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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Two years after he was hired to lead Lake County’s newly created public defender office, the chief of the department has been hired by Monterey County.

On Oct. 14, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to hire Raymond Buenaventura to be its new chief public defender.

Officials there said they did an extensive search and settled on Buenaventura, who they credited with having a “vast amount” of legal knowledge and administrative service.

The Monterey County employment agreement with Buenaventura is for four years, starting on Dec. 1. He will start at the third of seven steps in that county’s salary range, which totals $273,245 annually.

Buenaventura did not appear or speak during the Oct. 14 meeting.

He also did not respond to several messages left for him by Lake County News seeking comment on his change in jobs.

Unlike the Monterey County Public Defender’s Office, which that county’s website said was established more than 40 years ago, Lake County’s current public defender office began in 2023.

In September of that year, the Board of Supervisors hired Buenaventura, then the mayor of Daly City and an attorney in private practice, to head up the new public defender’s office’s formation.

Lake County had a public defender’s office in the early 1980s, but due to high costs in order to deal with conflicts of interest for the attorneys involved, it was abandoned, as Lake County News has reported.

However, after the release of a report by the Boston-based Sixth Amendment Center, or 6AC, in early 2023, a year and a half after the county hired the firm to conduct an operational analysis of indigent defense services, the County Administrative Office and the Board of Supervisors became determined to form a new statutory public defender’s office despite past issues and concerns about the potential to double or triple defense costs.

To do that, the county made clear its intention to depart from its indigent defense contract model, which meant ending its contract with the firm Lake Indigent Defense.

At the same time, the process to hire Buenaventura was criticized by members of Lake County’s legal community, who faulted it for its lack of transparency.

Attorneys involved with defending indigent clients said they had not spoken to Buenaventura, hadn’t seen him observing cases in court and had no idea who he was before his hire.

His publicly available resume on LinkedIn showed limited experience as a public defender. Prior to being hired to head up the Lake County Public Defender’s Office, his only direct experience with that work was as a deputy public defender in Los Angeles County from 1993 to 1997. The county of Lake’s September 2023 announcement about his hire didn’t include information about previous public defender roles.

When the Lake County Board of Supervisors hired Buenaventura effective Oct. 16, 2023, it was at a salary of $184,225.60 annually.

As of this week, his annual salary totaled $204,360, according to Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein.

At his swearing-in ceremony on Oct. 17, 2023, Buenaventura told the board, “I take this obligation with great humility but also with great confidence that, together, I really do believe we can change and have a premier indigent defense program, a public defender’s office in this county.”

In his time with Lake County, Buenaventura appeared to have personally taken on a number of defense cases, according to Lake County Superior Court documents.

Buenaventura also was the subject of nine sanction cases filed against him in court between September 2024 and July 2025. Sanctions can be leveled against an attorney for a variety of reasons, including procedural violations.

Seven of those cases were vacated, with two of them resulting in Buenaventura paying sanctions at the order of Judge J. David Markham.

Markham has been critical of the public defender staff in court; in one recent instance, he faulted attorneys from the office for reasons including not showing up to court on time, being unprepared — including not having documents the court had given them — and failing to speak to their clients before coming to court.

It’s so far unclear about what’s next and who will lead the fledgling Lake County Public Defender’s Office.

Rothstein told Lake County News in a Monday email, “As of this writing, the Board has not received a resignation letter from Ray Buenaventura, and no recruitment has been initiated.”

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, and on Bluesky, @erlarson.bsky.social. Find Lake County News on the following platforms: Facebook, @LakeCoNews; X, @LakeCoNews; Threads, @lakeconews, and on Bluesky, @lakeconews.bsky.social.

On Wednesday, State Controller Malia M. Cohen awarded 46 counties for the State Controller’s Office Excellence in Reporting Accurate Financial Data for County Financial Transactions Reporting at the 80th Annual County Auditors Conference in Lake Arrowhead.

Lake was among the counties that received the award for the work of the Auditor-Controller/County Clerk’s Office, led by Jenavive Herrington.

“I want to congratulate this year’s award recipients for their outstanding commitment to accuracy, transparency, and accountability,” said Controller Cohen. “County auditors are essential partners in strengthening public trust. Their diligent work ensures that taxpayer dollars are managed responsibly and that local governments have the reliable financial information they need to serve their communities.”

Cohen said that the awards’ theme this year, “The Auditor’s Role in Trust: Unlocking Oversight & Transparency,” reflects the spirit of this recognition. “When county and state partners work together to enhance oversight and elevate financial reporting, we do more than balance budgets — we build stronger, more equitable communities where all Californians can thrive.”

This year, 46 counites received the California State Controller Financial Transaction Reporting Award during the conference.

This award recognizes counties for accurate and timely financial transaction reports to the state controller, essential for generating precise local government financial data, crucial for policymakers, researchers, and constituents across California.

In addition to Lake, the counties receiving the award this year are Alameda, Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Marin, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Plumas, Riverside, Sacramento, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, San Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity and Ventura.

In accordance with Government Code (GC) 12422, the State Controller is required to convene county auditors at least once a year to discuss issues related to county budget procedures, financial transaction reporting, property tax revenue allocation, and to ensure uniformity in the duties of county auditors across the state. These meetings also aim to strengthen the collaboration between the State Controller’s Office (SCO) and county auditors.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara reported he has commissioned the School of Public Health at San Diego State University, or SDSU, to conduct a comprehensive fiscal and economic impact study on California’s Medi-Cal coverage and Covered California expansions for undocumented Californians.

"In an era of constant misinformation, it is imperative to provide data rooted in rigorous, independent analysis rather than politics or partisanship," said Commissioner Lara. "By partnering with one of our leading public research universities, this independent study will be vital for fiscal decision-making in Sacramento, especially as vulnerable communities often face cuts during budget crises. Rather than avoiding this issue, I want to confront it directly with real answers, not rhetoric, to guide policymakers and the next governor with factual data for informed decision-making."

The study will quantify and analyze the financial impacts of these expansions by:

• Evaluating how increased access to health care affects utilization, spending, financing, and labor market outcomes in California.
• Providing policymakers with essential insights into the net fiscal impacts—whether cost-saving, cost-neutral, or more costly in both the short and long term—for individuals, employers, and the state as a whole.
• Informing future health care policy discussions.

The Department of Insurance chose SDSU’s School of Public Health within the College of Health and Human Services to lead this study due to its nationally recognized expertise in public health, health care policy and advanced economic modeling.

The school has a proven track record of translating research findings into actionable recommendations benefiting communities in California and beyond.

“This study offers an important opportunity to understand how California’s expanded access to care has shaped the lives of residents and the state’s health system,” said Wilton Choi, assistant professor of health economics at SDSU and principal investigator of the commissioned study. “Our goal is to provide a clear, evidence-based picture that can help inform future decisions and policy discussions at the legislative level.”

The SDSU research team will employ advanced modeling tools and data integration techniques — including tax simulation models and economic impact models — that are typically unavailable within legislative or state budget offices. These methods will enable the study to extend beyond basic cost estimates, providing a comprehensive view of how expanded health care coverage impacts state and local economies, health care spending and household finances.

This study represents the first thorough evaluation of California’s Medi-Cal expansions to include all income-qualified residents, regardless of immigration status.

The Department of Insurance said the study will provide the first empirical assessment of the effects of these policies since their implementation at the state level, examining changes in health insurance coverage, costs, health care service utilization, financing and payments, as well as labor market participation and employment since the phased expansion began in 2016.

The results will establish a neutral, evidence-based foundation for understanding the costs and impacts of these expansions, informing future decisions regarding health care access and financing in California.

Work on the study will commence this year, with completion anticipated in 2027.

With a little help, your immune cells can be potent tumor killers. Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

The COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5 million lives globally during the pandemic could help spark the immune system to fight cancer. This is the surprising takeaway of a new study that we and our colleagues published in the journal Nature.

While developing mRNA vaccines for patients with brain tumors in 2016, our team, led by pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, discovered that mRNA can train immune systems to kill tumors – even if the mRNA is not related to cancer.

Based on this finding, we hypothesized that mRNA vaccines designed to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 might also have antitumor effects.

So we looked at clinical outcomes for more than 1,000 late-stage melanoma and lung cancer patients treated with a type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors. This treatment is a common approach doctors use to train the immune system to kill cancer. It does this by blocking a protein that tumor cells make to turn off immune cells, enabling the immune system to continue killing cancer.

Remarkably, patients who received either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were more than twice as likely to be alive after three years compared with those who didn’t receive either vaccine. Surprisingly, patients with tumors that don’t typically respond well to immunotherapy also saw very strong benefits, with nearly fivefold improvement in three-year overall survival. This link between improved survival and receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine remained strong even after we controlled for factors like disease severity and co-occurring conditions.

To understand the underlying mechanism, we turned to animal models. We found that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines act like an alarm, triggering the body’s immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells and overcome the cancer’s ability to turn off immune cells. When combined, vaccines and immune checkpoint inhibitors coordinate to unleash the full power of the immune system to kill cancer cells.

University of Florida Health pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, who led the research, explains that mRNA vaccines that are not specific to a patient’s cancer can ‘wake up the sleeping giant that is the immune system to fight cancer.’

Why it matters

Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized cancer treatment over the past decade by producing cures in many patients who were previously considered incurable. However, these therapies are ineffective in patients with “cold” tumors that successfully evade immune detection.

Our findings suggest that mRNA vaccines may provide just the spark the immune system needs to turn these “cold” tumors “hot.” If validated in our upcoming clinical trial, our hope is that this widely available, low-cost intervention could extend the benefits of immunotherapy to millions of patients who otherwise would not benefit from this therapy.

Countless clear vials of liquid with labels reading 'CANCER mRNA vaccine 10 ML' on a table — Combining immunotherapy with mRNA vaccines could allow more patients to benefit from this treatment. Thom Leach/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

What other research is being done

Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, which are used to prevent an infection, therapeutic cancer vaccines are used to help train the immune systems of cancer patients to better fight tumors.

We and many others are currently working hard to make personalized mRNA vaccines for patients with cancer. This involves taking a small sample of a patient’s tumor and using machine learning algorithms to predict which proteins in the tumor would be the best targets for a vaccine. However, this approach can be costly and difficult to manufacture.

In contrast, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not need to be personalized, are already widely available at low or no cost around the globe, and could be administered at any time during a patient’s treatment. Our findings that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have substantial antitumor effects bring hope that they could help extend the anti-cancer benefits of mRNA vaccines to all.

What’s next

In pursuit of this goal, we are preparing to test this treatment strategy in patients with a nationwide clinical trial in people with lung cancer. People receiving an immune checkpoint inhibitor will be randomized to either receive a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine during treatment or not.

This study will tell us whether COVID-19 mRNA vaccines should be included as part of the standard of care for patients receiving an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Ultimately, we hope that this approach will help many patients who are treated with immune therapy, and especially those who currently lack effective treatment options.

This work exemplifies how a tool born from a global pandemic may provide a new weapon against cancer and rapidly extend the benefits of existing treatments to millions of patients. By harnessing a familiar vaccine in a new way, we hope to extend the lifesaving benefits of immunotherapy to cancer patients who were previously left behind.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Adam Grippin, Physician Scientist in Cancer Immunotherapy, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Christiano Marconi, Ph.D. Candidate in Immunotherapy, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

California State Parks, the California Arts Council and Parks California announced Tuesday more than $2.6 million in community grants to organizations statewide as part of their Arts in California Parks partnership, with one of those grants coming to Lake County.

These funds will enable local nonprofit, community and tribal organizations to bring music, dance, storytelling, visual art and cultural programs into parks, transforming them into vibrant spaces that foster creativity, honor cultural heritage and strengthen community connections.

In Lake County, EcoArts of Lake County will lead Rooted in Place, a public art initiative activating four county-managed parks with youth-designed murals and a community-built sculpture at Middletown Trailside Park.

In collaboration with local tribes, the project honors Indigenous history and resilience following the 2015 Valley Fire.

Managed by Parks California, Arts in California Parks is a four-year, $8 million State Parks grants initiative launched in 2024 to support artists, culture bearers, California Native American tribes and local groups in creating art and cultural experiences in outdoor spaces.

By expanding access to the arts in nature, the program helps parks remain welcoming, inspiring and inclusive for all Californians.

This is the second round of grants awarded as part of the program.

“Art brings people closer to the meaning of their parks — not only as places of natural beauty, but as spaces for reflection, healing and shared experience,” said Armando Quintero, California State Parks director. “When creativity meets open space, it deepens understanding of one another and reminds us that parks are for everyone. Through initiatives like Arts in California Parks, we’re celebrating the connection between art, nature and community that defines our state.”

This year, 30 organizations across California were awarded grants ranging from $28,000 to $150,000 from a pool of more than 200 applicants. The specific grant amounts for each organization was not reported on Tuesday.

Projects reflect the diversity of California’s people and landscapes. From large-scale performances to culturally focused installations, each initiative provides opportunities for residents and visitors alike to engage with the arts while deepening their connection to nature and local history.

“At Parks California, we believe that access isn’t just about getting to a park — it’s about feeling a sense of belonging once you’re there,” said Kindley Walsh Lawlor, CEO and president, Parks California. “Arts in California Parks helps make that possible by connecting people, stories and cultures to the landscapes that define our sense of place. These projects reflect our shared vision of public lands as places where creativity thrives, communities gather and every Californian can see themselves represented.”

From murals that celebrate cultural heritage to circus performances in city parks, this new round of grants showcases how creativity and community come together across California.

In addition to EcoArts, A few of the projects underway include:

In Oakland, Trybe Inc. will launch Roots & Rhythms at Clinton Square Park, year-round art and nature programming for youth and families. Activities range from a cultural heritage mural and youth-led garden to summer camps, multicultural art classes and community showcases that celebrate creativity, sustainability and belonging.

In Merced, the city of Merced will transform General Vang Pao Park into a vibrant space honoring the region’s Hmong community through a memorial plaza, statue and mural. The project blends art, recreation and cultural heritage while creating new outdoor amenities for residents in an underserved area.

Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro will host Sustainers of Life, a contemporary art exhibition featuring new works by Indigenous women artists. Presented alongside the Many Winters Gathering of Elders, the exhibition and public programs will highlight Native women’s leadership and connection to the land through workshops, films and field trips for local students.

In Cathedral City, Hope Rising: Esperanza Park Cultural Celebration will transform a new park in the historically underserved Dream Homes neighborhood, uniting residents through a series of mural-making events, music and family art activities celebrating Hispanic and tribal heritage — turning Esperanza (“hope”) Park into a vibrant symbol of belonging and resilience in the Coachella Valley.

In San Diego, Fern Street Circus will launch its Neighborhood Tour 2025, bringing 16 free circus performances and parades to parks in underserved neighborhoods. The tour blends circus arts, puppetry and community storytelling to spark joy and connection while making high quality arts experiences accessible to all.

“Sustainers of Life honors Indigenous women by sharing multidimensional stories woven within broader historical contexts, creating space for both mourning and celebrating the ongoing resilience of those who nurture and protect life, and sustain our connection to the land,” said Cecelia Caro, director of exhibitions at Angels Gate Cultural Center. “Arts in California Parks makes it possible for us to share these powerful voices in a setting where the community can reflect, learn and grow together.”

To learn more about funded projects and upcoming events, visit ArtsInCaliforniaParks.org.

LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lake County Planning Commission this week will hold a public hearing on a cosmetic company’s plans for a facility in Lakeport.

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

The agenda is here.

To participate in real-time, join the Zoom meeting by clicking this link.

The webinar ID is 994 1760 2765, the pass code is 155982.

Access the meeting via one tap mobile at +16699006833,,99417602765#,,,,*155982# or dial in at 669-900-6833.

The meeting also can be viewed on the county’s website or Facebook page.

At 9:05 a.m., the commission will hold a public hearing to consider a proposed major use permit and categorical exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act for Esther Formula USA Corp.

The report to the commission explains that the company is seeking to amend an existing major use permit to discontinue the permitted commercial cannabis manufacturing and distribution and commence processing, manufacturing and distribution of dietary supplements at 4615 Work Right Circle in Lakeport.

Esther Formula began in Korea, and the US corporation was established in 2022, according to the company’s five-year business plan included in the agenda packet.

The staff report explained that while the amendment of the major use permit will not include commercial cannabis uses, the company’s plan does include incorporating cannabidiol — or CBD, a nonpsychoactive compound derived from hemp — products within the product line.

“CBD derived from hemp is not regulated by the County of Lake, rather the manufacturers are required to register with the California Department of Public Health for testing and labeling requirements of CBD products,” the staff report explains.