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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport City Council on Tuesday welcomed the city’s first police K-9 in more than a decade.
Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen introduced K-9 Olin to the council at the start of the Tuesday night meeting.
Olin is a year-and-a-half-old sable German shepherd born in Europe, where Rasmussen said most police dogs come from now.
In June, he was paired with his handler, Officer Kaylene Strugnell.
The Lakeport Police Department hasn’t had a K-9 since Max, a Belgian Malinois, retired in 2009.
It’s long been a goal of Rasmussen’s to reestablish a K-9 program.
In 2018, Rasmussen and his department received the council’s approval to apply to the United States Department of Agriculture for $38,000 through its Community Facilities Grant to start the K-9 Unit.
The city received those funds, which paid for a state-of-the-art K-9 patrol vehicle with protection for the dog built into it.
Rasmussen said Lakeport Police needed community partnerships to satisfy the USDA grant guidelines, and it took time to put it all together, with Strugnell selected to be the handler before they had the program.
One of the key partnerships was with the Lucerne Area Revitalization Association, or LARA, which offered to be the fiscal sponsor, Rasmussen said.
LARA was created by the founders of Lake County News to work on community projects. The organization stepped forward in 2020 to take on the fiscal sponsor role when the group originally set to be the fiscal sponsor did not end up forming.
Rasmussen also recognized the critical partnership of the Sean M. Walsh K-9 Memorial Foundation, which awarded Lakeport Police $10,000 to purchase Olin.
The organization was created in 2012 by Cheryl Walsh in memory of her son, Sean Walsh, a military police soldier in the California National Guard serving in Operation Enduring Freedom who was killed in action in the Khost province of Afghanistan on Nov. 16, 2011.
He had wanted to be a K-9 handler when he left the military, a dream inspired in part by his adoption of an abandoned German shepherd named Lena when he was 12 years old.
Olin is the 32nd dog the organization has purchased for law enforcement in the United States, Rasmussen said.
He acknowledged many other businesses that have stepped up to help with the ongoing fundraising that will be needed to support the program. That includes Bruno’s Shop Smart, whose All Access Rewards program allows customers to choose a local charity or nonprofit to receive 1% of qualified purchases. That program already has contributed several hundred dollars toward the K-9 program.
Susie Q’s Donuts & Espresso in Lakeport also is working on a fundraiser for the program, Rasmussen said.
“We’ve gotten a lot of community support,” and that’s what a program like this takes, said Rasmussen.
“So far it’s been pretty phenomenal,” he said, adding they’ve not started serious outreach yet.
Rasmussen presented Olin with his badge, which is just like his human counterparts wear. As K-9 badge No. 1 was presented to Strugnell, Rasmussen asked the young shepherd if he was going to be a good dog and catch a lot of bad guys.
“Olin loves his work. He’s super excited to be here,” said Strugnell, who had scratched his ears and given him head pats during the presentation. She noted he is very happy.
Cheryl Walsh spoke during the meeting via Zoom, thanking Rasmussen for his hard work over two years to raise the $117,000 necessary to put the K-9 program together.
“A lot of times we step in and we’re the tipping point,” Walsh said, explaining that the dog is often a K-9 program’s first piece.
She thanked the community for understanding the dog’s value. It has nothing to do with bite, it’s the sense of smell and ability to understand people, she explained.
While Olin is the 32nd dog the organization has placed, Strugnell is only the fifth female handler their efforts have supported, with Walsh noting that only a very small percentage of K-9 handlers are female.
Walsh noted her organization has assisted several other law enforcement agencies around the region with their K-9 programs, including Sonoma County, Cotati, San Rafael and St. Helena.
She congratulated the city for the new program.
Mayor Kenny Parlet, also attending via Zoom, in turn thanked Walsh. “We’re the ones who should be grateful,” he said.
Learn more about Olin here.
In other business during Tuesday’s three-and-a-half-hour-long meeting, the council received a report on the first phase of a study on a possible recreation center and voted in support of moving forward with the study’s second phase, which will look more closely at possible locations, design, the capital cost estimate and funding sources.
The estimated price tag of about $22 million gave Parlet pause, but community members urged the council to continue studying the proposal.
Ultimately the council voted unanimously to conduct the study’s phase two, also approving the necessary $31,000 budget adjustment.
The Clearlake City Council agreed to move forward on the study’s second phase at its July 15 meeting and the Board of Supervisors is set to get an update on the study on Aug. 10. The three governments had shared the costs of the first study phase and it’s anticipated they will do the same with the next phase.
Also on Tuesday, Jeff Warrenburg, representing the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, and Carlos Fagundes, manager of Bruno’s Shop Smart, presented checks to the city to go toward the July 4 fireworks show. The chamber’s check was for $3,275, while Bruno’s presented a $2,243.51 raised from customers.
The council also received updates on the All Children Thrive Youth Governance Council and on cyanobacteria from Lake County Health Services; held a public hearing and adopted the resolution to confirm and approve the utility billing delinquency list and the associated resolution and direct staff to submit the list to the Lake County auditor-controller for inclusion on the property tax roll; and discussed with Rasmussen the council current procedures for release of a vicious animal after an abatement order and seizure by the Animal Care and Control director.
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