in Healdsburg, via the Michelin Guide

Information is scarce, and we don’t even know if the victim was a suspect, but Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputies shot someone fatally in an incident near Franz Creek Ranch Friday morning.

A rural Sonoma County road in Geyserville was the site of one or more sheriff’s deputies shooting and killing an individual some time before 9:30 a.m Friday morning. NBC Bay Area reports that “One person died following a deputy-involved shooting in northern Sonoma County Friday morning,” and the Chronicle adds that “The shooting occurred on the 5600 block of Thomas Road.”  

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office merely notes that “Deputies were involved in an officer-involved shooting this morning in the 5600 block of Thomas Road, Geyserville. One person succumbed to their injuries. More information will be released as it becomes available.”

Given the paucity of information, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat sent someone up to the scene to take video of the scene where the incident took place, and did catch a glimpse of one deputies’ van leaving the scene.

The Press Democrat also spoke with a few neighbors at the scene. “A neighbor told a Press Democrat reporter at the scene that authorities began arriving at about 9:30 a.m.,” the paper reports. “The investigation is focusing on private property identified by a sign as Franz Creek Ranch.”

“We are confused. We are just in shock over here,” Justin Anderson, an employee at a winery on Thomas Road, told the Press Democrat. Deputies asked the public to avoid the area, and again, said that further information was not available.

Related: Party House Rental In Sonoma Became Scene of 4 a.m. Shooting That Damaged Homes [SFist]

Image: @sonomasheriff via Twitter

While there were no associated assaults reported, at least nine people have said their drinks were spiked with drugs in the last six months at the same popular bar in downtown Healdsburg.

A scary scandal has gone from bad to worse over the course of this month in the Sonoma County wine country destination town of Healdsburg.  At the beginning of April, one woman posted to Facebook that her cocktail had been spiked with drugs, according to the Chronicle, and several commenters on that post said they knew people who had the same experience at that same bar on the town square, Duke’s Spirited Cocktails. But following the publication of that April 6 article, today’s Chronicle reports that at least nine people have filed police reports since October, all also saying that they’d been unwittingly drugged at Duke’s Spirited Cocktails.

After one unnamed woman posted her experience to Facebook the first weekend in April, Healdsburg Vice Mayor Ariel Kelley posted to Facebook on April 4 that “It was brought to my attention that there is a Facebook post from an alleged victim who was drugged at a local bar in Healdsburg this weekend. According to the Healdsburg chief of police, this alleged crime was unfortunately not reported to local authorities.” (The crime has since been reported to Healdsburg PD.)

But that brought to light that the same crime has been reported several times, and each also at Duke’s Spirited Cocktails. According to today’s Chronicle, “At least nine police reports have been filed since October related to incidents there, yet police have no suspects or concrete evidence to prove that recurring druggings are in fact happening.”

“Several of these were filed after the woman’s April Facebook post,” the Chronicle reports. “At least one report came from a male.”

Healdsburg Police Department sergeant John Haviland told the Chronicle, “That’s the one thing we’re really wondering: why something like this is happening, what’s the motive, who is causing it and why.” He added that “Obviously there is something that’s happening, either at Duke’s or somewhere else in town, but the main common denominator seems to be Duke’s.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Duke's Spirited Cocktails (@dukeshealdsburg)

The bar is obviously in crisis control mode, and has security video from April 2, the night the original Facebook poster was allegedly drugged. “I’ve had third parties not affiliated with the bar watch the tape, and if we had seen anything that was of concern, we would have acted immediately,” the bar’s owner David “Duke” Ducommun told the Chronicle. “This is a serious issue, but we don’t believe it’s a serious issue at Duke’s.”

And while the original poster did not go on record with the Chronicle, other victims did. This includes two women who don't even know one another, but both report having been drugged at the bar on the night of November 13, 2021. One said she’s had two drinks with dinner at another establishment, then one cocktail at Duke’s, at which point he said “the whole world started sailing.” She vomited outside the bar, a friend gave her a ride home, and she passed out immediately with little recollection when she woke the next morning.

“I hadn’t budged. I was still wearing my heels,” she told the Chron. “Eight hours gone. Complete black.”

For now, the bar has switched to an all-female bartending staff, has added more security guards, and put QR codes in the washrooms for anyone in a situation where they feel they need help. But this may be something that requires some sort of investigative breakthrough or conclusion before people feel safe again.

Healdsburg is small, though affluent, and counts the three-Michelin star SingleThread in addition to the many wineries and vineyards on the outskirts of town. It’s about ten miles up the Redwood Highway from Windsor, a town whose mayor resigned last May amidst nine sexual assault allegations, many of which also involved date-rape druggings. These could be isolated and unrelated incidents, or it could be that some of the most exclusive parts of wine country have had a secret problem lurking beneath the surface that is only now coming to light.

Related: Brock Turner Assault Victim 'Emily Doe' Reveals Herself, and She's Written a Book [SFist]

Image: Karen L. via Yelp

A Healdsburg city council meeting turned into a mini-January 6 insurrection Monday, as anti-vaccine zealots stormed City Hall and forced a council meeting onto Zoom.

The Healdsburg City Council meets on the first and third Monday of every month, which means they had a scheduled meeting last night. But as the image below shows you, last night was also a wingnut “Freedom Rally” at Healdsburg City Hall, because as the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports, a proudly unvaccinated city council member has become a cause célèbre among the covidiot death cult known as the “medical freedom movement."

And that “Freedom Rally” did exactly what it was intended to do, which was disrupt the city council meeting with chaos and tantrums. KTVU reports that protesters got so unmanageable that an in-person meeting was forced onto Zoom. Protesters adopted the rallying cry that it is somehow unacceptable that unvaccinated council member Skylaer Palacios has to participate in meetings virtually, because she refuses to get vaccinated.    

"I think it's kind of senseless that she's not allowed inside her council chambers," rallier Shelby Darby told KTVU. That station notes that Darby had “rented a charter bus to bring protesters to the rally,” so you know that bus was just crawling with COVID-19.

According to KTVU, “protesters overran the lobby” at City Hall before the meeting. The station adds that “After banging on the glass walls clamoring to get in, protesters eventually found an unlocked entrance and flowed into the council foyer, unimpeded," and that “Healdsburg police sent two officers to guard the doors, only after the chamber lights were dimmed and the meeting moved online.”

The council did eventually reconvene, on Zoom, while the protesters continued to throw fits outside. According to KTVU, the meeting merely covered “speed limits, road safety and parklets,” and the vaccination topic did not come up.

But you can see where the anti-vaccine movement is going with this. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports that Palacios’ partner recently posted to Instagram, “Do you need extra money in your pocket?! Join our lawsuit against the Sonoma County Public Health Department for providing misinformation to our community regarding the COVID-19 vaccination.”

Related: Unvaccinated SFPD Officer Dies of COVID at Age 46 [SFist]

Image: Sonoma County Republican Party

A suspected arsonist had firefighters chasing down small blazes all around Healdsburg on Monday, putting residents and firefighters both on edge for hours amid continued dry conditions.

It's not clear where or when the first of the rash of fires began, but a total of 15 blazes broke out in different, remote locations around the outskirts of Healdsburg. The fires were all contained before midnight on Monday, according to state Senator Mike McGuire, who had been warning residents during the day to remain vigilant and be on the lookout for fire starts.

According to CA Fire Scanner, there were seven fires burning as of 9:15 p.m., and the number rose from there.

Cal Fire crews ended up joining local firefighters to battle the blazes, and Cal Fire was expected to give a statement on these fires on Tuesday. No homes or structures were damaged in any of the fires.

As KTVU reports, one of the fires was set in the forest along Mill Creek Road, near the area where the Walbridge Fire burned last year.

Local videographer Kent Porter posted footage and photos of the fires, saying that the largest of the blazes grew to about two acres.

"We owe MAJOR gratitude to the firefighters in Sonoma County tonight — literally being everywhere at once," McGuire wrote on Twitter. "Local agencies along with CalFire are staged in the Healdsburg area, prepared to jump on any new fire starts."

The Chronicle reported, via McGuire, that the suspicious blazes totaled 15, but Cal Fire officials said on Twitter "A more accurate number of fires will be determined during the daylight hours."

Law enforcement is asking anyone with security or wildlife cameras in the areas of the fires to check their footage for any suspicious activity. Anyone with information about the fires should call the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office at 707-565-2121.

No suspects have been identified or arrested.

Photo: Guido Jansen

Officials of the Wine Country city declared Friday that because of "severe drought" conditions —  which are teetering on historic, at this point — all of its over 12,000 residents must reduce their water usage immediately, specifically announcing a ban on the use of automatic sprinklers and irrigation systems.

California is experiencing arid unseen in generations, with nearly the entire Bay Area under "exceptional drought" conditions; the same also be said about parts of Southern California. Heeding advice from water management experts and environmentalists, Healdsburg officials have, as of late, continually advised denizens of the small city to greatly reduce their water use. Just before the weekend, those same city officials went one step further to enact an emergency mandate geared at conserving some 40% of water use.

“The Russian River watershed is in a severe drought and the hottest days of summer are still to come,” read a portion of the mandatory order that also prohibits washing personal vehicles and hosing down driveways, the Chronicle reports. “This year, the region received 13 (inches) of rain compared to the average 38 (inches), and the reservoirs are alarmingly low.”

While residential customers are currently given a specific "water budget" of 74 gallons per person per day,  commercial customers are told to reduce water usage by 40% — though it's unclear how that will be both metered and monitored. Construction crews, too, are now ordered to use recycled water.

Not surprisingly, new swimming pool permits will not be issued applicants; those individuals who can prove that the water for the pool would be sourced from outside Healdsburg’s potable water system, however, can apply for said swimming permits. And you can forget about water being delivered to your restaurant table without first asking for it; the present order says drinking water is only available upon request at Healdsburg eateries and bars.

For a complete list of in-place restrictions — which, as mentioned before, includes a ban on sprinkler and drip irrigation systems — click here.

While San Francisco has reduced its water use over the previous year, consider conserving water by hand-washing dishes, taking three-minute showers, and flushing less often — the latter alone helping conserve between 3 to 7 gallons of water, per flush.

Related: San Francisco Water Use Has Declined Since Last Drought — What Else Can You Do to Conserve?

This Infographic From the National Weather Service Shows Just How Bad the Bay Area Drought Is

Image: Unsplash

Monday morning thunderstorms have sparked multiple vegetation fires in Napa County, including a significant-looking one in the woods near St. Helena, and a lightning strike took out power for 11,000 customers in Healdsburg.

Small fires have been caused across the Bay Area in the last 36 hours, and down in the Santa Cruz Mountains, by a series of highly unusual August thunderstorms. The storms, and the lightning that comes with them, are the offshoots of Tropical Storm Fausto, which is spinning hundreds of miles to the southwest in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja Peninsula.

As of Monday morning at 11:30 a.m., several fires were burning in Napa County, including one near St. Helena along Chiles Pope Valley Road that was captured by ABC7 cameras. Per KTVU, a total of at least 20 brush fires were reported in the county this morning.

As ABC7 reports, via area firefighters, the blaze started at 6:40 a.m. Monday on the 60 block of Hennessey Ridge Road. The Napa County Sheriff has now issued evacuation orders for the following areas: Sage Canyon Road from Chiles Pope Valley Road to Lower Chiles Road, Highway 128 at Silverado Trail to Chiles Pope Valley Road, including Pritchard Hill, and Highway 128 at Lower Chiles Valley Road to Turtle Rock.

The brush fire is described as "fast moving," and it's not yet clear how many acres have already been burned.

A Red Flag Warning covering much of the Bay Area was lifted as of Monday morning as the passing storm cells were trending wetter, with some brief but significant rainfall hitting Sonoma County and elsewhere.

In the northern Sonoma County town of Healdsburg, 11,000 PG&E customers were without power on Monday morning following a lightning-caused outage there. As KPIX reports, the Healdsburg Police Department was being inundated with calls about the outage, prompting warnings to residents not to use 911 for such calls.

Meanwhile, two significant wildfires that began due to early morning lightning strikes on Sunday morning continue to burn in Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties.

The Deer Zone Fires, as CalFire is calling them, have burned 1,161 acres near Deer Valley Road and Marsh Creek Road, southwest of Brentwood, and it is still 0% contained.

The Marsh Fire is burning near Arroyo Hondo Road and Oakridge Road, northeast of Milpitas in Santa Clara County. It has burned 1,775 acres and is 0% contained.

And, as KTVU reports, another as-yet-unnamed fire popped up Monday morning in Alameda County at North Flynn and Comstock Roads in Livermore.

Photo: Jeff Deeter/SFist

Even the small, affluent, northern Sonoma County town of Healdsburg is not immune to the civil unrest and tough conversations about systemic racism happening around the country. And over the weekend, newly elected Mayor Leah Gold was apologizing on Facebook for "off the cuff" comments she made during a virtual city council meeting last week.

A petition effort has grown to push Gold to resign, and it has amassed 1,084 signatures as of this writing. And the outrage stems from something she said last week during a council meeting that was publicly broadcast on Zoom.

When a city councilmember asked the town's chief of police to provide a briefing about use-of-force tactics at a future meeting, the mayor and a couple of other councilmembers objected to the request, with Gold reportedly saying, "My reaction to that is we don’t have that particular problem in Healdsburg because we have a very good police chief who is on top of these issues." As the Chronicle reports, and as the petition writers discuss, Gold's statements were taken to mean that there was no racism in Healdsburg, and residents are accusing her of being insensitive or out of touch.

"Clearly, the Mayor is out of touch with reality and is not in a position to lead our city in an inclusive and forward-moving manner," the petition reads, also citing comments Gold made on social media discouraging people from attending a protest.

On Facebook on Saturday Gold wrote, "I was speaking off the cuff and within a narrow band at the Council meeting, on the question of whether excessive use of force is an issue in the Healdsburg Police Department. But clearly, the public is engaged in a much broader conversation."

She adds, "As a white woman of privilege, I don't experience that racism, and need to be mindful that it gives me blindspots. As the Mayor of Healdsburg, this is a time when I, along with everyone else in our city government, need to be listening, and learning...  I am taking it upon myself to educate myself and think about what I and the City of Healdsburg can do."

Healdsburg was the site of a protest last Thursday that drew hundreds of people in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, as the Press-Democrat reported. As reporter Kevin Fixler noted on Twitter, it was likely the largest demonstration happening that evening in the North Bay, and it seemed an odd place for it to spring up.

Speaking by phone with the Chronicle Monday morning, Mayor Gold said, she felt her comments had been misconstrued, and she has no plans to resign. "I support the Black Lives Matter movement. I am as shocked and outraged as anyone else about the murder of George Floyd," Gold said. "I understand that racism is pervasive and systemic in America and I am open to any ideas that we can do to make Healdsburg a more inclusive place."