City council!
John's Bar expands | Help coming for bulky garbage
Monday, October 31, 2022
NEWSBOY AM
Post-meeting coverage from Willits City Council.
Good morning, reader. Just a hint of red in the sky this morning. Is it going to rain soon? This email is your briefing on the October 26 Willits City Council meeting. Have a safe week.
City Gov’t | Post-meeting report
Good to see that a council member initiated talks with Solid Waste of Willits about the potential of collecting bulky items at no charge.
More good news is that Willits residents can look forward to at least one such event funded by state money and maybe another born from talks with the city.
SWOW owner Jerry Ward said that in Covelo, for example, a state funded cleanup ran for one-week.
Ward said the haul from Covelo yielded seven loads and in addition seven loads of metal and two trailers of tires departed Round Valley during that effort.
“It made a dent and it still could use some help,” Ward said.
The head of SWOW is not expecting that much material from within city limits.
Councilwoman Greta Kanne has worked to clean up illegal dumping in Brooktrails and reached out to Ward about doing something in Willits.
“I have heard from several residents that dump fees are prohibitive,” Kanne said.
The need for help can be seen in how many people showed up in Covelo, for instance.
“There were people there at 4 o’clock in the morning in Covelo trying to get in front of the line and it was crazy,” Ward said.
The idea of a voucher program to avoid lines in Willits and help picking up items for those who cannot haul was mentioned, too.
Ward said that a state-funded SWOW cleanup on the coast accepted unlimited bulky items, tires, appliances and mattresses.
Onward and upward for John’s Bar
John’s Bar, next door to Peter’s Sushi, won approval of a use permit for a small expansion of 600 square feet.
Craig Stevens said he and his wife Melissa run the business together. Council members approved the permit on a 5-0 vote.
“I think it is only the right thing to do because that business, John’s Bar, has been around since before most of us existed,” Marcia Kennedy said.
Kennedy said she was a former employee of the Willits landmark who remembered going there as a child “and we had sodas because they always had Shirley Temple’s and Roy Roger’s with lots of cherries.”
Others also joined Kennedy to voice support for expansion of the bar’s business.
A building occupied by the bar burned in 2014.
Since 2016 the bar has operated at its current location at San Francisco Avenue and Main Street.
A written report from the city stated that staff “has not received any neighborhood complaints or opened code enforcement cases against the business.”
A few more things:
Council members ok’d completion of Blosser Lane street work performed by Bouthillier’s Construction.
When all was said and done the cost was $1.06 million, the city stated in a written report.
This information from the city shows what city funds were used to pay for the project:
Written and compiled by Zack Cinek | 707 613 0369 | newsboy.zack@gmail.com | Mail: 75 N MAIN ST #121 Willits CA 95490
