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According to the National Weather Service in Sacramento (NWS), scattered and numerous thunderstorms will continue rolling through Lake County and much of Northern California, particularly over higher elevations, through next Tuesday.
Temperatures are predicted to top off in the low 70s Thursday and Friday, with a slight warming trend through the weekend, when temperatures should reach closer to normal temperatures with highs in the low 80s by Monday and lows in the 50s the NWS states.
Marble-size hail fell Wednesday at times in Lakeport and other areas in county, although no damage was reported.
The public, large scale and community-based lightning detection network, www.strikestarus.com, received lightning strike reports in Lake County on Thursday, although no fires have been ignited here according to Cal Fire, the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which serves and safeguards the people and protects the property and resources of California.
This same storm system ignited over 20 wildland fires in the San Bernadino National Forest area of Southern California Wednesday, according to California Fire News. The largest of those fires was the Mckinley Fire, which had grown to over 150 acres by 8 p.m. Wednesday.
The NWS forecasts a 40-percent chance of rain and thunderstorms Thursday and Friday, but decreases to a 20-percent chance on Saturday, and a slight chance on Sunday.
A slight chance of rain remains for Monday, according to the NWS, but skies will clear by Wednesday with highs in the mid-80s.
For more weather information, visit the forecast for Lake County weather on our home page.
Email Terre Logsdon at
LUCERNE – Lucerne photographer and artist Ron Keas captured this picture Sunday evening of May's last sunset.
Keas has been busy this week – some of his artwork of President Barack Obama was featured on the front of the Sunday New York Times.
Visit his Web site at www.3dviewmax.com/.
MIDDLETOWN – This week the county's largest tribal casino will celebrate its official grand opening.
The newly expanded Twin Pine Casino & Hotel is a dramatic and ambitious project that tribal officials hope will draw visitors not just from around Lake County but from neighboring Napa and Sonoma, and which will partner with local wineries to make the area a wine-themed destination.
Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians spent $42.5 million on the new 107,000-square-foot casino and hotel, which marks its grand opening this week, from June 4 through 7.
The celebration includes two free shows by comedian Sinbad, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 4 and Friday, June 5, and more than $60,000 in prize giveaways over the four-day period.
The casino opened last Thanksgiving, with the hotel opening in March, said marketing director Phil Davis. The project, which includes the Manzanita Restaurant and Grapevine Bar & Lounge, took 18 months to complete.
There currently are 12 card tables and 520 gaming machines on the floor, said Davis, with plans to raise the number of machines to more than 600 in the future.
The 49,000-square-foot casino is open 24 hours, seven days a week. The hotel, event center and office comprises the rest of the new square footage.
With the expansion completed, Twin Pine now becomes the largest gaming facility in Lake County, about 14,000 square feet larger than the casino and hotel at Robinson Rancheria Resort & Casino in Nice.
Debra Sommerfield, Lake County's deputy administrative officer for economic development, said the county is in negotiations with Twin Pine to pay transient occupancy – or bed – tax on the hotel.
She said Robinson Rancheria and Konocti Vista casinos currently have agreements with the county to make quarterly payments to the county in exchange for economic development and tourism promotion services. Konocti Vista pays $20,000 annually, and Robinson Rancheria $36,000 each year.
Twin Pine's new casino has a larger-than-life feel. Arching over the the gaming floor are massive exposed beams coupled with enormous grape-cluster chandeliers. There's a functioning water wheel as well as a large wooden storage tank. Wine barrels adorn the building, which also features intricate brick and woodwork. The large rounded entryway is meant to simulate the inside of a giant wine tank, said Davis.
Emphasizing its wine theme, one of the important additions to the casino's offerings is a wine bar, which opened last week. There JoAnn Schwartz – who recently came over from Langtry Estate and Vineyard where she worked as tasting room manager – will put on wine tastings and educate visitors about the surrounding wine regions.
Langtry also is producing for Twin Pine its own labeled vintages – a 2007 Chardonnay and 2006 Petite Sirah.
Davis said it's the only casino with a wine theme, and they're hoping to partner with local wineries to promote the region. “We're definitely in the wine business,” he said.
He noted the casino also has a great location to draw visitors from all over the North Coast and elsewhere.
Over at the three-story hotel, there are 60 nonsmoking rooms, including three elegant two-room suites with dining areas and kitchenettes; the suites are large enough to host a few families at once. All of the rooms have free Internet access, refrigerators, safes, in-room movies and video games for children. Even with the casino next door, the building has been soundproofed so that no sound from the gaming floor filters through.
The hotel also has artistic touches created by tribal members, such as photos of Pomo baskets produced and framed by Tribal Vice Chair Mike Nitka.
The casino, hotel and the 15,000-square-foot events center – the latter of which is still under renovation – take up about eight acres of the 110-acre Middletown Rancheria, which was formed in 1906, said Nitka. The tribe currently has 99 adults members and 77 children.
Agreement with Connecticut tribe creates new casino
Nitka said the tribe is very proud of the new project has created 70 jobs, bringing the casino's total job count to about 270, making it one of the south county's largest employers.
The original 15,000-square-foot tent casino was opened in 1994 and named for a twin pine found on the property that tribal members took as a symbol of strength.
Nitka said the tribe decided about five years ago that it wanted to build the new casino and hotel. It had access to bond funding, but Nitka said the tribe was against going that route.
Instead, they went to a tribal finance conference in Las Vegas several years ago, and met representatives from the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut, which owns the 300,000-square-foot Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Conn., and Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre, Penn.
The Mohegan Tribe agreed to underwrite Middletown Rancheria's project, essentially guaranteeing part of the financing, said Nitka. By forming that funding partnership instead of using the bond funding, Nitka said the tribe lessened its loan repayments by 14 years.
There are more plans ahead, said Nitka.
Middletown Rancheria will have an option in two and a half years to refinance, at which time it could increase the number of rooms in its hotel or even add other amenities such as a theater or bowling alley.
What must come first, however, is a parking structure, said Nitka, which would be part of the project's phase two.
He said if the community sees a parking garage go up, they'll know “the other shoe is about to drop.”
Casino officials say they're getting off to a great start.
Davis said the hotel's occupancy has ranged between 50 and 80 percent, far above the 30-percent rate expected for new facilities.
The casino also is doing well, said Davis.
“Even though the economy is so bad, it's the best year we've ever had,” he said, noting an especially strong January and February.
The tribe is taking it slow, knowing it has big mortgage payments ahead of it. But Nitka said they're continuing to provide health and educational services to tribal members.
They've also continued a campaign of community giving, donating more than $100,000 to individuals and groups in the last few years. Last year alone they made $50,000 in donations.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
AB 74, the Middle Creek and Hamilton City Flood Damage Restoration and Ecosystem Act, introduced last December by North Coast Assemblyman Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata) and Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), was approved 75-0, according to Chesbro spokesman, Andrew Bird.
The bill had survived a tough Assembly Appropriations Committee last Thursday, in which hundreds of bills proposing state spending had been knocked out, as Lake County News has reported.
Bird said the bill is an authorization to spend funds from previous voter-authorized bond sales to restore Clear Lake habitat and wetlands.
The bill also would include funds for a levee project on the Sacramento River in Glenn County in Nielsen's district.
Bird said next week the Senate Rules Committee will assign AB 74 to a committee – most likely the Senate Natural Resources Committee, after which it may go to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
He said the bill probably won’t arrive at the Senate floor for a vote for at least a month.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
Lt. Mike Hermann reported Monday that Clearlake Police had spent two weeks looking for 35-year-old Daniel Andrew Cox, who turned himself in last Friday.
Hermann said Cox was wanted for several outstanding warrants including a local traffic warrant and a no-bail, out-of-county probation violation warrant.
Cox's legal problems also allegedly included a confrontation with an off-duty Clearlake Police officer. Hermann said Cox approached the officer, who was with his young child, and started challenging him.
Hermann said officers visited Cox's known associates in an attempt to locate him. On May 29, Cox called and turned himself in.
After his arrest, Cox was transported to the Lake County Jail and housed.
In addition to the work of the officers who were actively searching for Cox, several community members also played a vital role in the arrest.
Hermann said Cox had taken care of his no-bail warrant before his arrest. He has since been released from the Lake County Jail on the other charge.
“Hey! Would you all like to come on the road with us?”
– Aside to crowd by Manhattan Transfer member Alan Paul after the second standing ovation
At some point on Saturday at Cache Creek Casino Resort, during The Manhattan Transfer’s magnificent reading of their 1980 Grammy award-winning mega hit, “Birdland,” it became apparent to me that all the cats mentioned in the lyrics of the song are now in Bop Heaven. I think the last one standing was the innovative percussion pioneer Max Roach, who ascended in 2007.
It indeed seems like only recently that the Transfer sprang to the top of the charts with their gospel-inflected hit “Operator” from their self-titled album in 1975.
Now, they too have achieved a pinnacle of success that the gone-on masters they swing about have attained.
The Manhattan Transfer is comprised of Tim Hauser, Janis Siegal, Alan Paul and Cheryl Bentyne. They have been together since 1972.
The near-capacity crowd at Cache Creek’s Club 88 was thoroughly and joyfully entertained for 90 minutes. The group sprinkled its offerings with liberal doses of their varied repertoire, which includes many styles such as bop, Brazilian bossa nova, pop, jazz fusion, hard-edged New York R&B and doo-wop. You name it, they claim it.
The group’s set list included, but was not limited to, “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Route 66,” “Doodlin’,” “Java Jive,” “A Tisket, A Tasket,” “Tutu,” “Corner Pocket,” “Hear The Voices” (“Bahia De Todas As Contras”), “Groovin’,” “That’s The Way It Goes,” “The Boy From New York City,” “Soul Food To Go,” “Birdland,” “Tuxedo Junction” and “Baby Come Back To Me.”
The rich diverseness of the roots of their material is augmented by the fact that all of the members can easily swing lead on vocals. Let’s see, twice now in this piece I have purposely used “swing” rather than “sing” as the operative noun to emphasize that the group’s groove is firm entrenched in the jazz idiom and branches out from there.
Some of the brilliant vocal highlights of the members include Cheryl Bentyne’s vocals on “Doodlin’” and Janis Siegal’s stunning performance on Ella Fitzgerals’s “A Tisket, A Tasket,” complete with a wah wah trumpet solo created solely from her voice. (Cheryl Bentyne also reprised the Miles Davis trumpet solo with her voice on “Tutu.”) On the tune “Corner Pocket,” which was written by Count Basie’s guitarist Freddie Green, Alan Paul explained that the original harmony that the group has honed over the years was inspired by Basie’s sax section.
Crowd favorites included “Boy From New York City,” “Groovin’” and the doo-wop classic “Gloria” with lead by Paul and metaphysical period bass vocal by Hauser. The group left the stage to a thunderous standing ovation and returned for an encore of two songs, “Tuxedo Junction” and “Come Back To Me.” The group was onstage 90 minutes.
Club 88 is a tasty environ with a seldom seen “bar in the round” design. Early on Hauser quipped, “This is the first time we’ve played a theater with a bar in the middle.”
That prompted Siegal to kiddingly order a Manhattan which set the vibe for intimate interaction with the crowd. The venue is very listener friendly and the atmosphere of the staff very professional.
The Manhattan Transfer Band consists of Musical Director Yaron Gershovsky, keyboards and piano; Steve Hass, drums and percussion; Adam Hawley on guitar; and Gary Wicks on bass. They are a large part of the Transfer’s signature sound.
With close to 30 albums to their credit, The Manhattan Transfer is always attempting to offer up meaty fare to their listening public.
Their next album will tackle the songbook of the great Chick Corea. If you don’t have any Transfer in your collection that might be a good place to start. Then work backwards and get up to speed.
And the next time they are in these parts, check them out. You won’t regret it.
Keep prayin’, keep thinkin’ those kind thoughts.
T. Watts is a writer, radio host and music critic. Visit his Web site at www.teewatts.biz.
