Opinion
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- Written by: Dr. Nicki Thomas
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. — Last month, in cooperation with the California Highway Patrol, Lake County Sheriff, Lake County Probation, Kelseyville Fire and many others in the community, Kelseyville High School staged a car accident in front of the school as part of Every 15 Minutes, a program that introduces the real-life consequences of drinking and driving to our students.
Programs like this are designed to turn statistics into a sense of reality for teens who often feel as though they are immune from the tragedies associated with driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Teen brains work differently than those of adults when it comes to decision-making and problem-solving. Adolescent behavior is influenced more by the emotional and reactive part of the brain, called the amygdala (sometimes called the lizard brain), and less by the thoughtful, logical frontal cortex (the last part of the brain to develop).
This is part of why connecting teens to an emotional experience like the Every 15 Minutes program has a greater chance of penetrating their sense of invincibility than quoting statistics, as compelling as the data is.
The Kelseyville High School Every 15 Minutes event was the culmination of months of coordination and planning by dozens of people, from school personnel to law enforcement, student families, and local business owners.
At the beginning of the school year, Principal Mike Jones and Vice Principal Sarah Frazell started meeting at least monthly with the organizing team, choosing the students who would participate and planning how the day would unfold.
They carefully selected students who represented all walks of life at the high school, whose loss would affect a great many people. The team focused not only on the major logistics, but also on the small details that brought the experience to life.
On the day of the event, all high school students were brought outside to witness the staged car accident. Then, a student was pulled from class every 15 minutes and a red rose was left on their desk. The students pulled from class were sequestered in the gym with no access to phones and no contact with the outside world until the following day. They were just … gone.
The staged events of the day were video recorded to tell the story of a senior ditch day where students who left school to get drunk then got behind the wheel and caused a fatal accident.
The video, which can be viewed above, follows each of the students — the driver who just wants to call his mom as he is booked into county jail, the nurses who work furiously to save an accident victim but ultimately fail, the disbelief of students as their friends are taken away in an ambulance or medical helicopter.
The video also follows as the chaplain visits parents at their home or workplace to inform them that their child has died, asking where they would like to send their child’s remains. Even those who planned the event and knew what to expect felt the emotional gut punch.
Tombstones of those who died were installed on the KHS lawn by a retired volunteer for the highway patrol. At the “memorial” the following day, the whole high school gathered in the gym to the music of bagpipes played by a CalFire employee. Students walked past a casket, which had a mirror and reflected their own face back to them as they placed a rose. Students received a program with an agenda and obituaries of the students who “died,” including photos, personal details, and aspirations like “hoped to study nursing” or “wanted to become a computer engineer.”
The video of the staged event was shared, displaying students convincingly play-acting the decision to ditch school and get drunk, the resulting accident, and everything that followed. Letters from students who “died” were read aloud, as were letters from parents to the children they would never see again. Counselors and mental health professionals were available to support students as they took it all in.
Our KHS principal and vice principal, Mike and Sarah, asked me to thank the donors and volunteers who made this possible.
Mike said, “We had so many good people helping, from the lady at REACH making sure we had the insurance stuff right to the county guys who closed the roads, to Store 24 (Mount Konocti Gas and Mart) who let us land the helicopter on their property. The lady from Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary provided the hearse and made sure we knew how much room to allow for the casket. The nurses and doctor at Sutter were great. All those people made it happen. They guided us. They see it in real time all the time.”
Also, this program wouldn’t have been possible without the generous donations of our major financial sponsors, California Highway Patrol and Adventist Health, and the countless donations of time and money from so many others.
The good news is that since the Every 15 Minutes program was established decades ago, alcohol-related vehicle fatalities have dropped to every 39 minutes. While we would like the fatalities to drop a lot more, we know this program makes a difference. The student who played the drunk driver in the KHS program said the experience changed his life forever.
As graduation day approaches and end-of-year celebrations get going, we wish everyone a safe and joyful time.
Dr. Nicki Thomas is superintendent of the Kelseyville Unified School District.
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- Written by: Don Amador
This tribute is published in response to the recent announcement that Forest Service Chief Randy Moore is retiring from the agency.
I had the privilege to meet Randy Moore shortly after his appointment in 2007 to serve as the Pacific Southwestern Regional forester. After shaking his hand and looking him in the eye, I knew he possessed the character, commitment and leadership skills needed to guide the agency through the difficult challenges it faced.
That first meeting at the Region 5 HQ in Vallejo, CA was with a core team of OHV leadership and our partners at the CA State Park Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Division. The discussions were centered on our shared commitment to ecologically-balanced motorized recreation on Forest Service System lands.
After the initial welcomes, Randy opened the meeting by sharing his background and his willingness to meet with OHV and other key stakeholders but that attendees should be aware of what I called Randy’s Rule” and that was, “If you come to my office with a problem, you also need to come with a solution.”
During the course of his tenure as the Regional Forester (2007-2021), the “Trail Community” deeply valued their relationship with Randy and his management team. And, that his door was always open to the recreation community providing your meeting focused on solution-based discussions.
I also appreciated his shared passion for field trips on an ATV or Dirt-Bike where Randy could review some of the important recreation and trail management challenges facing the agency along with solutions being implemented to address those concerns.
Randy should be commended for the collaborative manner that his office and staff conducted themselves during the 2018-2020 intense wildfire seasons to build agency and partnership capacity to address post wildfire recovery efforts of both motorized and non-motorized recreation facilities and areas damaged by wildfires.
I believe that Randy had the right stuff or blend of field level experience, character, administrative and political acumen, and people skills to succeed both as the R5 Regional Forester and Chief of the Forest Service.
I want to thank him for his 45 year career with the Forest Service and for “Caring for the Land and People” along with his strong commitment to working with agency partners in support of managed recreation and resource management of public lands.
I wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life.
Don Amador has been in the trail advocacy and recreation management profession for 35 years. He is president of Quiet Warrior Racing LLC, past president/CEO and current board member of the Post Wildfire OHV Recovery Alliance, and a co-founder and core-team member on FireScape Mendocino, a forest health collaborative that is part of the National Fire Learning Network. Amador served as an AD Driver for the Forest Service North Zone Fire Cache during the 2022, 2023 and 2024 fire seasons. A northwest California native, Amador writes from his home in Cottonwood, California.
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- Written by: Don Amador
I believe it is critically important for the Trump Administration and the Musk-led DOGE effort to find waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government to address this country’s debt crisis. Certainly, one strategy is to review government agencies and programs that may or may not provide an important public benefit.
The Forest Service mission statement is “Caring for the Land and Serving the People.” That important goal has historically been implemented by competent leadership that directs a resource and recreation “boots on the ground” workforce to actively manage forested lands via thinning trees and brush with chainsaws, piling fuels with dozers and excavators, controlled burning, or by employing goats for grazing. Sometimes multiple methods are used in the same area, for example, piling small dead fuels and then burning those piles.
The agency states in a 2023 publication that it manages the largest trail network in the world that has more than 160,000 miles of trails that could circle the globe six and a half times! And, those trails provide vast opportunities for visitors to connect with nature via a hike, mountain-bike, ATV, dirt-bike, SxS, dual-sport or adventure motorcycle, 4WD, e-bike, horseback, snowmobile, snowshoe and more.
The recent data also shows increasing numbers of people are seeking out National Forest System trails. In addition, it states those trails are managed and maintained through the efforts of agency employees, tribes, partners, volunteers, contractors, permittees and communities — collectively known as the “Trail Community.”
I believe the current “probationary or seasonal” layoffs were mistakenly focused on axing the recreation and forestry technician corps composed of lower wage GS 3/4/5 on-the-ground employees and wrongly targeted a key workforce that was — to even the most casual observer - not the obvious source of fiscal bloat.
Rather, the main culprit needing fiscal reform can be found in the Regulatory Compliance Industrial Complex that is composed of D.C or regional-based high level career GS 13/14/15 siloed staff that leaves nothing but crumbs to support mission critical on-site recreation and resource management efforts.
Reformers should also take a hard look at a Forest Service cultural approach that over-emphasizes “too many cooks in the kitchen” with multiple layers of approvals and oversight that reduce effectiveness and efficiency. They should emphasize a strategic and systematic approach — including “directed reassignments” — to reduce even the higher level positions with an objective of getting the right positions placed where they are most needed.
I believe that budget reduction efforts should focus more sharply on bloated high cost regulatory administrative/legal systems that rob scarce funds from a field workforce that provides key services to directly benefit our natural resources, rural economies and the American public.
Don Amador has been in the trail advocacy and recreation management profession for 35 years. He is president of Quiet Warrior Racing LLC, past president/CEO and current board member of the Post Wildfire OHV Recovery Alliance, and a co-founder and core-team member on FireScape Mendocino, a forest health collaborative that is part of the National Fire Learning Network. Amador served as an AD Driver for the Forest Service North Zone Fire Cache during the 2022, 2023 and 2024 fire seasons. A northwest California native, Amador writes from his home in Cottonwood, California.
- Details
- Written by: Lake County Community Action Project
Recall in 2016, ballot Measure C proposed a tax on cannabis cultivation within our county. The measure promised a tax rate of “ … $1.00 per square foot of an outdoor cultivation site, $2.00 per square foot of a mixed-light cultivation site, and $3.00 per square foot of an indoor cultivation site, subject to annual Consumer Price Index increases, and generating annual revenue of approximately $8 million per average year …”
With these promises, on Nov. 8, 2016, Lake County voters overwhelmingly voted “Yes” on Measure C. So what has happened since then?
In 2018, the county approved a new cannabis ordinance, and the floodgates opened. Permits of all sizes were presented and approved by the Lake County Planning Department and the Planning Commission. Today, more than 150 approved cultivation projects are in Lake County, totaling over 20 million square feet. Based on Measure C’s rates, cannabis should provide over $24 million of annual tax revenue to help our communities.
But the county isn’t realizing $24 million in tax revenue — not even close. After 2020, the cannabis industry began spiraling relentlessly downward — not just in Lake County but statewide and nationwide. In an effort to support the failing industry, in 2022 the Board of Supervisors approved a temporary 50% cannabis tax cut and applied it to the smaller canopy area, further reducing anticipated revenues – this was extended through December 2025. Still, the county should be realizing about $11 million in cannabis tax revenue.
But the county isn’t receiving $11 million in cannabis tax revenue — again, not even close. At the Jan. 28 governance presentation to the Board of Supervisors, Lake County's Administrative Office reported 2023-24 cannabis tax revenue of $2,582,315 — a vast reduction from what was promised by Measure C. Equally concerning is that the expenditures to manage cannabis were $2,517,150 — a difference of barely $65,165.
Now we are at a crossroads. In the county treasurer’s Aug. 27, 2024 report to the Board of Supervisors, active cultivation is down 80%. Many growers opt out, scale back or abandon their sites altogether.
The dream of cannabis-funded success promised by Measure C is gone. As a community we need to be proactive and take a fact-based approach — are we better off placing our limited staff resources in more productive areas?
We request the Board of Supervisors hold a public meeting to address these financial discrepancies, look at the cannabis revenue generated versus the expenses and determine if the county is receiving the return on investment the voters expected.
Also, as 70% of the permits in Lake County are for small cannabis growers — many struggling to make it work — we request a robust discussion on how to restore their prosperity. With another 100 pending small and large cannabis applications in the queue, does the county run the risk of dooming these remaining growers to failure?
Lake County Community Action Project’s founding members are Peter Luchetti, Angela Amaral, Jesse Cude, Holly Harris, Margaux Kambara, Tom Lajcik, Chuck Lamb and Monica Rosenthal.
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