How to resolve AdBlock issue? Supervisors move special marijuana cultivation ordinance meeting to larger venue
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A special Board of Supervisors meeting next Monday to discuss an urgency marijuana cultivation ordinance has been moved to another venue in order to accommodate the large crowd that’s expected to attend.
The meeting, which will begin at 9 a.m. Monday, July 9, will be held at Fritch Hall, located at the Lake County Fairgrounds, 401 Martin St., Lakeport.
The board previously had scheduled the meeting to take place in the Little Theater, also at the fairgrounds.
Community Development Director Rick Coel originally was scheduled to present the draft interim urgency ordinance to address marijuana cultivation at the board’s last meeting on Tuesday, June 26.
However, after hundreds of people squeezed into the board chambers – blocking walkways and lining the walls – the fire marshal shut down the meeting.
Rather than make a large portion of the crowd leave, the Board of Supervisors opted to hold a special meeting at the fairgrounds to discuss the matter.
Last month, following the defeat June 5 ballot of the marijuana cultivation initiative Measure D, the board directed Coel to come back with an interim ordinance.
Coel’s report to the board said the proposed urgency ordinance is based on marijuana cultivation advisory committee suggestions.
It would establish a limit for outdoor cultivation of no more than three mature female or six immature marijuana plants on a parcel half an acre or less, and no more than six mature female or 12 immature marijuana plants on residential parcels half an acre or larger.
Coel said it also would prohibit cultivation on vacant, undeveloped properties.
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Lucerne Hotel gets new exterior touches; work continues to prepare for college campus
LUCERNE, Calif. – The Lucerne Hotel got a few new touches to its elegant exterior this past weekend.
On Saturday, June 30, Middletown businessman Rick Hamilton installed three new awnings on large sets of windows on the building’s front, and three small awnings over exterior doors on the back of the building.
Since the county of Lake purchased the Lucerne Hotel – or “The Castle,” as it’s known – in 2010, the 1920s-era building has seen a lot of changes.
The Castle has had a new roof; been power washed; had stucco repaired; had new paint, windows and a new bathroom built on the main floor; new decorative balconies replaced the old ones on its seven story tower; a wooden fence has been built around the building’s grounds; and various landscaping improvements have been made.
The upgrades were necessary to preserve the building, but they have taken on additional importance as the county works with Southern California-based Marymount College on plans to establish a four-year college campus at the hotel.
Last month, both the Board of Supervisors and the Marymount College Board of Trustees unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding to proceed with developing the campus, as Lake County News has reported.
The county and college are now working on the finishing touches to the lease agreement, which would go into effect in July 2013.
The dark blue awnings are another touch that’s improving the look of the building, which sits at the heart of the town, and also preparing it for its new role as an educational center.
The blue awnings, set off against the building’s bright white exterior, also match Marymount’s school colors, which are blue and white.
View the video above for more information about the Saturday project.
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Lake County landfill fees going up
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Fees at the Eastlake Landfill are going up.
Pursuant to a multiyear fee schedule adopted last year by the Board of Supervisors, gate fees at the Eastlake Landfill will be going up starting in July to offset the costs of landfill operations and increasing and costly compliance regulations, according to Lake County Public Services.
The tonnage rates will go up 6 percent from $42.92 a ton to $45.50 a ton, Public Services reported. IN addition, volume rates for loads up to five cubic yards will go up from $6.10 a cubic yard to $6.50 a cubic yard.
The minimum gate fee will remain at $5, and prices will not change for individual materials such as couches ($10), mattresses ($10-$15, depending on size), and 30-gallon bags or cans ($2 each).
Even with the approved increase, the Eastlake Landfill will have considerably lower rates than surrounding landfills which charge tipping fees in the $60-75 a ton range, the agency reported.
Landfill rates will be passed through by the franchise haulers to their curbside residential and commercial customers.
Beginning in July residential customers can expect to see a slight increase to pass through the new landfill increase on their billing statement – about a 1 percent increase – for a standard 32-gallon service in the unincorporated areas.
Commercial customers will see about $3 to $4 per monthly increase for a 4 cubic yard bin picked up weekly for the pass-though cost of new landfill increase.
Customers’ total charges depend on the location, size and frequency of service, Public Services reported.
The transfer station operated by Lake County Waste Solutions in Lakeport also will pass through the landfill increases.
Lakeport Transfer Station rates are as follows: tonnage rate, $55.10 per ton; volume rate, $7.45 a cubic yard; mattresses/couches, $10.40 each; 30-gallon cans/bags, $1.70 each; minimum fee, $5.70.
At the same time the multi-year rate increase was approved last year, the Board of Supervisors approved a five-year contract with Solid Waste Solutions to bring about 65 tons per day of refuse – beginning in January – from the Ukiah transfer station, which they operate for the city of Ukiah.
This contract generates approximately three transfer trucks per day Monday through Saturday, traveling from Ukiah via Highway 29 and Highway 53, Public Services reported.
The money produced by the five-year contract allows the county to return to the same level of disposal and income that was produced in 2006. It replenishes the solid waste reserves that are required for the planned expansion of the landfill into adjacent property already owned by the county. That design process must begin in the next couple of years. The cost for this expansion is estimated at $3 million to $5 million.
Increased revenue also will provide funding for a state mandate that requires all landfills to install a landfill gas system for monitoring and potential conversion of gas to energy at an estimated cost of $3 million.
The revenue from the five-year import contract removes the burden on the local residents and businesses to cover these compliance and expansion costs.
With the import option approved, local ratepayers will see a gradual increase in rates as outlined above to cover only the $500,000 annual shortfall for normal operations.
Had the import option not be approved, the impact on local ratepayers would have been significantly higher, Public Services reported.
To achieve the same level of revenue that will be brought in by import, rates would have had to go up by 95 percent immediately, an option that neither staff nor a majority of board members supported in the fragile economy.
Once the initial five-year contract period has expired, the smaller local increases that were implemented in the previous five years will place the county in a better financial condition to cover its operational and compliance costs and allow the county to determine if an additional five-year import extension is in its best interest, Public Services reported.
For more information on landfill rates, please contact Public Services Department at 262-1760. New rate sheets are being distributed to customers at the Eastlake Landfill.
For more information on curbside rates, contact your franchise hauler.
More information on county franchise haulers, programs and recycling opportunities can be found on the county’s recycling Web site, www.recycling.co.lake.ca.us .
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Clearlake City Council to pursue city sales tax measure; deals blow to countywide effort
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A proposal for a countywide sales tax measure appears to have died after the Clearlake City Council voted Thursday night to pursue its own city-specific measure.
The Lake County/City Area Planning Council has taken the proposal for a half- or one-cent sales tax for road and transportation projects to the Clearlake City Council, Lakeport City Council and the Board of Supervisors this month.
Phil Dow of the Lake County/City Area Planning Council estimated that such a transportation measure could raise $2.5 million for every half-cent assessed.
Yet Dow said even that amount of money won’t stop the “free fall” in pavement quality in Lake County, where recent pavement condition indexes place pavement conditions for both cities and the county in the “poor” category.
Rather, Dow said it will keep pavement from further deteriorating and lead to modest improvements over the next 10 to 20 years.
Area Planning Council officials stressed the importance of having buy in from all of the local jurisdictions in light of the failure of several similar sales tax measures efforts, the last of which was about a decade ago.
Clearlake City Council members on Thursday expressed concerns about where the money ultimately would go if the city participated in the countywide effort.
They voiced their desire to not work with the county but to go it on their own and keep control of their own money, possibly seeking as much as a one-cent tax, a portion of which could be devoted to funding code enforcement activities.
Attempting to address the council’s concerns Thursday night, Lake County Assistant Public Works Director Lars Ewing explained that no decisions had yet been made about how the funds from such a measure would be distributed.
He explained that the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday had directed Public Works staff to come back with an expenditure plan for the proposed measure.
Ewing told the council that there were no mechanisms to allow an unincorporated area to institute such tax measures itself unless it worked with cities to do so.
Without the support of the cities, the county would essentially be locked out, Ewing said.
Clearlake Mayor Joey Luiz – echoing sentiments by fellow council members Joyce Overton and Jeri Spittler – said he was concerned that there was not enough support countywide, and wanted to pursue a citywide ballot measure to keep the money in Clearlake.
“Unfortunately Clearlake holds the cards this time,” Luiz said before the vote, which was 3-0 to move forward with working out the details on Clearlake’s proposed measure.
Council members Curt Giambruno and Judy Thein were absent from the meeting.
Failing pavements
State and federal funding sources for local roads have continued to dwindle, leaving the county and the cities without enough resources to approach all of the county’s road issues.
“We know we’ve got to figure something else out to get revenues for these streets locally,” Luiz said at the Clearlake City Council’s June 14 meeting, when the council initially discussed the countywide sales tax effort.
Based on a survey of several hundred county residents, there appears to be strong support for a sales tax measure for roads.
Approximately 68 percent of those polled said they would support such a measure. Responses from within the city of Clearlake polled even stronger for the tax. The statistical certainty of the polling was above 95 percent.
Polling on the sales tax measure proposal shows that people want the local roads fixed, said Dow. Road and pothole repairs were top priorities.
In his presentations to the councils and the supervisors, Dow pointed to another benefit of the measure; if Lake County were to pass a sales tax measure for roads, it would become a “self-help” county.
Dow said there are 22 self-help counties in California that have such measures in place. He said funds from Proposition 1B are set aside to provide matching funds for the projects those counties’ transportation sales tax measures fund.
He explained that research showed that a third of Lake County’s sales tax comes from visitors to the county, meaning that tourists would help fund the county’s road improvements should a road sales tax pass.
The Clearlake City Council had put off a decision at its June 14 meeting while it waited to see what further action the Board of Supervisors would take.
At the Lakeport City Council’s June 19 meeting, the council voted 3-1 to express its support for the proposal.
Councilman Roy Parmentier – who along with Mayor Stacey Mattina sits on the Area Planning Council – told his colleagues, “We need to back the county and the city of Clearlake.”
He said if they didn’t all pull on the “same end of the rope,” everyone in the county stood to lose out.
Councilman Tom Engstrom felt he was being rushed to a decision, questioning implementing new taxes during a recession.
He said they need money for the lake, roads and sewer improvements. “Where does it stop?”
Dow told the council that the discussions on the proposed measure had started last December, with polling taking place this spring after the Area Planning Council received money for polling.
Engstrom voted no because he said he felt the proposal was being rushed and he didn’t have all the information he needed. Councilmen Bob Rumfelt was absent.
Luiz cited Engstrom’s lack of support as a reason for not going with the countywide effort, saying that it needed the unanimous support of all elected officials involved.
“It only takes one council member with a large following to bring the points down,” said Luiz.
The Board of Supervisors, which hasn’t taken a vote yet to formally support the proposal, is set to discuss the matter again at its July 10 meeting.
The county cannot pursue such a sales tax on its own. With Clearlake now out of the regional effort, the county cannot move forward unless there is a possibility that it can partner with the city of Lakeport.
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Sales tax measures, park smoking ban on Thursday council agenda
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Sales tax measures, an ordinance on a smoking ban in parks and a change in the form of city government will go before the Clearlake City Council Thursday.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 28, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
During the meeting, the council is set to continue its discussion from earlier this month regarding a countywide or citywide tax to improve roads.
The city of Lakeport and the Board of Supervisors have similarly discussed participating in a countywide sales tax measure, which is being considered for placement on the November ballot. On Tuesday, the board directed staff to come back with a proposed expenditure plan for how the funds would be used.
In addition, the Clearlake City Council is considering a sales tax measure to fund code enforcement activities, which have been cut due to budget constraints.
Another measure that could find its way to the November ballot is a proposal to raise the transient occupancy tax – or bed tax – on local motels, resorts and bed and breakfasts.
On Thursday, the council will consider giving city staff direction to meet with local service providers to see if they will support increasing the tax, which currently is 9 percent in the city and brings in about $170,000 annually. The tax runs as high as 15 percent in other parts of the state.
In other business, the council will hold introductions and first readings of two ordinances.
The first would ban smoking in city parks. A majority of the council favored moving forward on the ban at the council’s June 14 meeting.
The second new ordinance would formally change the city’s governing structure from council/city administrator to a council/city manager form of government. The council already has taken a step toward that by naming Joan Phillipe the city’s new manager. When she started work last fall on an interim basis, her title was city administrator.
The council also will hold a public hearing on the Dam Road Extension Plan line adoption, and consider adopting a resolution for the plan line from South Center Drive to 18th Avenue. As part of the discussion, the council will consider accepting the project’s environmental document.
Also at Thursday’s meeting, the council will present a proclamation designating June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
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