American Canyon residents and businesses are helping with the relief effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

State Senator Wesley Chesbro, (D-Arcata), announced last week that American Canyon will receive more than $1 million for the Vineyard Place housing development from the California Department of Housing and Community Redevelopment.

As things currently stand, Highway 29 is scheduled to turn into a six-lane highway from Highway 37 in Vallejo to Soscol Avenue in Napa.

City officials, service organizations, businesses and church clubs came out for a special final edition of Friday Nights at the Plaza Sept. 2, in an effort to welcome new residents to town.

Napa County health officials visited American Canyon last week to get a little guidance on how to spend some new-found dollars.

In response to community concerns, American Canyon Public Works crews worked August 24 to replace a potholed section of American Canyon Road between Broadway (Highway 29) and Flosden Road. Although that section of road will soon undergo a major expansion, Public Works Director Bob Weil decided to repair the southern lane in an attempt to minimize the inconvenience for local residents and commuters.

When the Napa County Farm Bureau slammed the Fair Pay Initiative as an attack on agriculture, George Bachich hit back.

The training period for the 21 members of Napa County's General Plan Steering Committee has come to an end, and it's time for them to roll up their sleeves and go to work.

The search for Napans Roy Grossman, 56, and his daughter Claire, 17, has turned up nothing so far. Search crews in Nevada and California have been looking for the Grossmans since Thursday, the day after they departed from a Nevada airport and failed to reach their destination in Davis.

* Editor's Note: Napa County Planning Commissioner Jim King spent much of his youth on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and he was tracking news of Hurricane Katrina when he learned his brother Billy was missing. What follows are excerpts from journals King kept as he watched in horror from afar, tried to help and reflected on his own past. *

For years Patrick and Carole Loomis worked in Napa's food-and-wine world, and dreamed of one day opening up a Wine Country-themed restaurant in the jazz capital of the world. That dream began to come true for the lifelong Napans in July when they sold their home and purchased one in New Orleans, blocks away from Tulane University.