Merced News

She always wanted to give back and make a difference to the community she moved to in 1991.

On Saturday, the Merced Sheriff’s Department arrested Andrew Roggero, 40, in connection with a theft reported Friday morning at a business located on Highway 59 and Washington Road in El Nido.

Tuesday's two-hour public forum and short meeting of the Merced City School District Board of Education were relatively low-key affairs, the participants say, but discussions in the next few weeks of how to erase a $9 million budget deficit may be more lengthy, spirited -- or troubled.

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today named twelve individuals to serve on four governing boards responsible for dissolving local redevelopment agencies in cities and counties where local agencies elected not to manage the task.

The Greek sage Aesop once opined, "Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either." For the past seven years, Eric Dumars has built a career in the Merced County public defender's office, carefully scrutinizing the flip side of every file that lands on his desk.

That's how Tim O'Neill, founder of Image Masters, describes the gradual growth of his promotional products company.

A series of study sessions began this week as Merced City School District board members, administrators, teachers and employee groups ponder how to deal with what may be a $9 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year.

Eating our seed corn. Shooting ourselves in the foot. Cutting off our nose to spite our face.Pick your cliché for self-harm. Then apply it to the news that the Merced County Association of Governments, after 18 years, is closing the Merced Economic Development Corp."The decision to close it down was the result of dwindling public and private ... (more)

After ranking No. 1 last year, Forbes magazine has moved Stockton to No. 11 on its "America's Most Miserable Cities" list released Thursday.

Despite January's storms and a bit of snow overnight, Wednesday's state Department of Water Resources snow survey showed there is still not a lot of water trapped in Sierra snow.

A man has been arrested after Merced Police say he drove a stolen truck through a park and crashed into a fence at a police station.

A mistrial was declared last week in the case of a 20-year-old man accused of a shooting on a North Merced bike path that injured one man.

With a 13% increase in student applications to the University of California for entry into the class of Fall 2012, admission continues to be extremely competitive, especially to the most select campuses of Berkeley and UCLA.

On Thursday I discussed remarks made by CHSRA Board Chair Dan Richard about the upcoming revision to the Business Plan, remarks that suggested urban areas were going to play a greater role than earlier thought.

After six years of steady decline, overall reported crime in Merced rose 5 percent in 2011, according to statistics released by the Police Department this week.

Merced police served search warrants at two Merced homes Friday, resulting in two arrests on suspicion of gang-related crimes.

The ranks of local government agencies in the central San Joaquin Valley that have turned their backs on California's proposed high-speed rail system is growing.

Los Banos City Council's decision to suspend regional transportation impact fees will continue the Los Banos Bypass' molasses-like pace and slow all other area plans, a regional official said.Lori Flanders, public information officer for the Merced County Association of Governments, said with very little federal funding available, local projects ... (more)

A local Merced County office could close if it can't consolidate with its counterpart, said officials.The Employment Development Department and Merced County Workforce Investment, or Worknet, will begin negotiations next week to combine offices in the Worknet building on Seventh Street."We're having to do what we need to," said Maria Mendoza, ... (more)

MERCED, Calif. - When you think of the final 400-foot ascent of the Yosemite Valley's Half Dome Trail, what words come to mind? "Majestic?" "Breathtaking?" "Crowded?" Over the past two years, to address dangerously overcrowded conditions, park officials have cut in half the daily number of Half Dome hikers by instituting an advance-sales permitting ... (more)