The 2012 leadership positions for the Humboldt-Del Norte County Medical Society have been announced and include doctors from both counties.

• President: Mark G. Ellis, M.D. (Pediatrics)

• President-Elect: Sandra Wilcox, M.D. (Anesthesiology)

• Secretary/Treasurer: John Mastroni, M.D.  (Ophthalmology)

McNamaras still farming on the coast

In a rare California coastal scene, cattle graze near the north end of Pebble Beach on the McNamara ranch. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

Some 120 years later, another Nick McNamara wends through the same breathtaking landscape atop a trusted palomino named Mack, while three dozen Black Angus cows are pastured not far off.

Today the McNamara family ranch is a rare example of California coastal farmland still in private ownership, surrounded by county lands and public beaches; a commercial airport to the north and tightly spaced single-family residences to the south and east.

Storms dampen late season start

Recent storms kept many local crab fishermen off the waters for days — a crucial time to be sitting out.

As of Friday, the boat price for crab was up to $3.25 per pound and production was “steady” after recent storm systems “slowed us to crawl for a few days,” said Rick Harris, plant manager for Pacific Choice Seafood in Eureka, in an email.

In a delayed season like this year’s, crab boats that waited to drop their first pots of the season in North Coast waters get exclusive access to the regions covering Mendocino County to the Oregon line. After 30 days, however, crab vessels that fished elsewhere can get in on the Northern California catch, making storms that prevent fishing even more of a curse to local crabbers.

Paid $30,000-plus while not working

After about a half-year on paid administrative leave, a deputy district attorney for Del Norte County was fired earlier this month.

Mordechai Pelta, who had been with the District Attorney’s Office for about two years, was let go on Jan. 5, said Joey Young, county personnel manager.

Young and County Administrative Officer Jay Sarina declined comment about why Pelta was fired, saying it is an ongoing personnel matter.

Del Norte School Superintendent Don Olson gave his evaluation of Uncharted Shores Academy’s academic program at a School Board meeting Thursday.

Chartered under the Del Norte County Office of Education, the superintendent oversees charter schools’ finances and academic programs.

Olson told the School Board he made two visits to USA recently to observe students and evaluate the curriculum.

The Del Norte County Library District Board did not make any decisions on the future of the cash-strapped Del Norte Reads program Thursday.

The board didn’t even get to that item on the agenda before members of the public in attendance started making passionate pleas to keep the literacy program and its manager Kelley Nolan.

Board members tried to make it clear to Del Norte Reads volunteers, graduates of the program and concerned residents that they didn’t want to get rid of the program, but there isn’t sufficient funds to keep Nolan employed to run Del Norte Reads.

Hemmingsen gets board’s chairman seat in 9-1 vote

 A slow-moving meeting prompted the Del Norte Solid Waste Authority board to table half its agenda Tuesday.

A half-hour was spent nitpicking the consent agenda before the  board discussed the closed landfill and what to do about a higher-than-expected fee the state is charging the authority.

The board approved the payment of a half-installment of the $52,697 annual permit fee assessed by the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) in order to avoid penalties, and gave direction for staff to continue to contest the landfill’s rating that comes with higher fees.

No candidate gets enough votes from central committee

Seven Democrats are running for Congress in Del Norte’s district, but none of them will be endorsed by the California Democratic Party.

At a pre-endorsement meeting in Santa Rosa on Saturday, four candidates from Marin County divvied up 134 votes cast by party Central Committee members from the new District 2, which was created by a Citizen’s Redistricting Commission and stretches from Marin to Del Norte counties.

A candidate must garner at least half the vote at this stage to move the endorsement process along.

Former Del Norte County District Attorney Mike Riese was in court Wednesday, and so were 14 law enforcement officers who were subpoenaed but never took the stand.

Judge Anthony Edwards delivered his rulings on whether there would be a change of venue, dismissal and allowance of Riese to be co-counsel in his case.

Riese faces a charge in Del Norte Superior Court of driving under the influence, two counts of child endangerment and a single count of public intoxication, all stemming from an Aug. 22 incident in which a Crescent City Safeway employee called police to say that Riese was behaving strangely. He wasn’t arrested at the time, but Deputy Attorney General Brian Newman filed a complaint against Riese a couple of months later.