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Registrar of Voters Office finishes general election vote count
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Registrar of Voters Office has completed counting the ballots from the Nov. 4 general election and is preparing to take the final results to the Board of Supervisors.
Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley released the semifinal official results, which includes all of the votes cast in the election – absentee, precinct and provisional – as she nears completion of the official election canvass.
Although all of the ballots have been counted, Fridley said she will not certify the results of the election and prepare the official statement of votes until Monday.
The official statement of votes will include the breakdown of all of the votes cast by voting precinct and by districts – congressional, supervisorial, each city and unincorporated – according to Fridley.
Fridley anticipates taking the certified results to the Board of Supervisors at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 9.
Newly elected county officials will take office in the first week of January, while the new council members in the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport will be sworn in and seated in December.
Among the most notable pieces of data revealed in the updated results is voter turnout.
Preliminary results put voter turnout at 37.6 percent. However, the semifinal count puts total turnout at 53.9 percent. That’s down from midterm election results reported in November 2010, 66 percent, and November 2006, 62.6 percent.
Fridley’s updated numbers also gave the total turnout for voting in the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport, which both had council seats on the ballot.
In Clearlake, where there are 6,376 registered voters, voter turnout was at 44.6 percent, while in Lakeport, 59 percent of the city’s 2,575 registered voters participated, based on Fridley’s report.
There were minor changes in percentages in the races, but all of the results reported preliminarily remain accurate.
In the case of the Lakeport City Council race, the semifinal count results broke the percentage tie between top finishers Mireya Gehring Turner and Stacey Mattina.
Turner had led Mattina with just one vote, putting them in a statistical dead heat. The updated count had Turner pulling ahead of Mattina with a total of three more votes.
The following are the semifinal vote counts for all races.
– Assessor-recorder: Richard Ford, 8,814 votes, 56.1 percent; Sorhna Li Jordan, 6,895 votes, 43.9 percent.
– Clearlake City Council (top two finishers win seats): Bruno Sabatier, 1,199 votes, 26.1 percent; Russell Perdock, 906 votes, 19.8 percent; Joey Luiz, 792 votes, 17.3 percent; Andre Williams, 701 votes, 15.3 percent; Quincy Jackson, 421 votes, 9.2 percent; Michael Pesonen, 333 votes, 7.3 percent; Michael Walton, 235 votes, 5.1 percent.
– Lakeport City Council (top two finishers win seats): Mireya Gehring Turner, 782 votes, 37.6 percent; Stacey Mattina, 779 votes, 37.4 percent; Michael Balentine, 520 votes, 25 percent.
– Supervisor, District 2: Jeff Smith, 1,241 votes, 54.5 percent; Jeri Spittler, 1,038 votes, 45.5 percent.
– Supervisor, District 3: Jim Steele, 1,959 votes, 55.8 percent; John Brosnan, 1,554 votes, 44.2 percent.
– Measure O, Medical Marijuana Control Act (needed simple majority to pass): yes, 6,674 votes, 38.6 percent; no, 10,606 votes, 61.4 percent.
– Measure P, Freedom To Garden Human Rights Restoration Act Of 2014 (needed simple majority to pass): yes, 5,904 votes, 34.3 percent; no, 11,326 votes, 65.7 percent.
– Measure R, half-cent sales tax proposal for code enforcement in the city of Clearlake (needed supermajority of 66.7 percent to pass): yes, 1,412 votes, 53.4 percent; no, 1,231 votes, 46.6 percent.
– Measure S, “Healthy Lake” half-cent county sales tax measure (needed supermajority of 66.7 percent to pass): yes, 11,037 votes, 63.6 percent; no, 6,308 votes, 36.4 percent.
– Measure T, Lakeport Unified School District bond measure (needed simple majority to pass): yes, 2,203 votes, 65.9 percent; no, 1,138 votes, 34.1 percent.
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State of Jefferson supporters to make presentation to Board of Supervisors Dec. 2
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Proponents of a plan to create a 51st state will make a presentation to the Board of Supervisors next week.
The state of Jefferson will be discussed at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
Supervisor Rob Brown's memo to the board about the presentation notes that no action is being requested at this time.
“The purpose of the presentation is to fully inform the Board as to the purpose of the state of Jefferson Movement, to explain how the people of Lake County would benefit, and to allow time to ask any questions,” he said.
Mark Baird, who was a featured speaker at a July community town hall in Kelseyville on the state of Jefferson plan, will give what is expected to be a one-hour presentation to the board.
Kelseyville resident Truman Bernal, a state of Jefferson movement proponent, said Baird will speak about “why we need the new state for the northern counties, how it can be done and where the movement is at this point among other things.”
The Board of Supervisors held an initial discussion about the proposal in April. The supervisors took no action but told Bernal and other local proponents that they were open to receiving more information for further consideration.
The state of Jefferson, as currently envisioned, would include the counties of Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity and Yuba in California, along with several Southern Oregon counties.
Various declaration committees in counties around Northern California are working to get support from residents and local officials.
Several county boards of supervisors – Glenn, Modoc, Siskiyou and Yuba – have voted to adopt a declaration and petition to the state Legislature to withdraw from California and join the new state. Tehama County voters in June approved a measure supporting the same action from their supervisors.
However, other counties haven't agreed, including Shasta County at a June meeting.
Then, last month, more than 100 people were reported to have attended a Plumas County Board of Supervisors meeting at which Baird made a presentation on the plan. That board also declined to support joining the movement.
For information about the state of Jefferson movement visit www.jeffersondeclaration.net .
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Dollar General exploring more Lake County store locations
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – With two stores already under construction on the Northshore, Dollar General is in the process of exploring three additional retail locations in Lake County.
Dollar General Corp., a “small box” retailer based in Goodlettsville, Tenn., is building its first stores in Lake County in Clearlake Oaks and Nice, as Lake County News has reported.
Kevin Ingram, principal planner with Lake County Community Development, said county officials met with Cross Construction – which is representing Dollar General on its local store projects – to discuss the three new sites.
Specifically, for one project in Kelseyville Dollar General is considering two sites, 5505 Main St. and 4315 Douglas St.; in Middletown, 20900 S. State Highway 29; and in Loch Lomond, 12395 State Highway 175.
“They're not actually applying for anything at this point,” but exploring the feasibility and possible issues with each site, Ingram said.
Regarding its consideration of the Kelseyville, Loch Lomond and Middletown sites, Mary Kathryn Patterson, a Dollar General communications coordinator, told Lake County News, “We are still in the due diligence phase.”
That means gathering the necessary paperwork and researching the sites, Patterson said.
Looking at the sites, she added, doesn't necessarily mean that Dollar General is committed to building at those specific locations.
The Lake County Community Development Department will host a preapplication development meeting to discuss the three Dollar General proposals at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 17, in conference room C on the third floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
Ingram said the meeting is open to the public. It's an opportunity to get input from agencies and stakeholders on the projects as they're currently envisioned, take up concerns and give the developer an idea of what will be required to move forward.
He said the proposals are for buildings that will be identical to those going up on the Northshore. Those metal, prefabricated structures are 9,100 square foot in size, measuring 130 feet wide by 70 feet deep.
“These are formula stores,” said Ingram.
Ingram said it was his understanding that Dollar General was going to wait until its first two stores were open before moving on additional locations. However, he suggested the corporation may be moving forward on the new proposals sooner because California's development process takes more time.
Patterson said that the Nice store is set to be open in February, with the Clearlake Oaks store to open in the late spring of 2015.
Both stores were approved by the Lake County Planning Commission in May, and the Nice store survived an appeal to the Board of Supervisors by several local store owners who said it would harm their businesses.
Patterson said each of the stores typically has six to 10 employees, which includes a full-time store manager and part-time cashiers.
Ingram pointed out that Dollar General is increasingly popping up in locations around Northern California that are geographically isolated and tend not to have Walmarts.
“Lake County seems to fit the bill,” he said.
Dollar General, which has an estimated 11,000 stores nationwide, has been making a push into the California market since 2012. The company reported that it planned to open 700 new stores in California this year alone.
The new locations currently under consideration may require general plan amendments and rezones, Ingram said.
While Dollar General isn't desirable to some community members, Ingram said there aren't other retailers or large commercial products currently seeking to come into Lake County.
“These are important community decisions,” he added.
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Supervisors extend drought declaration for eighth time
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors last week once again voted to extend an emergency declaration due to the drought conditions affecting the county.
The board first passed the proclamation declaring an emergency due to drought conditions March 4.
The Nov. 18 action was the eighth time it's been extended; according to state law, the board has to review the emergency declaration's status every 30 days.
Lake County Office of Emergency Services Manager Marisa Chilafoe returned to the board to urge the supervisors to extend the emergency declaration.
That day, Clear Lake's level was at -.85 feet Rumsey, Chilafoe said.
Her written report to the board explained, “Over the course of this summer, the severity of drought conditions became apparent as our community water systems, private wells and natural resources struggled to maintain adequate water supply, was complicated by the extreme effects of the lake's algae, and the County saw impacts to local agriculture.”
Chilafoe's report said that the winter weather forecasts are indicating below-average conditions.
“Even with normal precipitation and snow pack levels (which is not anticipated), conditions will not fully recharge reservoir, well and lake levels for the following summer. Thus, we must prepare for another drought year in 2015,” she wrote.
The county currently has nine water systems that the State Water Resources Control Board has flagged as vulnerable or critical status systems, Chilafoe told the board.
Of those systems, she said seven are seeking state grant funding to lower their intakes further into the lake or to consolidate with other water providers.
Continuing the emergency, she said, is critical to assist those districts with grant funding.
Chilafoe's written report to the board also included an update on the ad hoc drought task force that the Lake County Office of Emergency Services formed earlier this year.
She said the task force met four times over the summer, “and may meet intermittently over the winter as needed, to closely monitor the situation and coordinate the County's response efforts if necessary, engaging other water companies, State, Tribal and local officials in identifying solutions and promoting conservation outreach.”
She said Lake County Special Districts has been successful in implementing conservation measures and urgency ordinances in the water districts it manages, and has received grant funding to mitigate system issues.
She said the fire danger in the county is “down considerably” due to the change in weather. Local fire districts are continuing water conservation efforts where possible as hydrants in some locations are providing little to no water flow.
Across Lake County, state and local law enforcement agencies and code enforcement are continuing to deal with water theft and abuse, Chilafoe said.
She said Lake County Environmental Health is taking the lead on a project to collect private and residential dry-well reporting through a voluntary survey provided by the state.
In addition, Cal OES and The Home Depot will be providing water conservation kits for the Lake County Office of Emergency Services to distribute to local low-income populations and vulnerable system customers. Chilafoe's office also will develop a drought workshop where those receiving kits can learn about drought and water conservation.
Chilafoe's report said the county is continuing to seek state and federal assistance for impacted water systems.
“Therefore, continuing the declaration of an emergency and maintaining a proactive approach to drought response is critical for area water purveyors in maintaining the health and safety of their customers – Lake County residents and tourists – and protecting our local economy,” she wrote. “Continuing the declaration of an emergency is also required to allow the County to seek funding specifically designated for drought relief purposes, and other assistance that might be required.”
The board voted 4-0 to extend the emergency declaration. Supervisor Anthony Farrington was absent for the discussion.
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