LAKEPORT, Calif. – In a brief Tuesday evening meeting the Lakeport City Council unanimously approved two new city ordinances.

The council gave votes of approval on the second readings of two ordinances – one governing placement and construction of secondary accessory dwelling units in residential zoning districts and another establishing an administrative citation policy and correlating appeal procedure.

There was no public comment during either of the short public hearings the council held on the ordinances during Tuesday night's 40-minute meeting.

The ordinance on secondary accessory dwelling units had its first reading on Jan. 15.

It would allow the structures on parcels with a minimum size of 7,500 square feet – down from a previous minimum requirement of 9,000 square feet – in low density, medium density and urban reserve zoning districts.

Planning Services Manager Andrew Britton said owners of smaller parcels can seek a minor use permit if they want to construct the units.

The city had previously reported that adjusting the minimum parcel size down had made another 200 city properties eligible for the structures, which are an important means of affordable housing.

The administrative citation ordinance, the first reading of which was held Feb. 5, is meant to establish a procedure to get compliance on municipal code violations and to bring people into compliance with the terms of project conditions agreements.

City Attorney Steve Brookes told the council Tuesday that the citation procedure typically only would be used after discussion with property owners. If there isn't compliance, citations and fines could result. A hearing board will be established to hear citation appeals.

“We want compliance,” said Brookes.

He said the goal was not to generate money from the citations but, at the same time, the city doesn't want to waste staff time in trying to get people to follow city code.

Brookes said city staff would hold a workshop at a future meeting to explain how the process will work and how it will be used.

Councilman Kenny Parlet agreed with the workshop idea, noting that people need to see examples of what violations would be, with the process laid out ahead of time.

In other council business, a discussion that the council had planned to have regarding a letter from the Lake County Local Agency Formation Commission – which urges the city to work with the county to overcome disagreements over the proposed South Main Street annexation – was postponed due to City Manager Margaret Silveira's absence.

Mayor Tom Engstrom said Silveira had been ill and he told her to stay home. He said they would continue the discussion to a future meeting after she has recovered.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council will consider a response to a request that it work out differences with the county over an annexation project and hold two public hearings when it meets this week.

The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.

Items listed on the council's consent agenda – a slate of items usually accepted with one vote at the start of the meeting – include ordinances, warrants, meeting minutes, building permit report and authorization to contract with Wilda Shock for economic development services for the city of Lakeport.

City Manager Margaret Silveira will ask the council for direction regarding a letter the city received from the Lake County Local Area Formation Commission, also called LAFCO.

As Lake County News previously reported, LAFCO planned to send a letter to both the city and the county to ask that they work to resolve a longstanding conflict over a city proposal to annex a 197-acre area along the South Main Street and Soda Bay Road corridor, which also is the county's most lucrative sales tax generating area.

Also on Tuesday, the council will hold two public hearings.

The first is for an ordinance revising the regulations related to the placement and construction of secondary accessory dwelling units in the city’s residential zoning districts.

The second public hearing is for an ordinance adding new chapters to city code to establish an administrative citation policy and correlating appeal procedure.

The council also will hold a closed session to discuss a case of anticipated litigation.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

021913 Lakeport City Council Agenda Packet by LakeCoNews

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lakeport’s Westside Community Park continues to be a place of new amenities and upgrades, as the latest construction projects move forward.

Dennis Rollins, chair of the Westside Community Park Committee – which has a lease with the city of Lakeport for the park – said the group spent about $100,000 last year on phase two improvements at the park, located at 1401 Westside Park Road.

He said there are other phases that are well into the future in the park’s development.

The funds that made the latest work possible were a mix of a grant from the Stewardship Council and locally raised donations, Rollins said.

“It’s been a community effort,” with many local businesses stepping up to offer free help, Rollins told the Lakeport City Council last month during one of his periodic updates to the city.

Rollins and the committee recently asked for, and received, Lakeport City Council support for renaming the playing fields in the second phase for the late Jane Keeling Barnes, a longtime youth advocate and community leader.

The Keeling-Barnes Family Foundation as well as Jane Barnes’ husband, Victor, have been the largest private financial supports of the park, donating about $90,000, Rollins told the council in a Jan. 3 letter.

According to her biography, Barnes was a fourth generation Lake County resident, born and raised in Lakeport. Her children – Wilda Shock, Ken Barnes, Pete Dorsett and Susie LaPointe – have continued her tradition of community service and involvement by supporting the park as well as other worth local projects.

Rollins told Lake County News that among recently completed projects in the park’s seven acre phase two are two new backstops at the baseball fields, each built for just under $5,000 – there eventually will be a total of four – and earlier this month they were able to work on dugout construction.

The committee hopes to have everything but the dugout seating done before the spring construction season starts April 15, Rollins said.

The 60 acre park’s current amenities include a walking trail, a dog park which Rollins noted is “quite popular” and attracts visitors from around the county, phase one soccer fields and a phase two soccer field that will be usable this summer, with the baseball field expected to be ready by July, according to Rollins.

Phase two also includes the area that is slated to be a skateboard and BMX track, projects that are still in the future, Rollins said.

Among the proposed goals which Rollins said the committee will consider for the coming year are putting up the memorial sign for the Jane Barnes Field, purchase and installation of dugout benches, grading of the baseball infields, adding infield dirt and completing the infields, and covering the spectator area with grindings to create a hard surface.

They also plan to install bleachers they received from Clear Lake High School, extend a water line to the park’s south end and get some drinking fountains, Rollins said. The Lions Club plans to work on improving the park’s horseshoe area this year as well.

With all of this work, “Our finances are getting pretty low,” said Rollins.

He said the park recently had a donation from one of its longtime supporters, Henry Anderson, a Lakeport resident and Pearl Harbor survivor.

However, more funds are needed to keep the park going forward.

Anyone interested in donating can contact Rollins at 707-263-7091.

For more about the park, visit http://www.westsidecommunitypark.org/ .

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

As a rule, a trustee who follows the written instructions of a settlor of a revocable trust is not liable to the future death beneficiaries after the settlor's death.  

Now, California's Supreme Court has decided that the death beneficiaries may hold the trustee responsible for any breach of trust while the settlor was alive (Estate of Giraldin, No. S197694, Dec. 20, 2012).

What does this mean?

This decision means that any successor trustee serving in place of a settlor who resigned or was replaced due to incapacity faces a dilemma.

On the one hand the trustee’s duty is to manage the trust assets solely for the benefit of the incapacitated settlor while he or she is then still alive. That is, while the settlor is alive the trustee owes no duty to the future (death) beneficiaries because their rights only come into existence when the settlor dies.

On the other hand, however, once the settlor dies the death beneficiaries may then sue the incapacity trustee for alleged breaches of trust that affected the settlor while alive.

Till now anyone concerned that the incapacity trustee improperly managing the trust assets would have petitioned for a court supervised conservatorship.

Once appointed, the conservator would hold and be able to exercise the incapacitated settlor's powers to revoke the trust, to replace the trustee and to sue the successor trustee for breach of trust.

Alternatively, if the settlor died before any breach of trust was so remedied the family could seek redress for such wrongs through probate court proceedings concerning the decedent’s estate.

Now California's Supreme Court has found such remedies to be nonexclusive.

Future beneficiaries can simply wait till after the settlor has died. They can then petition to hold the incapacity trustee both accountable and responsible for any breach of trust affecting the deceased settlor while alive.

What does that mean?

It means that the death beneficiaries step into the deceased settlor's shoes.

While this may not seem unreasonable in theory, it has important implications.

Families where distrust or hostility exist or later arise between the incapacity trustee and any of the death beneficiaries may become embroiled in lawsuits after the settlor’s death.  
 
As a result of the greater risk of lawsuit, persons named as successor trustee are more likely to decline to serve as successor trustee.  

Moreover, persons who do serve as trustee during the settlor’s incapacity will have to guard against possible future litigation by any hostile death beneficiaries.

Thus, trustees are now more likely to petition for court instructions to approve the use and investment of trust assets. These court petitions cost both money and time.

As a further result, people while competent to engage in estate planning will need to consider and anticipate possible future litigation by disgruntled death beneficiaries against their incapacity trustee.

First, their trusts may be drafted to provide more trustee discretion and protections for their incapacity trustees.

Second, family members who are likely to cause trouble after the settlor's death may simply not be included as trust beneficiaries in order to deny them future standing to sue the trustee for breach of trust.

These excluded persons might either receive nothing or else be named as death beneficiaries on non probate assets kept outside the trust – such as pay on death accounts or designated death beneficiary accounts.

The Giraldin decision has far reaching implications. The incapacity trustee's enhance exposure to liability after the settlor dies will affect the drafting of trusts, the willingness of persons to serve as trustee, and the administration of trusts during a settlor's incapacity.  

Undoubtedly some families will see the need to revise their estate planning in the wake of this decision.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 707-263-3235. Visit his Web site at www.dennisfordhamlaw.com .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – In a unanimous Tuesday vote, the Board of Supervisors decided to transfer the overview of the Office of Emergency Services from the sheriff's office to the County Administrative Office.

County Administrative Office Matt Perry asked the board to approve the proposal, which evolved from an assessment completed last fall in the wake of the Wye and Scotts fires.

Perry had taken that report, which can be seen below, to the board at its Dec. 18 meeting, at which time he had asked to form a task force of different department representatives to look at the recommendations. Supervisor Rob Brown called it a “very candid and thorough report.”

In December, the board approved Perry's request to form the task force, as well as his desire to begin a recruitment for a full-time OES coordinator.

The report, prepared by consultants Dave Driscoll and Mary Moreland, made several recommendations, among them, filling the OES coordinator position, updating the county's emergency operations plan, giving more training to county staff, and offering the transition from the sheriff's office to Perry's as an option.

The report found that of 11 counties surveyed around the region – as well as one in Southern California – only Lake had the sheriff holding oversight over OES, chairing the county disaster council and acting as director of emergency services. The other counties, with the exception of Yolo, had established a checks and balances approach to emergency management, the report explained.

The report suggested amending county ordinance to establish a more even distribution of responsibility and authority among county departments for emergency management.

The consultants noted that the county's three most recent emergency operations plans – from 2003, 2008 and 2009 – all stated that the Board of Supervisors does not exercise any command or control over emergency operation. It also was proposed that county code be amended to make the board chair the disaster council chair.

In addition, the report raised concerns that there had been no focus on mitigation and preparation, with – among other things – no emergency preparedness drills having taken place for several years, and confusion about the function and location of the county's emergency operations center.

On Tuesday, Perry said he felt moving OES to the County Administrative Office would help raise the profile of OES.

Perry wasn't suggesting the transition happen immediately. “I see this kind of rolling out gradually.”

He said the sheriff's office has agreed to continue to handle grants for the time being. The interviews for the OES coordinator position will take place later this month, and the transition won't be complete until after that position is hired.

Brown said he appreciated Perry being willing to take on the responsibility of OES, as Perry also has had staffing issues. He said he believed that having Perry personally head up the department will show to other county departments its priority.

Sheriff's Capt. Chris Macedo, who along with Brown had sat on the task force to look at OES restructuring, told the board, “The sheriff's office concurs with this recommendation.”

He said they decided it's best to move OES to the oversight of another department head. Macedo said he believed Perry's office has the ability to bring everyone together on OES.

“The sheriff's office is excited with this transition,” said Macedo, adding that they looked forward to assisting with the transition, which he believed would go smoothly.

Supervisor Denise Rushing moved to approve the transfer, which the board approved 5-0.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

121812 Lake County Board of Supervisors - OES Report