Just one more Trump-related news item, and then we’ll move on! This one is on the federal funding front. Ever since Trump and Elon Musk and their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started hacking away at federal spending in early February, all orgs and agencies here in the North Bay that rely on funds from the U.S. government have been bracing for the worst. And for some of them, those fears have come true. Here’s a roundup of every defunded local program I’ve heard about so far:
- As I reported in a previous newsletter, the Santa Rosa chapter of Catholic Charities — which KRCB news radio calls “Sonoma County’s largest provider of immigration legal services” — lost its longtime federal grant of around half a million per year, which they were using to help local immigrants in their efforts become citizens, according to the Press Democrat. (You can donate directly to the org here.)
- I’m sure you’ve heard about all the national parks in California and other states losing staffers and other resources. But since we have no national parks here in Sonoma and Napa counties, this is our version of those cuts: Come end of August, the Ukiah field office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will be shut down entirely, according to the Bay City News wire — affecting nearly half a million acres of wildlands that the office manages in Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Solano, Lake, Colusa, Glenn, Yolo and Mendocino counties. Bay City News reports that “three popular protected areas fall under the Ukiah field office’s jurisdiction: The California Coastal Monument, including cattle grazing lands along state Highway 1 and hiking grounds surrounding Point Arena Lighthouse; Cow Mountain Recreation Area, located just outside of Ukiah and popular with hunters, campers and off-road vehicle enthusiasts; and Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, an expansive protected space managed in partnership with the National Forest Service known for being one of the most biologically diverse in the state.” It also manages “The Geysers, an isolated area straddling the Sonoma-Lake County border that is home to one of the world’s largest geothermal field.” I’m not sure exactly what will happen to this land once the Ukiah field office is shuttered. All I know is that Bay City News says “closing the office may impact a wide range of activities, including grazing permits for ranchers, campground and trail management, wildfire prevention measures, habitat conservation projects, hunting and off-road vehicle permitting, mining and drilling permits, renewable energy projects, historical preservation work, the policing of poaching and environmental education outreach.”
- Over in Marin County, the Point Reyes National Seashore just lost two staff members, including a fisheries specialist, according to the Point Reyes Light. And the paper reports that “other agencies and nonprofits on the coast” in West Marin are now “bracing for cuts or pausing work,” too.
- Two important weather agencies that serve our area, the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are also getting gouged right now. More than 2,000 staffers were reportedly just laid off nationwide, or around 20% of everyone who works for the agency. I’m not sure how many of them worked at the Bay Area office (which covers the North Bay), but the Sebastopol Times has a very helpful (and pretty scary) roundup of all the ways we depend on the work of the NWS and NOAA locally — including in winemaking, firefighting and airport operating.
- Our local Veterans Affairs offices in Santa Rosa and Napa haven’t been hit by funding cuts and layoffs yet, that I’ve heard about — but the Trump administration’s plans to pare down the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs sparked a preemptive protest outside the Santa Rosa office last week. “A group of about 45, mostly older veterans rallied to protest news of mass firings and other cuts planned for the sprawling federal department serving millions of people who served in the country’s military,” the Press Democrat reportds.
- Similar deal with the proposed Medicaid and Medi-Cal cuts on the table right now, which haven’t been approved yet — but if they are, they would reportedly impact health insurance coverage for a quarter to a third of the population in Sonoma and Napa counties. From the PD: “U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman made a joint appearance [on March 7] in Santa Rosa to issue dire warnings about the impact of a Republican plan to cut over the next decade at least $880 billion from programs that are likely to include Medicaid and Medicare to help pay for some $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.”
Ever since Trump took office, state and national politicians representing Sonoma and Napa counties — Huffman, Thompson and others — have been holding nonstop press conferences (like the one I just mentioned) and town hall events for community members, where they’ve been sharing info on what’s coming down the pike. At one such event on Feb. 6, U.S. Congressman Mike Thompson, who reps all of Napa County and part of Sonoma County, mentioned that federal funding cuts were affecting local fire-mitigation projects, toxic waste cleanup, training programs for young farmers and “important health research.” And a couple of weeks later, at a similar event on Feb. 21, he rattled off another laundry list of programs getting cut. Watch if you care…
Note from Simone: This piece originally appeared in the weekly email newsletter I write for the Bohemian, called Wine Country Today. Subscribe here!
