A task force starts meeting this month to weigh the future of California’s four state developmental centers, including the scandal-riddled facility one near Glen Ellen.

Exposed early to the ways and means of politics as the son of a local Democratic Party power broker, Harrison ‘Jack’ Tibbetts, 23, is waging a statewide political battle against a formidable foe: Big Oil.

Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo has confirmed he is ‘seriously investigating’ a run for the state Assembly seat for the North Coast to be vacated next year by Wes Chesbro.

Carrillo would join two other local candidates, Jim Wood, the Healdsburg city councilman, and John Lowry, the former executive director of Burbank Housing in Santa Rosa, both of whom have said they are running for the Assembly seat. All three are Democrats.

Viewing a public file at the Santa Rosa courthouse will cost $10 under a proposal from the state’s judicial branch that is drawing fire from critics who say it will limit access to public information.

The Community Media Center of the North Bay would close at the end of June and eventually be reborn as an innovative partnership under a proposal heading to the Santa Rosa City Council today.

In a replay of earlier battles, state Sen. Noreen Evans is going after Big Oil in California in an attempt to raise money for higher education and state parks.

A major political battle is brewing in Sacramento over California’s landmark environmental law referred to mainly by its acronym, CEQA, with some powerful Democrats urging an overhaul of the regulations.

Got a burning need to contact your state senator? For more than 50,000 residents of unincorporated Sonoma County, that number currently is disconnected.

Sonoma County transit officials Monday agreed to give $6.6 million that would have gone for bicycle and pedestrian projects to the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District to buy additional cars.

California’s troubled state parks system, shaky finances and problems with violence at mental health facilities were areas of focus this year for the North Coast’s legislative delegation.