How to resolve AdBlock issue? Supervisors to consider Visitor Information Center closure, Harbor House Espresso issues
LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week the Board of Supervisors will consider whether to close the Visitor Information Center and discuss recent actions taken against a Lakeport business related to water supply.
The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 15, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport. TV8 will broadcast the meeting live.
At 9:15 a.m., the board will consider the recommendation to permanently close the Visitor Information Center in Lucerne and implement alternatives to provide visitor information services.
During a March workshop, tourism consultant John Poimiroo advised the county to immediately close the center, which employs several people and costs $174,681 annually to run – or about 46.5 percent of the county's total marketing budget, according to a report from the County Administrative Office.
Poimiroo recommended that the county reallocate the funds to other forms of marketing “which will have a greater impact on branding and attracting out-of-county visitors to Lake County, such as creating a bolder online presence,” the report said.
Services currently offered through the Visitor Information Center would instead shift in part to electronic kiosks, with the Lake County Chamber of Commerce – which has a $50,000 annual contract with the county for marketing services – proposed to pick up handling the phone calls and email inquiries the center currently is handling, according to the report.
At 10:40 a.m., the board will discuss Lake County Environmental Health's recent actions against Harbor House Espresso, which Environmental Health Director Ray Ruminski told Lake County News has operated for many years without a water hookup.
Despite giving the business numerous notices to have a connected water supply, rather than just using bottled water, it has continued to operate with out the required changes. Ruminski said the state also is taking action against the business due to water-related issues.
Relating to Harbor House, the board will consider options to ensure compliance with appropriate Health and Safety codes in the future operations of Harbor House Espresso.
The full agenda follows. The agenda is out of order due to an addendum.
TIMED ITEMS
9 a.m., A-1 to A-4: Approval of consent agenda, which includes items that are expected to be routine and noncontroversial, and will be acted upon by the board at one time without discussion; presentation of animals available for adoption at Lake County Animal Care and Control; consideration of items not appearing on the posted agenda, and contract change orders for current construction projects.
9:05 a.m.: Citizen's input. Any person may speak for three minutes about any subject of concern, provided that it is within the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors and is not already on the agenda. Prior to this time, speakers must fill out a slip giving name, address and subject (available in the clerk of the board’s office, first floor, courthouse).
9:06 a.m., A-5: Presentation of proclamation designating the week of April 13-19, 2014, as National Public Safety Telecommunications Week in Lake County.
9:10 a.m., A-6: Public hearing, consideration of proposed ordinance amending Article II of Chapter 18 of the Lake County Code relating to the Transient Occupancy Tax.
9:15 a.m., A-7: Consideration of recommendation to permanently close the Visitor Information Center in Lucerne and implement alternatives to provide visitor information services.
9:30 a.m., A-8: Public hearing, consideration of intention to name a certain existing unnamed road in the County of Lake (Poppy Lane).
9:45 a.m., A-9: Presentation of Kindergarten Entry Developmental Profile for Lake County.
10 a.m., A-10: Consideration of System Capacity Fee Evaluations and proposed adjustments for CSA #21 - Water System and LACOSAN-Northwest Regional Wastewater System.
10:30 a.m., A-11: Nuisance abatement hearing for 875 Round Mountain Road, Clearlake Oaks, CA (APN 006-560-20 - Cindy Laudero).
10:40 a.m., A-14: (a) Discussion regarding recent county actions taken against Harbor House Espresso; and (b) Consideration of options to ensure compliance with appropriate Health and Safety codes in the future operations of Harbor House Espresso.
NONTIMED ITEMS
A-13: Supervisors’ weekly calendar, travel and reports
Supervisor to discuss Visitor Information Center closure, Harbor House Espresso issues
A-14 (agenda also shows this item as numbered identically to item above): 1.Conference with Labor Negotiator: (a) County Negotiators: A. Grant, L. Guintivano, S. Harry, M. Perry, A. Flora and C. Shaver; and (b) employee organizations, Deputy District Attorney's Association, Lake County Deputy Sheriff's Association, Lake County Correctional Officers Association and Lake County Safety Employees Association.
CONSENT AGENDA
C-1: Approve minutes of the Board of Supervisors meeting held on April 8, 2014.
C-2: Adopt proclamation designating the week of April 13-19, 2014, as National Public Safety Telecommunications Week in Lake County.
C-3: Adopt resolution amending Resolution No. 2013-96 establishing position allocations for Fiscal Year 2013-2014, Budget Unit No. 1781, Special Projects (remove the double asterisk (**) pertaining to the Deputy County Administrative Officer-Special Projects I/II/III allocation).
C-4: Approve letter supporting SB 1410 (Wolk and Nielsen) requesting appropriation of funds to fulfill outstanding Department of Fish and Wildlife PILT obligations and begin making on-going PILT payments, and authorize the chair to sign
C-5: Approve memorandum of understanding between the county of Lake and St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake to authorize psychiatrists available via telepsychiatry to conduct 5150 assessments and make recommendations for placement to designated facilities.
C-6: Approve second amendment to agreement between the county of Lake and California Psychiatric Transitions for FY 2013-14 mental health rehabilitation center support and specialty mental health
services, increase of $104,820, and authorize the chair to sign.
C-7: Approve second amendment to agreement between the county of Lake and Redwood Creek Community Living Center for FY 2013-14 adult residential support services, a decrease of $7,000, and authorize the chair to sign.
C-8: Approve first amendment to agreement between the county of Lake and Community Health Care HIV/AIDS Program for FY 2013-14 HIV/AIDS counseling and case management services, an increase of $405.64, and authorize the chair to sign.
C-9: Approve agreement between the county of Lake and Dixon Backhoe Service and General Engineering for Abatement of Nuisance Conditions in the amount of $15,000 and authorize the chair to sign.
C-10: Approve purchase of the 3-D laser scanning system and the maintenance and update service, total amount of scanning system $66,000, and maintenance service and updates rate of $4,526.33 and
$699.50 per year, and authorize the district attorney/assistant purchasing agent to issue a purchase order.
C-11: Approve Library Use Policy.
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Lakeport City Council to discuss RV dump station, recycling zone
LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week the Lakeport City Council will discuss whether to close an RV dump station and give staff direction regarding participation in a recycling market development zone.
The council will meet for a closed session beginning at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 15, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St., to discuss labor negotiations before convening in open session at 6 p.m.
Under council business, Public Works Director Mark Brannigan will ask the council to approve the creation of the parks maintenance leadworker and job description.
He'll also seek authorization from staff to either close the RV dump station located in Library Park or to add signage to the RV dump station that identifies the legal use of the facility, and modify the water and sewer services to only be available during normal business hours.
City Engineer Scott Harter will seek direction from the council regarding the redesignation and participation in the Sonoma/Mendocino/Lake Recycling Market Development Zone.
On the meeting's consent agenda – items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted as a slate on one vote – are ordinances; minutes of the regular April 1 meeting; the April 3 warrant register; approval of Application No. 2014-006 with staff comments for the Lakeport Main Street Association for the Children’s Push and Pull Pet Parade on April 19, annual Cleanup Lakeport on April 26, July 4 Arts and Crafts Fair, Taste of Lakeport on August 23, Shipwreck Days on October 18, Trick or Treat Main Street on Oct. 31 and Very Merry Main Street on Nov. 29; and approval of Application No. 2014-007 with staff comments for The Center for Life Choices for a Walk for Life and 5K run on April 26, 2014.
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Supervisors continue local emergency due to drought
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday continued a local state of emergency declared in early March due to the year's dry conditions.
County Administrative Officer Matt Perry said the law required the board to evaluate the state of emergency every 30 days.
The recent rain hasn’t led to a “significant amount of drought relief,” said Perry, who suggested that the board continue the emergency.
Board Chair Denise Rushing acknowledged that the county received a letter from Gov. Jerry Brown's Office of Emergency Services about the emergency declaration, which the board passed unanimously March 4.
The letter stated that while “the situation does not currently warrant enactment of the California Disaster Assistance Act,” the agency is striving to ensure communities receive all available resources.
Supervisor Jim Comstock said that while in the last two months there has been a lot of rain, it has only amounted to about one-third of Lake County's annual rainfall.
During the discussion, Public Works and Water Resources Director Scott De Leon updated the board on groundwater supply.
“Basically, things are a little bit below the normal average in the Big Valley region but we have other groundwater areas where we’re at the normal levels,” he said.
“So from a groundwater standpoint, we seem to be in pretty good shape, certainly not anywhere near the levels of the '76 drought and some of the other drought periods that we’ve had,” De Leon added.
He said the Kelsey Creek detention structure was closed for several days, which led to hitch – which are in the midst of spawning runs – being observed in the creek on Tuesday morning.
This past week, Clear Lake's level hovered just below 2.50 feet Rumsey. De Leon said that if there isn't significant rain during the rest of the season, Clear Lake will be down to about 0.5 feet Rumsey by Labor Day. Clear Lake is full at 7.56 feet Rumsey.
De Leon said that if Clear Lake is below 3.22 feet Rumsey on May 1, no water will be available for release to Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, which owns the lake's water rights.
It's unlikely the lake will reach the level needed to ensure the water release, De Leon said.
Comstock moved to extend the local emergency, which the board approved 5-0.
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Council discusses grant, continues consideration of building lease to Lake County Youth Services
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council held the second public hearing Thursday in the process to develop an application for Community Development Block Grant funding.
City Manager Joan Phillipe said the state is requesting applications for eligible projects for an allocation of more than $28 million during the 2014-15 funding year.
The city will seek funding not to exceed $1,525,000, Phillipe said.
CDBG funds must benefit low-income households, either directly or through a community wide project. According to Phillipe, funds may also target the elimination of blight or meet an urgent community need.
The maximum grant allocation per application is $2 million. Phillipe said a number of restrictions apply to activities that qualify for the grants.
Categories include housing, public facilities, services and improvements. There is a limit to one activity per category, generally not to exceed three activities, she said.
Projects selected for the current round of funding include the following: Public Facilities application requests $1,425,000 for widening and rehabilitation of Phillips Avenue; Planning and Technical Assistance applications request not more than $70,000 for conducting a survey of city drainage facilities and integration into the city's Geographic Information System (GIS); and no more than $30,000 for master planning for physical development of Highlands Park and related park improvements.
Phillipe said the Department of Housing and Community Development, to which the applications are submitted, have concurred that the selected projects are eligible for the grant program.
She said if the application is not funded in this round, the city should consider applying for the next round of funding as bonus points are awarded for applying a second time consecutively.
In other business, the council discussed a request by Lake County Youth Services for use of the city-owned building adjacent to the youth center on Golf Avenue in Clearlake.
Ultimately, the item was continued to the next regular meeting. The item was continued to allow time for the testing of mold present in the building and determination of remediation if needed.
Additionally, public notification of the building's availability is needed to ensure fairness to other nonprofit agencies that may be interested in utilizing the building, according to Phillipe.
Phillipe said while the city has not marketed the building for rent, there has not been any other interest expressed in the use of the property.
Councilwoman Joyce Overton, who also serves as the volunteer director of Lake County Youth Services, said ideas for use of the building include technology type training, conference center for use by other nonprofit organizations such as Girl Scouts and Little League, and possibly a space for Public Education Government TV station business.
Lake County Youth Services Board member Mike Vandiver, a construction professional, said some technology programs will be aimed toward assisting high school-aged and older youth in areas such as heating/air and solar power.
“This will get them some technical training and skills for their future,” Vandiver said.
The building was leased to North Coast Opportunities about a year and a half ago, Phillipe said.
The property was leased for $1 per year with the organization being responsible for all repairs, maintenance and other associated costs of using the building, she explained.
However, Phillipe said the agreement was nullified when NCO felt the cost of renovating the building was too expensive.
Phillipe said the city's contract building inspector determined the following repairs necessary: mold testing and remediation, roof and dry rot replacement, foundation repair and other various replacement and repairs including sheetrock, windows, water heater, doors, interior painting and concrete sealing; insulation, electrical and plumbing, cabinet, stucco and exterior painting.
The contractor's estimated cost of repair is between $50,000 to $80,000, including contractor and personnel costs, Phillipe said.
Recognizing the need for extensive repairs, District 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith suggested the building itself be used as a technological training center.
Vandiver said he estimates cost for materials at just lower than $20,000.
Overton said several volunteers have committed to improving on the building, much in same fashion as was conducted on the youth center next door.
“The youth center building was in the same situation,” she said in reference to the building's former dilapidated state. “Now, it's valued at more than $200,000 at no cost to the city.”
Vandiver said he thinks it would take about six months to get “up and running.”
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Lakeport Planning Commission considers sphere of influence, policy elements for general plan update
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Planning Commission spent its Wednesday evening meeting giving a thorough read to the city's draft general plan update.
During the two-hour session led by city staff, the five-member commission worked through everything from mundane grammatical issues up to greater concerns involving the sphere of influence, and a proposal to adopt into the draft document useful and consistent language from county general plan policies relating to resource conservation and land use.
Altogether, commissioners approved changes to four parts of the general plan update, as well as a revised city sphere of influence.
“We covered a lot of good material,” said Commissioner Harold Taylor at the meeting's end.
Commission Chair Ken Wicks Jr. raised concerns about the lack of public participation. When he looked out from the dais, he could see that the chambers were empty, except for the two reporters who came to cover the meeting.
That's despite the city's legal advertisements, notices in local media and mailings sent out to local agencies, tribes and other interested parties. So far, the city hasn't even received comments from those notices.
Special Projects Coordinator Richard Knoll also reported that the city on March 26 mailed out a request for proposals to four firms, seeking a planning/environmental consultant to prepare the general plan's environmental document. Proposals are due April 23.
One of the meeting's main items of discussion involved a recommendation from the city attorney relating to a proposed sphere of influence area outside of the city's southern limit.
The sphere of influence is an area that extends beyond the city limits where urban growth is anticipated to occur in the future.
More than 700 acres of that proposed sphere of influence area is property owned by the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District, or CLMSD, and includes treatment and storage for the city's wastewater.
Some of that proposed sphere also is private property, including St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Knoll said.
The area had been designated a “specific plan” area, and in 2006 the Lakeport City Council approved an agreement with Boeger Land Development, the firm behind the Cristallago project in north Lakeport, for a golf course and housing development with between 600 and 1,200 homes.
Knoll told the commission at its February meeting that the specific plan language that covered the CLMSD land development “is no longer consistent with city policy,” that the development plan was not going forward and it was the city's intent to remove the language referring to the project from the updated general plan.
At that point, the city was looking at removing the private property from the sphere of influence and giving new designations – such as public and civic use – to the city-owned CLMSD land, which at that time the city was looking at leaving within the sphere of influence.
However, Knoll told the commission Wednesday evening that City Manager Margaret Silveira had provided to city staff a recommendation from interim City Attorney David Ruderman that the CLMSD land should not be included in the city's sphere of influence at this time. That doesn't preclude the city from adding the land to its sphere in the future.
“There are specific reasons for that recommendation,” said Knoll. “Really, what it boils down to, is a desire to streamline the process we're going through from a political and a legal perspective.”
Commissioner Suzanne Russell said she didn't understand the recommendation. “If we own it, why wouldn't we include it?”
Knoll said that just because the city owned it, doesn't mean that it needed to be within the sphere of influence, and that the city attorney and city manager preferred not to see the property included at this time.
“I personally don't have a problem with that,” said Wicks, noting that Ruderman had solid grounds for making the recommendation and that the property had not originally been included in the sphere.
While Knoll didn't go into further detail about the reasons for not including the property in the sphere of influence, the agreement for the CLMSD housing and golf development between the city and Boeger Land Development appears to hold a clue.
That document – which has no sunset clause – required the city to perform a number of steps to move the project forward, with one of those steps being the addition of the CLMSD property to the sphere of influence.
The commission agreed unanimously to not include the property in the sphere of influence based on the city attorney's recommendation.
Language updates, policy considerations
Knoll then brought forward a revised sphere of influence area along Soda Bay Road and S. Main Street.
Previously, the commission had agreed to remove some agricultural land and land in the Manning Creek riparian area from the sphere.
However, due to three parcels being split by that new boundary, Knoll said it was instead suggested that the boundary would go back to being coterminus with Manning Creek. The new line follows the property lines.
Knoll said staff believed they needed to go back and beef up some of the policy language in the general plan's conservation element to protect sensitive areas along the creek.
Knoll and the commission then worked through a series of text amendments and corrections, discussed the addition of a new “urban reserve” section and whether references to the redevelopment agency should be left in the document.
Wicks wanted to wait to take up the redevelopment reference issue. Planning Services Manager Andrew Britton said such references may not be inappropriate in a few years, considering the ongoing efforts at the state level to develop other kinds of redevelopment or infrastructure funding.
Regarding the plan's urban boundary element, Knoll said it supports the argument for future annexations. By the year 2025, it's estimated that Lakeport will nearly 6,900 residents, with most of the needed land for development to be found in existing infill.
Knoll said staff also will work on policy language that speaks to the need or requirement to prepare a cost benefit analysis for annexation, a proposal that was agreeable to the commission.
With the commission's approval, Knoll said he also wanted to go back and incorporate into the city's draft general plan language from the county general plan land use element. “There's some good stuff here,” he said.
Some of those policies relate to open space conservation, stream and creek protection, and development in environmentally sensitive areas.
Those proposed additions and changes will be brought back for consideration at the next meeting, Knoll said.
The commission unanimously accepted all of the proposed changes to the maps and documents.
There was no public comment on the commission's work at the meeting's end.
Speaking to the community, Wicks said, “We would love to see some folks show up. This is your issue. This is something we are trying to do on your behalf. Your input is vital.”
The commission is nearing the end of its work program on the general plan, Wicks noted.
Its next meeting is Wednesday, May 14.
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