UKIAH, CA. 9/1/2026— The city of Ukiah is dropping the annexation proposal it spent two years building, saying the plan never won the public support it needed to go forward.
The City Council’s Annexation Ad Hoc Committee is suspending work on the initiative and “will not advance further efforts to revise the draft proposal,” the city said Monday in a press release posted to its website.
“The feedback received made clear that the current proposal does not have the foundation of public support and shared understanding needed to proceed constructively,” the release said.
The decision closes out a project that would have pulled unincorporated land in the Ukiah Valley inside city limits, shifting who provides police, code enforcement and infrastructure maintenance there, and who collects the taxes that pay for them. Any annexation would also have required approval from the Mendocino Local Agency Formation Commission, the county body that rules on changes to municipal boundaries.
Over two years, the city produced technical, environmental and fiscal analyses and collected comment through workshops, public hearings, written comments and individual conversations. That input, the release said, raised questions about the proposed boundaries, costs, service capacity, land use, representation and the public process itself.
The proposal had been narrowed before. The city reduced the geographic scope of what it then called the Ukiah Valley Reorganization in July 2025. It released a new proposal last April, called “Sapling,” and revised it again on Aug. 3 into a version called Sapling 2.0. That version added the Brush Street Triangle at the request of property owners there and removed about 15 acres protected under the Williamson Act, the state program that taxes farmland at a lower rate in exchange for keeping it in agriculture.
The city held a California Environmental Quality Act scoping session on the project in June, an early step toward a supplemental environmental impact report. It held community workshops in April, May and June of this year, and a public forum and a town hall in June 2025.
“People can disagree about the best long-term structure for serving the Ukiah Valley,” City Manager Sage Sangiacomo said in the release. “Continuing to advance the current proposal would not build the trust and shared understanding needed for a decision of this significance. At the same time, the regional service and infrastructure pressures that prompted this discussion have not gone away.”
Aging infrastructure, rising demand for services, a limited housing supply, the push for jobs and economic growth, and responsibilities split among multiple jurisdictions all continue to create regional problems, the release said. The city “remains committed to working constructively with its regional partners and the broader community.”
Annexation has been on the council’s agenda in some form since at least August 2020, when the council directed staff to study bringing in the Brush Street Triangle, the Masonite property and the city’s water treatment plant. In the years since, the city adopted a 2040 General Plan, reached a master tax sharing agreement with Mendocino County, updated its sphere of influence and consolidated fire and water services with regional partners.
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors will discuss this Tuesday in their regular meeting.
That sucks for Ukiah. Annexation could have really helped our county’s city. Ignorance has once again won.
spot on Bumpkin
really sucks to have a couple oversized blowhards like Ross Liberty
hes fine with selling to Amazon
undercut local small buisnesses
funny thing is of his sale and amazons building of thier distrobution center had been in the coty limits like it should be
then amazon would habe at least had public input
agree on NO
and nothing you will get
Speaking of Amazon, I spoke with a training manager. They said the facility might fail unless they lay off/fire the locals(Mendocino county people). Mendocino people do not know how to work for some reason and I’ve noticed this through out all my years working.
Do you include yourself in this assessment? 🙃
Taking money out of the County’s pocket and placing it in the City’s pocket doesn’t necessarily improve services, infrastructure or progress. I agree with the City’s quote that our area needs progress and advancement, but that comes by elevating the whole area, not financially motivated annexation.
The county board dropped the ball big time when it approved a master tax sharing agreement with no analysis. They and the whole county government got bailed out by residents and owners of the proposed annexation area when the residents were forced to get organized to oppose a clear money grab. The county board of supervisors should be ashamed of themselves. Ukiah’s motives were clear and they were doing their job, looking out for Ukiah. The county board? Total idiots.
While I agree that the Brush Street apartments should be under Ukiah control for services, given their density, the businesses would have been dinged by Ukiah’s receipt based business license fee, and any other additional taxes and/or fees current or future imposed by the city. This did not seem to be a business friendly proposal.
Yet the city has the highest concentration of businesses in the whole county… : l
Just like with Cannabis. This county is going to learn the hard way.
When the crooks, pedophiles and liberals step out of position? Then Ukiah will be fine.
Road index in Ukiah looks better than the county road index.
Ironic comment and name. I have to say. Lol.