LAKEPORT – This month, ballots will begin arriving in mailboxes around the county as voters are asked to approve a proposed Lake County Vector Control benefit assessment.
The assessment will support much-needed improvements in services, equipment and infrastructure for the district, which has been facing declining revenues as the state has taken funds in recent years, said Dr. Jamesina Scott, the district's director.
“We've lost a lot of revenue over the last 10 years and the district has made a choice to continue to maintain the level of services that residents expect and require,” said Scott.
Scott said the district, founded in 1948, has worked to keep up its service despite running on 80-percent of its previous funding levels, which she said has come at the cost of infrastructure.
The district's current budget is $1.3 million. It monitors the 23 different mosquito species found in Lake County – there are 56 total across California – as well as ticks, biting black gnats and other vectors – or insects and other creatures that spread diseases. In doing so, vector control activities play an important role in protecting public health and, with it, the economy, said Scott.
If the assessment is approved, the typical homeowner will pay $13.96 each year per parcel on their property taxes. Undeveloped properties are assessed at a lower rate.
There are 42,000 property owners and 60,000 parcels, and the assessment is expected to gain the district about $500,000 a year.
The money, said Scott, will go directly to the district and not the state, and will create a stable source of revenue that can only be used for mosquito and vector control here in Lake County.
“One of the most important things for people to remember is this can't be taken out of the county,” she said.
She expects the funds will allow them to bring on more staff for better response time and more proactive monitoring, updating for a lab where the equipment is about two decades old, replacing aging vehicles and adding new local testing capabilities.
Last year, when Scott presented the budget, she offered her board a grim picture, said Vector Control Board Member Curt Giambruno, who said of the assessment, “It has to be done.”
Giambruno said there are all manner of health issues to be considered – from West Nile virus to Lyme disease. In his time on the board, he's seen funding levels decline and only a few injections of funding, such as that which came at the behest of the governor to ramp up work against West Nile virus.
With funding reaching a critical point, last September the district sent out a survey to 10,000 county residents, said Scott. They received 2,300 responses – a high response rate – of which 57.3 percent indicated their approval. Of those, 63 percent were single-family homeowners.
Scott said the assessment is governed by Proposition 218 – “The Right to Vote on Taxes Act,” drafted by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association – which requires a 50 percent plus one majority to pass.
Maria Garcia-Adarve, a consultant of SCI Consulting Group, said her company is working on other such assessments around the state. She said the final ballot results usually mirror those of the survey.
She said the ballots will go out this month and are due back June 30. The balloting and accounting is being handled by Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley.
On June 30 the Lake County Vector Control District Board will hold a special meeting in the Board of Supervisors chambers and open the public hearing as required by Prop 218.
At this time the public will have the opportunity to voice their opinions, ask questions and even change their votes; the balloting period will close at the end of this meeting.
On July 15, the results of the mailed ballot will be announced at a special meeting of the LCVCD Board that will be held at the Vector Control District’s office at 410 Esplanade in Lakeport].
Scott has been making the rounds of homeowners associations and community groups, and has made presentations to the Board of Supervisors and the Lakeport City Council. On Thursday, she'll also update the Clearlake City Council. She said she wants to let those different government bodies know about the situation and not be taken by surprise.
Scott said many other vector control districts around the state use benefit assessments, such as is proposed here, to fund either part or all of their operations. Last year Scott came to Lake from Placer County, where a benefit assessment supports that district.
Important work to do year-round
While most people think of mosquito season being only in the warmer months, Scott said Vector Control works on mosquito monitoring and control year-round.
In the winter months, they look for mosquito sources to treat them in order to prevent large numbers later in the year.
Snow melt mosquitoes emerge as adults in March, while treehole mosquitoes – which are fostered in water pooling in the county's oak trees – also emerge in spring. The latter mosquito, which is small and black and white, is most abundant April through July. It's a major vector of dog heartworm and a serious pest for people, and Scott said it generates a lot of service requests from Lake County residents each year.
In May, more of the Culex tarsalis – or Western encephalitis – mosquitoes begin to arrive, which play a major role in spreading West Nile virus, said Scott.
She said it's important to have a good science program to track and detect mosquitoes, and Vector Control does that through a variety of trapping and detection methods, including use of sentinel chickens. The district maintains two flocks in high exposure areas, one in Upper Lake and one near Anderson Marsh in Lower Lake.
Scott said they test the chickens for antibodies of West Nile virus, Western equine encephalitis and St. Louis encephalitis. “When the chickens are bitten by an infective mosquito, they develop antibodies very quickly,” she explained, which gives Vector Control an early warning that there is disease transmission in those areas.
Giambruno, who has been on the Vector Control District Board for nine years, said Vector Control's work includes spraying public areas such as parks to keep them mosquito free. Such work helps keep those summer softball games going, he said.
“I don't know that people even realize that that takes place,” he said.
Vector Control takes an active role in responding to public health concerns, such as when Spring Valley residents reported an onslaught of mosquitoes last June.
Scott said it was an odd situation for the hot, dry area, which is the kind of place mosquitoes don't tend to thrive. So she and her staff went to check it out and began placing traps.
In one night, when they would have expected to trap a dozen mosquitoes, they instead came back to discover 5,000. “So clearly we had a big problem out there,” Scott said.
So they began doing treatments around the community, but Scott said the most important work was to find out where the mosquitoes were coming from, which she believes was from a single emergency flood event due to a release of water from Cache Creek or Wolf Creek.
Last week they treated areas of Spring Valley with a larvacide and continued looking to identify the source of last year's mosquitoes, which Scott believes emerged from a flooding source in the third week of May, 2008.
Scott said they found extraordinary numbers of larval mosquitoes in the upper reaches of Spring Valley Lake – apparently these areas flooded up with the late-season rains that came after their dam level was raised to its usual summer level.
She said they treated the larvae with Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti), a naturally-occurring soil bacterium – a mosquito-specific strain of the Bt similar to the one used by organic gardeners to control caterpillars.
Earlier this week, Scott checked back with one of Vector Control's technicians to back-check their work, and found they had achieved very good control. “Hopefully, mosquito-wise this summer will be more enjoyable in Spring Valley than last summer,” she said.
It's important to address such flood water mosquitoes, Aedes vexans, said Scott. They can fly two to three miles from their origin point, are a horrible biting nuisance and can transmit diseases. She said they've been shown to have a minor role in dog heartworm.
Mosquitoes are a big concern, but not the only one for Vector Control, which also monitors for ticks.
Last year, a new tick-borne Rickettsia was found in some Lake County residents. This strain of Rickettsia is related to the tick-borne disease Rickettsia, which causes illnesses such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, was found locally.
Scott said Vector Control is working with the Centers for Disease Control and the California Department of Public Health Vector-borne Disease Division to see how common and widespread Rickettsia is. There are many tick-borne diseases they don't know a lot about yet, and for which early treatment is critical.
The districts wants to do more consistent monitoring for dog dog heartworm, said Scott, since it impacts so many people in the county. While many dog owners consistently use dog heartworm prevention medication, it's still persistent locally due to the coyotes and foxes.
Education also is a very important part of the district's work, said Scott.
That includes teaching home and property owners about how they can avoid developing mosquitoes in their own yards due to unmaintained water pools, which can give rise to hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes each week that can travel in a five-mile radius. The issue of unmaintained pools has become more of an issue with rising foreclosures, she said.
Scott also has instituted more educational programs for youngsters, with her staff appearing at public events with displays to teach about bugs and health issues.
She said many residents don't know about the district's services, which makes it one of the county's best-kept secrets.
“West Nile virus, I think is a great example of why vector control districts are important,” said Scott, explaining that the US didn't expect the disease, which spread quickly.
And there are other globally important diseases that it's important to monitor, including some you probably haven't heard of – including the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, which has impacted 37 counties, and causes acute joint pain and fever, and is more likely to cause death than Lyme disease.
By reducing the risk of virus transmissions, Scott said residents will be able to better enjoy Lake County. It's also important to tourism, she said. “Everything we do is outdoors-oriented,” she said.
Not getting the assessment, said Giambruno, could result in “status quo or less.”
“We will not be able to provide the same level of service we have now, truthfully,” said Scott, adding that it will be harder to replace trained employees when they leave.
“To find the right kind of employee for this little agency, it's tough,” said Giambruno.
Scott said county residents will get a lot for their money with the proposed annual assessment of $13.96 per parcel. “It's less than a couple of cans of bug spray,” she said.
She added, “Everybody pays a little, everybody benefits a lot.”
For more information about the assessment or to ask Scott to speak to a group, call 707-263-4770.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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