How to resolve AdBlock issue? Lakeport City Council to meet April 3
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council will meet this Tuesday for a brief public session before a closed session to discuss litigation and employee negotiations.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The main items for Tuesday night include the consent agenda and a closed session.
Consent agenda items include ordinances and warrants, minutes from the council's regular March 20 meeting and a special meeting held March 23, and an application from DOSECC Inc. to use the city's Third Street boat ramp to assemble and launch a core drilling platform.
In closed session, the council will discuss one case of pending litigation, Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 and Lakeport Police Officers Association v. City of Lakeport, Lakeport City Council (Lake County Superior Court Case No. CV410232) and negotiations with the Lakeport Police Officers Association.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
040312 Lakeport City Council Agenda Packet
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Search is on for new Lake County poet laureate
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – As part of the local celebration of April as National Poetry Month, a new poet laureate for Lake County will be selected by current Poet Laureate Russell Gonzaga as well as the esteemed poet laureate emeritus.
After approval from the Board of Supervisors, the term of service lasts two years.
The selection will be made on the merit of the applicants poetic works, publishing history, community involvement, public speaking/reading, and demonstrated leadership abilities.
The deadline for the completed application package is Monday, April 16.
The final three applicants will be interviewed and will read at the final selection event on Saturday, April 28, at the Lake County Arts Commission Gallery in Lakeport.
For information and application guidelines contact Lake County Poet Laureate Russell Gonzaga via email at
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County seeks board, committee applicants
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Community members wanting to be involved in local government are invited to apply for a number of positions on local boards, commissions and committees.
The Board of Supervisors is seeking applicants to fill vacancies or seek reappointments on the following advisory boards.
Area 1 Developmental Disabilities Board: Two vacancies, two persons with disabilities or the parents or guardians thereof.
Big Valley Groundwater Management Zone Commission: Three vacancies, one member at-large, two in water districts category.
Building Board of Appeals: Two vacancies, supervisorial districts one and two.
Child Care Planning and Development Council: Five vacancies, two in consumer category, one public agency, one discretionary appointee and one childcare provider.
Clear Lake Advisory Committee: Four vacancies, one in wildlife, one in water quality, one in fishery and one in aquatic plants categories.
Emergency Medical Care Committee: Five vacancies, one in the community college district, one paramedic representative, two EMT representatives and one private ambulance company.
Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee: One vacancy in the conservation/wildlife industry.
Heritage Commission: Two vacancies, supervisorial districts two and five.
In-Home Supportive Services Advisory Committee: Three vacancies, two in the senior consumer category and one disabled community representative.
Lower Lake Waterworks District One Board of Directors: One vacancy.
Mental Health Advisory Board: One vacancy in the consumer category.
North Bay Cooperative Library Advisory Board: One vacancy, general membership.
Section 8 Resident Advisory Board: Two vacancies, general membership.
Other Advisory Board Seats may currently be vacant. For a comprehensive list, please see the posted roster outside the Clerk of the Board Office.
For applications, or if you have questions regarding a vacancy on one of these advisory boards, please contact the Clerk of the Board’s Office at 707-263-2371.
Applications are also available online at www.lakecountyca.gov, or at the Lake County Courthouse, Clerk of the Board’s Office, Room 109, 255 North Forbes St., Lakeport, or downloaded below.
All memberships on the above referenced advisory boards are voluntary.
Lake County Advisory Board Application- Details
- Written by: Lake County News reports
Lake County CAN! takes on issue of hunger in Lake County and abroad
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A monthlong event aimed at addressing hunger in Lake County as well as other parts of the world will culminate later this week as volunteers gather to sort, pack and deliver food to those in need.
March was chosen for the debut of “Lake County CAN!” The inaugural event is an effort of the United Methodist Church.
Lake County is a focus for the drive, according to organizers, because of its high poverty and hunger rates, and issues with food insecurity – or lack of a stable food source throughout the year – for many of its residents.
“It’s a local project, it’s a global project, and it’s one that can change the world,” Lake County CAN! organizer Rev. Shannon Kimbell-Auth of United Christian Parish in Lakeport told the Board of Supervisors earlier this month after receiving a proclamation in honor of the effort.
Kimbell-Auth said Lake County CAN! is stocking the seven Methodist Church food pantries around Lake County, putting together 50 hygiene bags for women at the Freedom House domestic violence shelter, and assembling 150 food bags which will be distributed by the Lake County Office of Education to children who don’t have access to food on the weekends when they’re not in school. They’re also collecting 20,000 meals to send overseas.
The food that has already been collected already is helping address the local need, she said. “Rather than holding onto that food we’ve already started feeding people out of it and stocked three different pantries.”
Kimbell-Auth said Tuesday that about 300 volunteers already were signed up to assist with packing food this Friday and Saturday.
Kimbell-Auth said 18 percent of Lake County residents live below the poverty level, 26 percent of local children live below the poverty level, and 50 percent of local children live in food insecure homes.
Nearly half of the county’s children also are eligible for free or reduced meals, according to Lake County CAN! organizers.
“It would be a different story if they were just hungry, but they live in a community where there’s not enough food,” Kimbell-Auth told county leaders this month.
The effort begins
Last June, all of Lake County’s United Methodist pastors attended a Methodist conference in Sacramento, where the issue of hunger was discussed. She said the group of local pastors wanted to address hunger both locally and globally, “And that’s how we came up with Lake County CAN!”
All seven United Methodist churches in Lake County have food pantries, and at least one of them is open every day of the week, said Kimbell-Auth, whose church has the largest of the pantries, with a need that has increased significantly in recent years.
Likewise, Pastor Voris Brumfield of the Middletown Methodist Church said they are seeing increases in the number of requests for help with food.
Brumfield said the church holds a once-a-month food giveaway on the fourth Wednesday, in which they assist about 30 families.
During the rest of the month, they provide emergency food to between 10 and 20 families, and also provide food for the homeless in the Clearlake area.
In addition, over the last few months the church has been hosting free community dinners from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays, and 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sundays, plus breakfasts on Sundays and Thursdays. The Thursday breakfasts are being discontinued due to low attendance.
Brumfield said the community is welcome to those meals.
Each of the church food pantries operates differently, but all have relied on donations from parishioners as their primary source of food, Kimbell-Auth said. Lake County CAN! is setting out to change that.
The local Methodist churches have begun collaborating their food pantry efforts, with ministers meeting once a month to discuss the food-related needs they are seeing in their respective communities, Kimbell-Auth said.
“Every one of our programs has been strengthened,” she said.
Not only are they able to do more, “The other benefit is you don’t feel so hopeless” in the face of so much need, Kimbell-Auth said.
A community collaboration
Everyone from county officials to school children have been challenged to take part in Lake County CAN!, whose sponsors include United Methodist Communications, Konocti Christian Academy, Stop Hunger Now, Lakeport Early Lake Lions Club and Lake Family Resource Center.
Donation barrels have been set up around the county, including one that can be found on the first floor near the entrance of the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport.
Earlier this month, County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox surprised Brumfield with a large bag of nonperishable food.
Children at Konocti Christian Academy have donated 1,005 food items. Terrace Middle School children donated $1,000 as a result of a drive they held at school.
“We have created a community collaboration,” Kimbell-Auth said.
However, hunger isn’t just a local issue, and Kimbell-Auth said the goal is much broader than just helping Lake County residents.
Part of the goal of “Lake County CAN!” is to gather 20,000 meals to distribute exclusively to schools in a Third World areas, she said.
Each of the seven Methodist churches in Lake County and Konocti Christian Academy are contributing $500 to bring in the semi trucks needed to ship the 20,000 meals, Kimbell-Auth said. The children at the school have been collecting pennies and dimes since last September in order to cover their donation.
The reason for distributing the 20,000 meals through schools, said Kimbell-Auth, is that in some poorer parts of the world, parents won’t send children to school because they want them working or gathering food.
By making food available at schools, children are more likely to get the chance to attend, and she said that in turn leads to education and an opportunity to bring change – and an end to poverty – to their own countries.
“We’ve taken an interesting amount of flack for that,” said Kimbell-Auth.
“We need a broad understanding of the hunger politic,” she said, explaining that whether people are hungry in Lake County or in Haiti, they’re all connected.
“I can do something about both,” said Kimbell-Auth, explaining that Lake County CAN! is bringing people together to educate them about, and engage them in, the fight.
As the monthlong effort moves into the final week, the donations are coming in, according to both Kimbell-Auth and Brumfield.
“It’s looking exceptionally well,” Brumfield said.
In the south county they have so far collected about 25 cases of different kinds of food and have 50 volunteers, Brumfield said.
“We feel this is a wonderful initial start for this program,” Brumfield said.
How you can help
On Friday, March 30, and Saturday, March 31, Lake County CAN! volunteers will gather to sort, pack and deliver the food donations they’ve collected this month, including the 20,000 meals to help Stop Hunger Now eliminate hunger globally.
The meal packing will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 30, at Upper Lake United Methodist Church, 604 Clover Valley Road; and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 31, at Clearlake United Methodist Church, 14521 Pearl Ave.
Community members are encouraged to bring food donations to the Lake County CAN! packing events on March 30-31, or they may drop off nonperishable food items at other sites throughout Lake County.
The greatest need right now, said Kimbell-Auth, is for protein-rich foods, including canned stews and chili, canned tuna and canned meat like Spam; whole powdered milk; peanut butter; and fortified breakfast cereals.
Churches will accept donations during operating hours at the following locations:
- United Christian Parish: 745 N. Brush St, Lakeport;
- Upper Lake United Methodist Church – 604 Clover Valley Road, Upper Lake;
- Clearlake Community United Methodist Church – 14521 Pearl Ave., Clearlake;
- Kelseyville United Methodist Church – 3810 Main St., Kelseyville;
- Clearlake Oaks Community United Methodist Church – 12487 The Plaza, Clearlake Oaks;
- Lower Lake Community United Methodist Church – 16255 2nd Street, Lower Lake;
- Middletown United Methodist Church – 15155 Armstrong Ave., Middletown.
Once Lake County CAN! is over for this year, there are other plans in the works to keep the momentum going, Kimbell-Auth said.
“Poverty and hunger don’t end March 31 when our event is over,” she said.
A new partnership with the Lake County Fair will offer free admission to people who bring four food items each on the opening day of the fair, which takes place in late summer, Kimbell-Auth said.
She said the idea is based on a very successful food drive done at the Fresno fair. Local fair officials offered to hold a similar event here.
For more information, and to register to volunteer visit www.lakecountycan.org .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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Planning commission, supervisors hold housing element hearing
LAKEPORT, Calif. – At the end of an hour-and-a-half-long joint hearing with the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday afternoon, the Lake County Planning Commission voted to accept an update to the county’s housing element and recommended the supervisors accept it.
The supervisors will consider that proposal at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, April 3.
The document, required by state law, assesses housing needs and related constraints, and includes a resource inventory, according to county documents. The last housing element was adopted in December 2004.
Work on the “lengthy and complex draft” of the document has been under way for more than a year, and has received the approval of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, said county Community Development Director Rick Coel.
Senior Planner Kevin Ingram said the last hearing on the document was held in September 2011.
During the public hearing, the bulk of the comment came from members of the advisory committee, including Andrew Rossoff and Linda Hedstrom.
Rossoff, referring to the 2004 housing element update, said the county learned then how not to adopt an update, with controversy arising regarding a lot of high density affordable housing that had been proposed for the Clearlake Oaks area.
The state Department of Housing and Community Development had given the county a requirement to rezone 50 acres for high density housing, and he was unsure if that had been accomplished.
Coel said it was done in September 2009 as part of the Shoreline Area Plan, and was meant to meet the state requirement.
Once the housing element is completed, Coel said county staff will find 31 acres to propose to replace part of that proposed acreage in the plan. That acreage has to have road and sewer access, and be located within community growth boundaries.
He explained the state demand that such land be identified for potential development is really a “phantom requirement.”
While the property could be developed, that’s not the desire either of the property’s owner or the community, Coel said. “It’s probably not the right thing to do.”
Supervisor Denise Rushing said the land in question also is the only available wetland in the area that can be restored, and drains from High Valley.
Rossoff was concerned that there should be policies laying out how constraints to development – such as lack of sewer and water – would be addressed.
Rushing said those kinds of issues go before the board all the time, and she said she couldn’t imagine that if one of the proposed sites had a major housing project, that they wouldn’t find a way to serve its sewer and water needs.
Hedstrom wanted the county to consider small measures to encourage improvements to homes that would allow more people to “age in place.”
‘We have no kind of transitional housing here for seniors,” between home and convalescent hospitals, which Hedstrom said is “crazy” for a place like Lake County, which is a county with one of the highest senior populations in the state.
She said there is no reason for the county not to advocate for people to stay comfortably, and affordably, in their own homes, and she suggested workshops for building inspectors on ways to make homes more livable for the elderly.
Hedstrom also encouraged the county to “make the time” to work on affordable housing.
Planning Commissioner Cliff Swetnam moved to find no significant environmental impact based on the initial study of the housing element update and recommended its approval to the board, which passed. Swetnam then moved for the commission to accept the update, which also passed.
Both votes were 4-0. Commissioner Olga Martin Steele was absent.
The board’s final approval is expected to be granted next month.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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