Sarah Reith
News DirectorSarah Reith was born into a circus family in San Francisco, and ran away to join the army as soon as she turned 18. She was a parachute rigger at the jump school on Fort Benning, Georgia, where one of her incidental duties was “wind dummy,” or jumping out of an airplane ahead of a class of airborne students so the instructors could check the wind conditions. After concluding that life as a dummy lacked intellectual stimulation, she used her GI Bill to earn a BA in creative writing at Mills College for women. She worked as a bike messenger and a barista for some years before going back to school in Germany. She studied for her MA in German literature in the shadow of a medieval castle.
She came to Mendocino County in 2008 and worked as a reporter and freelancer, joining KZYX as a community news reporter in 2017. In 2018-2019, she had the life-changing honor of working with local theater and history maven Kate Magruder and brilliant reporter and policy whiz Laura Hamburg on “Promise of Paradise: Back to the Land Oral Histories of Mendocino County.” The half-hour programs aired weekly on KZYX for a year.
Sarah became the KZYX News Director in March, 2023.
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Local NewsFort Bragg is in the initial phase of trying to get absentee property owners to take care of properties that are vacant most of the year, or for years on end. But a recent proposal by code enforcement, to require a registry of vacant properties, did not meet the approval of community members or the city council committee tasked with bringing a more fleshed-out proposal before the full council. -
Local NewsA controversial gas station in Redwood Valley is due for another round before the Board of Supervisors next month, as county staff considers a last-minute traffic study submitted by the applicant. -
Local NewsJust before 10:00 on Wednesday night, the Ukiah City Council voted by a bare majority to table a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Council received over thirty letters on both sides of the question. Many supporters of the ceasefire resolution stated that they are Jewish, before citing their dismay over the Israeli bombing Gaza. But opponents advised the local governing body not to weigh in on international issues by passing a non-binding resolution. One questioned why the council was delving into foreign affairs when people are hungry and homeless in Ukiah. -
Local NewsProponents of a post-dam diversion have decided what kind of structure they’ll ask for when PG&E submits its license surrender application for the Potter Valley Project. A number of questions have yet to be answered, especially about sediment management and how much water will continue to flow from the Eel into the Russian River. But after months of committee meetings and analyses across a wide spectrum of interest groups, a new joint powers authority decided unanimously on March 19 to pursue a pump station that would divert water from the Eel River into the Russian River during high flows. -
Local NewsThe numbers of voters affected by the ballot mishaps in the recent election are coming into focus, with 880 ballots returned from the Antoni Lane misprint and 177 who received ballots for the wrong district. -
Local NewsThe California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to ask for more information about a $31.4 million federal loan. -
Local NewsThe Board of Supervisors wants to raise the transient occupancy tax on short term rentals by 2% to bring caregivers’ wages up to $20 an hour. They also agreed to research how to pay all county workers a livable wage, which, according to the MIT living wage calculator, is $23 an hour for a single adult living in Mendocino County. -
Local NewsThe outcome of tight races is still uncertain as the ballot count continues. -
Local NewsThe California Coastal Commission is swinging hard on a federal declaration that the Mendocino Railway’s plans to rebuild a collapsed tunnel and rehabilitate the line between Willits and Fort Bragg are exempt from environmental review. At a hearing on Thursday, March 14, the Commission will discuss a letter it plans to convey to the US Department of Transportation, objecting strongly to a process it calls “highly unusual (and) not provided for under the regulations” that govern the management of coastal zones. -
Local NewsThe city of Ukiah is poised to join others in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. At its regular March 6 meeting, the council voted 3-1 with Mayor Josefina Duenas abstaining and Council Member Doug Crane opposing a motion to bring the resolution forward at a future meeting. Crane said he was not necessarily opposed to agendizing the resolution, but he wanted to first have a discussion about the council’s policy of voting on things that do not come directly under the local body’s purview.
