OAKHURST — A Madera County Sheriff’s Office detective has been released from the hospital and is now recovering at home after being injured in a “deputy-involved shooting” Thursday afternoon in Oakhurst. The incident, which shut down a large section of downtown Oakhurst, occurred just after 10 a.m. Thursday morning near the intersection of Highway 41 and Road 426. MCSO Undersheriff ...

MADERA — Madera County’s Board of Supervisors held their regular meeting Tuesday — but the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic made the session anything but usual. The public portion of Tuesday’s meeting was somewhat abbreviated and relatively somber in tone given the nature of the COVID-19 crisis. The first decision supervisors approved was a motion to cancel next week’s regular meeting ...

MADERA — The North Fork man charged with murder in the July 2019 shooting death of prominent Mono tribal elder Gaylen Lee has been found competent to stand trial. Criminal proceedings were temporarily suspended earlier this year (Jan. 17) for Robert Eugene Moye, 47, after his court-appointed attorney questioned his client’s mental health. “At this point, I have concerns about ...

MADERA — Madera County officials have issued a statement regarding a report that surfaced earlier this week that a former Department of Social Services employee intentionally discarded more than 350 reports of potential child abuse taken in 2019. In a number of those cases, a follow up investigation was mandated by law given the alleged severity of the reported sexual ...

MADERA — At their regular meeting today (March 10), the Madera County Board of Supervisors postponed a discussion about a potential ballot measure to hike the County’s Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) rate. Supervisors have been considering asking voters to approve the TOT hike as a means to fund stepped up wildfire prevention efforts within eastern Madera County. But at Tuesday’s ...

MADERA — The Madera County Planning Commission is set to review a request tomorrow (March 3) from a local company that wants to construct a new, 149-foot-tall “monopole” cell tower in Oakhurst. In their application to the County, the project proponent says the new tower would dramatically improve cell phone service in Oakhurst and surrounding areas. “The proposed installation of ...

MADERA — Madera County supervisors continue to consider asking voters in November to OK raising Madera County’s Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) rate by at least 2 percent. At their regularly scheduled board meeting last week, supervisors planned to debate hiring a pollster to gauge county residents’ appetite for an increase in the TOT rate from its current 11 percent  — ...

NORTH FORK — Madera County will officially take ownership next week of a 140-acre parcel just north of Manzanita Lake. The densely thicketed forestland is being donated to the county by PG&E as part of a more-than-decade-old settlement tied to the utility’s 2004 bankruptcy filing. Madera County officials say they are grateful for the gift and now plan to develop ...

NORTH FORK — Project proponents say plans are quickly moving forward and construction of North Fork’s long-anticipated, new 2-megawatt biomass plant should get underway “sometime this spring.” Project coordinator Greg Stangl, CEO of Phoenix Energy, confirmed this week his team is having meetings with “all the major vendors” in the next few weeks. “At the end of next week, I’ll ...

OAKHURST — Yosemite Axe Throwing and the Hamilton family are hosting a fundraiser on Feb. 9 to help save the life of seven-year-old Kalel Hamilton. Kalel, who lives in Ahwahnee, suffers from a terminal muscle wasting disease known as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. His father Rick’s marathon-running efforts to help raise funding for Duchenne MD research was featured in a recent ...