Homeowner Chris White receiving the keys to his home in Clearlake, Calif., from Habitat for Humanity Lake County President Richard Birk as his guests look on on Saturday, March 30, 2019. Courtesy photo. CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Habitat for Humanity Lake County has dedicated the 31st house it has completed for local residents in need, this time for a veteran.
On Saturday, March 30, Habitat for Humanity Lake County welcomed Chris White into his new home in Clearlake at a dedication attended by Habitat staff and White’s friends.
Food and fellowship were shared as White received the keys to his home. The Clearlake Grocery Outlet was on hand to stock the shelves of the new home and help get White off to a great start in this new phase of his life.
White is a disabled military veteran who was, prior to his connecting with Habitat, living in a travel trailer that was about to be condemned. Hearing his plight, Habitat was eager to work with him and find a way to help.
“I’m completely overwhelmed by everything Habitat has done for me,” White said, emotion in his voice. “I’d be homeless now if not for this chance. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to have a place, never thought I’d see this day. I can’t thank everyone enough for all the chances, all the help, all the work that’s been done.”
If you are a qualifying, low-income resident of Lake County and are interested in the possibility of owning your own home, please contact Habitat for Humanity Lake County.
Call the office at 707-994-1100, Extension 106, to speak directly to our Homeownership Program staff, or come by the office at 15312 Lakeshore Drive, Clearlake, Tuesday through Thursday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. for a pre-application and to discuss how you too might qualify for homeownership.
The newest quilt block on the Lake County Quilt Trail is “Anne’s Quilt,” in memory of Anne and Bill Barquist. Photo courtesy of the Lake County Quilt Trail. KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – “Anne’s Quilt” is the newest quilt block to be added to the Lake County Quilt Trail.
It has been installed on the pump house near the headstone of Anne and Bill Barquist in the Kelseyville Cemetery at 3375 Bell Hill Road.
Anne Barquists’s son, Erik Barquist, and his wife Julie have sponsored “Anne’s Quilt,” which replicates a quilt Anne made for Julie.
Anne Barquist was a prominent figure in Lake County. She operated Quilted Treasures, a quilting and fabric store in Kelseyville, was known for her skills as a piano instructor, her leadership in the local 4-H club, her volunteer activity in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lakeport and she raised guide dogs.
She and her husband, Bill, resided in Finley. Anne Barquist was a supporter of music and donated to the Allegro Scholarship Fund as well as the local symphony.
The Lake County Quilt Trail is an agricultural and tourism project designed to promote community pride.
The 4-foot by 4-foot quilt block was drawn and painted by the Lake County Quilt Trail team.
The Lake County Quilt Trail is a group of dedicated volunteer quilters, graphic artists, painters, writers and carpenters.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Silver Foundation will host its third annual Senior Summit on Saturday, April 27.
The summit, a special day dedicated to Lake County seniors and elders, will be held at Twin Pine Casino and Hotel Event Center in Middletown from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Entry is free to seniors age 60 and over.
The popular event has exceeded expectations in prior years, organizers said.
“We are planning for 250,” said event organizer Olga Martin Steele. “We can add a few more but we are asking folks to pre-register by April 19 to ensure we have enough food and seats.”
Online registration is the best way to sign up but those who prefer can register by calling 707-998-1302. Another way to register is by filling out paper applications, which will be available at most senior centers in the county.
The theme for the third annual summit is health and wellness. The Silver Foundation has again partnered with Hospice Services of Lake County, which is taking reservations for the vendor fair booths.
“We’ll have 25 booths with information to help us stay healthy in our silver years. Every booth will be loaded with useful information you must have,” said Foundation Board member Gene Paleno.
Those interested in reserving a booth should contact Kristy Weiss of Hospice Services at 707-263-6270, Extension 112, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
“The event will feature a fabulous lunch, entertainment by the Clearlake Clikkers and the Mendo-Lake Singers, information booths, raffles every 30 minutes, Inspirational Senior Awards, a keynote speaker and more,” said Silver Foundation founder and president, Jim Steele. “And for those who enjoy a game of chance, the event hosts, the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians, are throwing in some free play to boot.”
“I attended the first and second summits. It’s just wonderful to see our silver generation treated with such honor and respect,” said Rae Eby-Carl, also a foundation board member said. “I will be at the registration desk along with other volunteers to greet everyone that comes through the door. I can’t wait to see all the familiar faces as well as newcomers.”
Inspired by seniors for seniors, the day is one of a kind.
“There’s nothing else like this in Lake County,” said Jim Steele. “One of the event highlights is when we give out the Inspirational Senior Awards. It gives you a sense of how much seniors have done for, and given back to, the community.”
For information on how you can support the Silver Foundation or to sponsor this year or next year’s Senior Summit, call 707-998-1302 or visit www.lakecountysilverfoundation.com.
This graphic shows the ring moons inspected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in super-close flybys. The rings and moons depicted are not to scale. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. New findings have emerged about five tiny moons nestled in and near Saturn's rings.
The closest-ever flybys by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal that the surfaces of these unusual moons are covered with material from the planet's rings — and from icy particles blasting out of Saturn's larger moon Enceladus.
The work paints a picture of the competing processes shaping these mini-moons.
"The daring, close flybys of these odd little moons let us peer into how they interact with Saturn's rings," said Bonnie Buratti of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Buratti led a team of 35 co-authors that published their work in the journal Science on March 28. "We're seeing more evidence of how extremely active and dynamic the Saturn ring and moon system is."
The new research, from data gathered by six of Cassini's instruments before its mission ended in 2017, is a clear confirmation that dust and ice from the rings accretes onto the moons embedded within and near the rings.
Scientists also found the moon surfaces to be highly porous, further confirming that they were formed in multiple stages as ring material settled onto denser cores that might be remnants of a larger object that broke apart. The porosity also helps explain their shape: Rather than being spherical, they are blobby and ravioli-like, with material stuck around their equators.
"We found these moons are scooping up particles of ice and dust from the rings to form the little skirts around their equators," Buratti said. "A denser body would be more ball-shaped because gravity would pull the material in."
"Perhaps this process is going on throughout the rings, and the largest ring particles are also accreting ring material around them. Detailed views of these tiny ring moons may tell us more about the behavior of the ring particles themselves," said Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker, also at JPL.
Of the satellites studied, the surfaces of those closest to Saturn – Daphnis and Pan – are the most altered by ring materials.
The surfaces of the moons Atlas, Prometheus and Pandora, farther out from Saturn, have ring material as well – but they’re also coated with the bright icy particles and water vapor from the plume spraying out of Enceladus. (A broad outer ring of Saturn, known as the E ring, is formed by the icy material that fans out from Enceladus' plume.)
The key puzzle piece was a data set from Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, which collected light visible to the human eye and also infrared light of longer wavelengths.
It was the first time Cassini was close enough to create a spectral map of the surface of the innermost moon Pan. By analyzing the spectra, VIMS was able to learn about the composition of materials on all five moons.
VIMS saw that the ring moons closest to Saturn appear the reddest, similar to the color of the main rings. Scientists don't yet know the exact composition of the material that appears red, but they believe it's likely a mix of organics and iron.
The moons just outside the main rings, on the other hand, appear more blue, similar to the light from Enceladus' icy plumes.
The six uber-close flybys of the ring moons, performed between December 2016 and April 2017, engaged all of Cassini's optical remote sensing instruments that study the electromagnetic spectrum. They worked alongside the instruments that examined the dust, plasma and magnetic fields and how those elements interact with the moons.
Questions remain, including what triggered the moons to form. Scientists will use the new data to model scenarios and could apply the insights to small moons around other planets and possibly even to asteroids.
"Do any of the moons of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune interact with their thinner rings to form features similar to those on Saturn's ring moons?" Buratti asked. "These are questions to be answered by future missions."
Cassini's mission ended in September 2017, when it was low on fuel. Mission controllers deliberately plunged Cassini into Saturn's atmosphere rather than risk crashing the spacecraft into the planet's moons. More science from the last orbits, known as the Grand Finale, will be published in the coming months.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.
This montage of views from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows three of the small, ring moons inspected during close flybys: Atlas, Daphnis and Pan. They're shown here at the same scale. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
Officers took part in an Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training in Lakeport, Calif., during the first week of April 2019. Photo courtesy of the Lakeport Police Department. LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week, dozens of law enforcement officers from around Lake and Mendocino counties participated in an active shooter response training in Lakeport.
The Lakeport Police Department coordinated the training with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which taught two 16-hour Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, or ALERRT, sessions at Clear Lake High School, which is closed for spring break.
Participants were trained to respond alone or with a group of officers to an active shooter call with a priority of stopping the threat.
This training is part of the ALERRT program, based at Texas State University, and was certified for credit in this state by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST.
Approximately 55 officers from 12 local and state agencies attended this training including Lakeport Police Department, Clearlake Police Department, Ukiah Police Department, Willits Police Department, Cal Fire law enforcement for the Lake and Mendocino County area, California Department of Fish and Wildlife for Lake and Mendocino counties, California State Parks – Clear Lake Sector, California Highway Patrol – Clear Lake Area, Lake County District Attorney’s Office Investigations, Lake County Probation Department, Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
The Lakeport Police Department said this week’s training is the fourth such training class held in Lakeport over the past 10 months in which approximately 115 local officers were trained.
The agency thanked the FBI, ALERRT, POST, all attending agencies as well as the Lakeport Unified Safety Committee, Lakeport Unified School District and Clear Lake High School “for making this valuable training happen to further our ongoing effort to keep our schools and communities safe.”
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A team of researchers with the University of California, Berkeley, are planning a focus group this month as part of an effort to understand how Spanish-speaking residents evacuated during last year’s Mendocino Complex.
The focus will take place from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 13, at the Lakeport Courthouse Museum, 255 N. Main St.
To be eligible, participants must have been evacuated or received an evacuation order for the 2018 Mendocino Complex – which included the Ranch and River fires that began in July and continued until September – and they must speak Spanish as the primary language at home.
Participants will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis; it’s limited to one participant per household. For those chosen to participate, each person will receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card; lunch also will be served.
Stephen Wong, a UC Berkeley PhD candidate and part of the team that is conducting the focus group, said their goal is to hear the evacuation stories of Spanish-speaking individuals and develop strategies that could uniquely assist them in future disasters across California.
“We’re conducting four focus groups across California,” Wong told Lake County News.
The groups are focused on how people make decisions in evacuations. He said participants are asked what they did – if they evacuated or not – and what notifications they may have received.
“We want to get a better picture of how Spanish speakers navigated the evacuation process in the Mendocino Complex,” Wong said.
The other focus groups included low-income residents of Southern California impacted by the 2017 fires and two focus groups in Napa and Sonoma counties for the October 2017 fires for those age 65 and older and those with disabilities. Those focus groups already have taken place, he said.
Wong said they also are conducting ongoing, in-depth surveys for the 2017 Southern California fires and the 2018 Carr fire in Redding.
He said Spanish speakers may have challenges in communications and so may not understand evacuation orders.
If there aren’t contingencies in place for multiple languages, “It creates a real challenge,” said Wong, adding that it also leads to difficulties for finding resources for recovery.
Public resources often aren’t enough to shelter or evacuate everyone, and Wong said the research is looking at how the “sharing economy” – peer to peer or business to peer transactions that occur over the Internet, including private companies like Uber and Lyft – can be leveraged in such situations.
He said it opens the possibility of partnerships between public and private entities to build stronger neighborhood networks, and how a sharing economy could produce a more equitable response to a disaster.
The team will build statistical models to determine what influences a person to evacuate or not. Wong said they also will look at why people choose a public shelter, the home of a friend or family member, or why they choose to go to certain locations, such as the Bay Area or out of state.
They’re also hoping to have a specific journal article that relates to the sharing economy and whether it’s equitable or not in such situations.
Wong said the group completed a report on Hurricane Irma that goes in depth into a similar kind of modeling, looking at evacuee behavior and offering key takeaways and agency recommendations. Among their findings so far is that evacuation orders actually work.
He said the different aspects of the research will come into a final report that will be presented to policy makers and agencies as well as be published. It will document the 2017 and 2018 wildfires and the evacuation process.
Wong said an idea behind the research is that agencies can implement these ideas directly into emergency response plans and evacuation plans.
The Spanish announcement for the focus group is below.
Cuéntenos Su Historia –
Grupo Focal sobre la Evacuación del Incendio del Complejo de Mendocino.
Investigadores de la Universidad de California, Berkeley están llevando a cabo un grupo focal en el área del condado de Lake y Mendocino sobre la evacuación del incendio del complejo de Mendocino (Ranch Fire y River Fire).
Grupo Focal: Hispanohablantes Sábado, 13 de abril: 12:00 p.m. a 2:00 p.m. Lakeport Courthouse Museum: 255 N Main St, Lakeport, CA 95453
Requisitos 1) Haber evacuado o recibido una orden de evacuación durante el incendio del Complejo de Mendocino en 2018. (Ranch Fire o River Fire en julio) 2) Hablar español como el idioma principal en casa.
Cada persona elegida para participar recibirá una tarjeta de regalo de Amazon por $100. Los participantes serán seleccionados por orden de llegada. Solo un miembro por hogar. También se servirá almuerzo.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Pacific storms are moving over Northern California, bringing more rain, mountain snow and high winds.
The National Weather Service said a series of storms are lined up over the Pacific, ready to move into Northern California over the next few days.
Forecasters said the heaviest rain and mountain snow is expected on Friday afternoon as the strongest of these systems passes through.
A forecast of heavy winds and rain has led the National Weather Service to issuing a wind advisory that will in effect through 8 p.m. Friday.
The advisory covers Lake County’s northern mountain area.
It calls of winds up to 45 miles per hour, which could lead to downed trees, power outages and difficult driving conditions, the agency said.
The Lake County forecast also anticipates winds elsewhere in the county, with gusts above 25 miles per hour.
At the same time, rain and possible thunderstorms are predicted for Friday, with rainy conditions forecast to continue through Tuesday evening.
Conditions are expected to be clear from Tuesday evening through Wednesday night, with chances of showers on Thursday.
Daytime temperatures through Thursday will range from the high 40s to low 50s over the weekend, and into the high 50s and low 50s next week. Nighttime temperatures will range from the low to mid 40s through next week.
Clear Lake’s level continues to remain in “monitor” stage, which is above 8 feet Rumsey, the special measure for Clear Lake.
Early Friday the lake was above 8.15 feet Rumsey. Its level has continued to decline in recent weeks, despite continued rain.
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.
California drivers continue to shift their focus away from the road and onto their phones, despite the risks associated with multitasking behind the wheel.
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and the California Office of Traffic Safety, or OTS, the California Highway Patrol and Impact Teen Drivers, or ITD, will be working together throughout the month to educate drivers on the importance of traveling free of distractions, as well as cracking down on drivers who violate the state’s hands-free cell phone law.
“Cell phones are working against us in the fight against distracted driving,” OTS Director Rhonda Craft said. “The hope is that a combination of education and enforcement will drive people to change bad behaviors for the better.”
According to preliminary data from the CHP, 66 people were killed and more than 6,500 injured in 2017 from distracted driving related crashes.
In 2018, the CHP issued more than 109,000 citations for violations of the hands-free cell phone laws.
On April 4 and April 18, the CHP will conduct a statewide enforcement effort to discourage distracted driving.
“Through a combination of high visibility enforcement efforts, a focused education campaign, and cooperation from the motoring public, preliminary data shows the number of inattentive drivers involved in crashes is on the decline,” said CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley. “Ultimately, the goal is to increase voluntary compliance with the law, while keeping people safe on the road.”
A 2018 observational study by the OTS on driver cell phone use found that approximately 4.5 percent of drivers were seen using a cell phone, a nearly 27 percent increase from 2017, but down from 2016, when 7.6 percent of drivers were observed using a cell phone.
“Clearly, there’s more work to be done to curb distracted driving,” Craft said. “The observational survey gives us an idea on where we stand and that we still have our work cut out for us.”
Impact Teen Drivers partners with traffic safety organizations across the state to educate California’s newest drivers on the dangers and consequences of reckless and distracted driving. Driver distraction is the primary cause of crashes involving teen drivers.
“Each year, we could fill eight large yellow school buses with the number of teens we lose to preventable car crashes in California alone,” Impact Teen Drivers Executive Director Dr. Kelly Browning said. “The first week of April is also California Teen Safe Driving Week, and it’s a good time to remind everyone that we need to always keep two hands on the wheel, two eyes on the road, and most importantly keep our mind focused on our driving. Remember to be an alert and engaged passenger at all times – after all, fifty percent of the teen driving fatalities last year were passengers being driven by another teen driver.”
Distracted driving laws have been on the books since 2008. The CHP and the OTS remind drivers that under the 2017 hands-free cell phone law, drivers are not allowed to hold a wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device while driving a motor vehicle.
Signs supporting Lakeport Fire Protection District’s Measure M parcel tax have been placed around the district ahead of the May 7, 2019, all-mail ballot. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Fire Protection District is preparing to put a fire tax measure before voters next month, a step officials have said is necessary to put the district on a solid financial footing.
Measure M ballots are going out to thousands of voters next week. The all-mail ballot election is set for May 7, but ballots postmarked by that date will be accepted up until May 10, according to interim Lakeport Fire Chief Rick Bergem.
The measure requires a two-thirds supermajority – or 66.7 percent – yes vote to pass. If it does pass, it will go into effect on July 1.
The need for more district revenue came into sharp relief in September when the district board voted to approve a budget that called for laying off three full-time firefighters, less than two months after the city had been completely evacuated due to the River fire portion of the Mendocino Complex, as Lake County News has reported.
District officials said Measure M will allow them to restore the positions eliminated last year and improve response times to a growing call volume. In 2018, Lakeport Fire responded to more than 3,000 emergency calls; that’s compared to the 938 calls it had in 1997, the year that voters last approved a district parcel tax.
Should the measure not pass, the district said staffing levels will remain low and homeowners and business owners could face increased insurance rates or denial of coverage. That’s because the Insurance Services Office is due to assess Lakeport Fire in 2020. That agency creates ratings for fire departments and their surrounding communities, with the ratings calculated based on how well-equipped fire departments are to suppress fires in the community.
Bergem said the district serves about 10,000 residents in an area covering nearly 45 square miles – extending from the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff to the top of the Hopland Grade and Cow Mountain, and then down to Argonaut Road.
Since the board approved the budget cuts last year, two new members have taken their seats – Alan Flora and Bill Gabe – and the district submitted an application for a federal grant that would help restore the laid-off positions.
In response to its budget shortfall, the district also crafted Measure M. In February, the district board held a public hearing and approved Resolution 1819-13, calling for the all-mail ballot on May 7.
The abbreviated statement of the measure to appear on the ballot says: “To decrease response times and increase fire protection/emergency medical services by increasing staffing at fire stations; and to maintain/replace outdated firefighting equipment, shall the Lakeport Fire Protection District Measure repealing existing fire protection services taxes and levying a tax of $6.14 per benefit unit annually on each parcel of property in the District be adopted, estimated to raise about $1,206,000 annually; until ended by voters, with independent community oversight and all money staying local?”
The effort now is centered on getting the word out about the measure, which no one filed an argument against for the ballot.
For their part, members of the firefighters’ union along with volunteers have been rolling out a public outreach campaign that includes campaign signs, t-shirts and information pamphlets.
They also are going door to door to speak to voters and answer their questions, with mailers also set to go out to district residents.
“They’re taking care of all of that now right because the district can’t campaign, basically,” said Bergem.
Bergem said that, so far, the response has been very positive. They’ve had some community members come in to ask questions, including one man who came to query the board at its March meeting about how the properties are assessed.
In an effort to answer questions that community members have brought up so far, Flora created a draft five-year revenue projection and expenditure plan, which can be seen below.
It’s meant to offer both transparency and accountability, with the additional intention of giving the community an idea of what the district would likely be focusing on if the measure passes, he said.
The measure allows for a consumer price index adjustment not to exceed 3 percent annually. Flora’s projection includes a 2-percent annual CPI increase, which he said he thinks is realistic over time.
That expenditure plan forecasts $1,206,000 in the first year, rising slightly each year to total $1,304,413 in year five.
Among the key items covered by the new funding source would be six additional personnel, adding two people to each shift. There also will be equipment upgrades, an engine replacement in year three – budgeted at $200,000 but likely to cost more.
It also will address deferred maintenance at the district’s stations, including the main station, Station 50 in downtown Lakeport. The building is owned by the city of Lakeport but the district is responsible for maintenance, and it needs a new roof.
Station 52, located in north Lakeport, could be operational with some upgrades. Flora said it’s just being used for equipment storage currently.
Under the expenditure plan, $148,760 would be added to district reserves in year one, $228,913 in year two, $58,979 in year three, $213,951 in year four and $68,821 in year five.
If passed, Measure M wouldn’t begin to bring in new revenue for the district until next year. Until then, the district is still facing major budget challenges, including a projected $300,000 shortfall in the current fiscal year and the anticipation of a lot of work to balance the budget by the time the fiscal year ends in June, according to Flora’s tabulation at the March board meeting.
As a result, the board is holding monthly budget discussions as part of its regular meetings and directed Bergem not to make any expenditures that aren’t critical through the fiscal’s year end.
Whether the district receives approval for Measure M also will likely impact the board’s decision on whether or not it should sell its Finley station – which is currently being used by the Clearlake Gleaners food bank.
The district board discussed the possibility of selling the station – as well as a lot of surplus equipment – during its March meeting. Bergem also has suggested the station could be retained, renovated, reopened and staffed by volunteers, which could benefit insurance rates for residents of that part of the district.
How the parcel tax works
If passed, Bergem said Measure M would supersede two previous, separate parcel taxes – one for properties in Lakeport’s city limits, one for those in the unincorporated county – passed in 1997. “Everyone will be paying the same.
Measure M will be levied up to a maximum rate of $6.14 per “benefit unit, which Flora explained is based on the use of the property.
He said a single family residence is classified as 30 benefit units. “So the vast majority of residents would pay $184.20.”
Flora explained that if you have a house on a quarter acre lot or a house with three barns on five acres the payment would still be $184.20. He said it doesn’t change for a 1,000 square foot house or a 5,000 square foot house.
Commercial property owners pay per square foot and vacant land – or ag land pay – per on a sliding scale based on acreage, he said.
“There are some critics to this type of calculation but it’s what most districts use as far as I know,” Flora said.
Residential units including single family dwellings, mobile homes, mobile homes in parks, duplexes would be billed at 30 units, or $184.20 per year, while multifamily units or apartments would be 15 units, or $92.10 per year. Convalescent and rest homes would be 70 units, or $429.80.
For commercial and industrial or institutional properties, units would be as follows:
– 0 to 999 square foot buildings: 50 units, $307 per year. – 1,000 to 4,999 square foot buildings: 70 units, $429.80 per year. – 5,000 to 9,999 square foot buildings: 100 units, $614 per year. – 10,000-plus square foot buildings: 150 units, $921 per year. – More than one business in a building: 75 units per additional unit, $460.50 per year. – Hotels and motels: 0 to 10 rooms, 25 units, or $153.50; more than 10 rooms, one unit, or $6.14, per room over 10.
Vacant properties billing rates are:
– Up to 5 acres: 10 units, $61.40 per year. – 5.01 to 10 acres: 15 units, $92.10 per year. – 10.01 and above: 20 units, $122.80 per year.
How the election will be handled
Fire district officials have had concerns about the mechanics of the upcoming election, which will be overseen by the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office.
That agency currently is being overseen on an interim basis by County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson as the second recruitment for a new registrar just ended.
In December longtime Registrar Diane Fridley retired and her expected successor, Deputy Registrar Maria Valadez, was appointed by the supervisors on an interim basis. Huchingson had attempted in October to keep Valadez from being appointed on a permanent basis by a proposed change to educational requirements that the board didn’t accept. Valadez then took a better job offer in Mendocino County in February.
Flora, who last month became Clearlake’s new city manager and who has worked for the county of Lake, raised issue with the county’s ability to conduct the election in the midst of the registrar’s issues.
“It's just very concerning that they're going to be able to handle this measure successfully,” he said at the March district board meeting.
He said he has expressed his concerns and frustrations to the County Administrative Office.
“Obviously it’s a big problem if they can’t uphold their responsibility and make sure it gets administered correctly,” he said.
In March, another concern arose – a change in voting equipment.
The county of Lake has used DFM Mark-A-Vote, an optical scan paper ballot voting system, since 1983.
In February, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla began the process of withdrawing certification or conditional approval of voting systems that were not tested or certified under the most recent state security standards, which included Mark-A-Vote, effective Aug. 27.
Ahead of that deadline, on March 19, the Board of Supervisors approved purchase of Hart InterCivic’s Verity Voting 3.0.1 Voting System, as Lake County News has reported.
At that meeting, Karen Clakeley, Hart InterCivic’s director of sales and strategic accounts, said the company would have a team of three people on site in the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office for the first local election.
Both Bergem and Flora told Lake County News that they had not had clarification from the county on whether or not it was in fact planning to go forward with using the new equipment or would use the Mark-A-Vote system for one final time for the Measure M election.
“It seems crazy to me to rush into using the new equipment on this tight of timeline, but I don’t know the plan,” Flora said.
Huchingson confirmed to Lake County News this week that the Hart InterCivic equipment will be used for the May 7 election, with Hart staff to be on site to assist.
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. – This month the candidates for Lakeport Unified School District superintendent are set to be interviewed, with district officials expecting to announce an appointment by month’s end.
Interim Superintendent Patrick Iaccino was appointed in January shortly after the district board released Superintendent April Leiferman from her contract without cause.
He’s led the recruitment for a permanent district superintendent, and reported that the effort has drawn a good field.
“We have 10 applicants,” he said.
“I paper screened all of them,” he added, and the 10 – all of whom he called “very good” – have been forwarded to the first round of interviews, expected to begin by the end of the week of April 8.
“Nobody knows who they are except me,” said Iaccino.
Iaccino, who retired for the Upper Lake Unified School District’s superintendent job, said he has relied on the same process that he used to hire his successor, Dr. Giovanni Annous.
The process includes a committee of 19 people – composed of community members including parents, teachers, classified staff and student board members – who Iaccino said will conduct the first round of interviews.
Iaccino said he will meet with the panel on April 10 to go over procedures for selecting finalists.
That 19-member panel will pass the finalists on to the board of trustees, which in turn will conduct the final interviews, expected to take place around April 16 or 17, Iaccino said.
The board will make the final decision, with the board to name its selection at its regular meeting on April 24.
“Everything’s right on schedule,” said Iaccino.
The new superintendent will come into a district where Iaccino has been able to resolve some key personnel issues, including hiring a new chief business officer.
He said he’s hired Jacque Eischens to fill that critical role.
Eischens was working at the Lake County Office of Education, which had a booth next to Lakeport Unified’s booth at a job fair. Both were conducting recruitments, Iaccino said.
During the fair, “We got to talking,” and Iaccino found out she had been an interim chief business officer a number of years ago for Middletown Unified. She also completed the chief business officer certification program with the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.
She also has worked with Escape Technology, a Roseville-based company that produces an integrated business system for educational organizations, he said.
To help Eischens settle in, Iaccino said he is keeping on a business officer consultant until late December or early January. That will allow them to work together and accomplish a number of business-related items.
Iaccino said he also has settled contract negotiations with both the certificated and classified union groups for both this year and next, and has approval from the board.
He said they are waiting for the unions to ratify the agreements, after which they will make a formal announcement.
“I was pretty happy with that,” Iaccino said.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Behavioral Health Services said April is Alcohol Awareness Month, and it’s reaching out to let community members know that help is available for those struggling with addiction.
Alcohol is an extremely powerful, highly-addicting drug. Excessive alcohol consumption increases people’s risk of injuries, violence, liver disease and cancer.
An alcoholic will continue to drink ignoring potential negative consequences such as relationship problems, job loss and/or legal issues.
Knowing there is a stigma attached to being labeled an alcoholic prohibits many individuals from seeking the help they truly need in order to recover.
This month, Alcohol Awareness Month, spotlights the reduction of stigma so often associated with alcohol addiction.
Alcohol addiction is a progressive and chronic disease, and can be fatal if left untreated. However, people can and do recover. It is estimated that nearly 20 million individuals are living successful lives in recovery from alcohol use.
Todd Metcalf, administrator of Lake County Behavioral Health Services, said Alcohol Awareness Month affords the opportunity to heighten understanding and awareness of alcohol addiction, its causes, effective treatment, and above all, recovery.
He said April is the opportunity to reduce stigma and misconceptions of the disease in order to break down the barriers to treatment and recovery.
At Lake County Behavioral Health Services, help is readily available in the form of counseling and therapy for those suffering from this disease, Metcalf said.
For more information, please contact Lake County Behavioral Health Services at either of our two locations:
– 7000B South Center Drive, Clearlake, telephone 707-994-7090; – 6302 13th Ave., Lucerne, telephone 707-274-9101.
A gun with the serial number removed seized during a traffic stop on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, during a traffic stop in Clearlake, Calif. Lake County Jail photo.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Police arrested a Clearlake man on Tuesday during a traffic stop after he was found to have active arrest warrants and a gun with its serial number removed.
Daniel Douglas Wamback, 31, was taken into custody at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Clearlake Police Department.
Officer Chris Kelleher was on patrol and observed a white Ford sedan traveling south on Old Highway 53, police said.
Officer Kelleher observed two mechanical California Vehicle Code violations and conducted a traffic enforcement stop of the vehicle, according to the report.
During the stop, authorities said Wamback, who was the front seat passenger, provided a false name to Kelleher. Once his true identity was discovered, he was determined to have three active arrest warrants and also found to be a convicted felon.
Police said Wamback was in possession of a Ruger .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, which had its serial number scratched off.
Wamback was arrested on probable cause for multiple charges, including felony firearms charges, along with the arrest warrants. Wamback was later booked into the Lake County Jail, where he remained in custody on Thursday, with bail set at $90,000.
Daniel Douglas Wamback, 31, of Clearlake, Calif., was arrested on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, during a traffic stop. Lake County Jail photo.
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