A new analysis shows that ocean temperatures are on the rise, and they are going up faster than once thought. Image courtesy of UC Berkeley. Heat trapped by greenhouse gases is raising ocean temperatures faster than previously thought, concludes an analysis of four recent ocean heating observations.
The results provide further evidence that earlier claims of a slowdown or “hiatus” in global warming over the past 15 years were unfounded.
“If you want to see where global warming is happening, look in our oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, a graduate student in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of the paper. “Ocean heating is a very important indicator of climate change, and we have robust evidence that it is warming more rapidly than we thought.”
Ocean heating is critical marker of climate change because an estimated 93 percent of the excess solar energy trapped by greenhouse gases accumulates in the world’s oceans. And, unlike surface temperatures, ocean temperatures are not affected by year-to-year variations caused by climate events like El Nino or volcanic eruptions.
The new analysis, appears online today in Science, shows that trends in ocean heat content match those predicted by leading climate change models, and that overall ocean warming is accelerating.
Assuming a “business-as-usual” scenario in which no effort has been made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) models predict that the temperature of the top 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans will rise 0.78 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The thermal expansion caused by this bump in temperature would raise sea levels 30 centimeters, or around 12 inches, on top of the already significant sea level rise caused by melting glaciers and ice sheets. Warmer oceans also contribute to stronger storms, hurricanes and extreme precipitation.
“While 2018 will be the fourth warmest year on record on the surface, it will most certainly be the warmest year on record in the oceans, as was 2017 and 2016 before that,” Hausfather said. “The global warming signal is a lot easier to detect if it is changing in the oceans than on the surface.”
The four studies, published between 2014 and 2017, provide better estimates of past trends in ocean heat content by correcting for discrepancies between different types of ocean temperature measurements and by better accounting for gaps in measurements over time or location.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013, showed that leading climate change models seemed to predict a much faster increase in ocean heat content over the last 30 years than was seen in observations,” Hausfather said. “That was a problem, because of all things, that is one thing we really hope the models will get right.”
“The fact that these corrected records now do agree with climate models is encouraging in that is removes an area of big uncertainty that we previously had,” he said.
Deep divers
A fleet of nearly 4,000 floating robots drift throughout the world’s oceans, every few days diving to a depth of 2000 meters and measuring the ocean’s temperature, pH, salinity and other bits of information as they rise back up. This ocean-monitoring battalion, called Argo, has provided consistent and widespread data on ocean heat content since the mid-2000s.
Prior to Argo, ocean temperature data was sparse at best, relying on devices called expendable bathythermographs that sank to the depths only once, transmitting data on ocean temperature until settling into watery graves.
Three of the new studies included in the Science analysis calculated ocean heat content back to 1970 and before using new methods to correct for calibration errors and biases in the both the Argo and bathythermograph data. The fourth takes a completely different approach, using the fact that a warming ocean releases oxygen to the atmosphere to calculate ocean warming from changes in atmospheric oxygen concentrations, while accounting for other factors, like burning fossil fuels, that also change atmospheric oxygen levels.
“Scientists are continually working to improve how to interpret and analyze what was a fairly imperfect and limited set of data prior to the early 2000s,” Hausfather said. “These four new records that have been published in recent years seem to fix a lot of problems that were plaguing the old records, and now they seem to agree quite well with what the climate models have produced.”
Lijing Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the lead author on the paper. Co-authors include John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas and Kevin E. Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0603202). The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Kara Manke writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, called TESS for short, has found three confirmed exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, in its first three months of observations.
The mission’s sensitive cameras also captured 100 short-lived changes – most of them likely stellar outbursts – in the same region of the sky.
They include six supernova explosions whose brightening light was recorded by TESS even before the outbursts were discovered by ground-based telescopes.
The new discoveries show that TESS is delivering on its goal of discovering planets around nearby bright stars. Using ground-based telescopes, astronomers are now conducting follow-up observations on more than 280 TESS exoplanet candidates.
The first confirmed discovery is a world called Pi Mensae c about twice Earth’s size. Every six days, the new planet orbits the star Pi Mensae, located about 60 light-years away and visible to the unaided eye in the southern constellation Mensa. The bright star Pi Mensae is similar to the Sun in mass and size.
“This star was already known to host a planet, called Pi Mensae b, which is about 10 times the mass of Jupiter and follows a long and very eccentric orbit,” said Chelsea Huang, a Juan Carlos Torres Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) in Cambridge. “In contrast, the new planet, called Pi Mensae c, has a circular orbit close to the star, and these orbital differences will prove key to understanding how this unusual system formed.”
Next is LHS 3884b, a rocky planet about 1.3 times Earth’s size located about 49 light-years away in the constellation Indus, making it among the closest transiting exoplanets known.
The star is a cool M-type dwarf star about one-fifth the size of our Sun. Completing an orbit every 11 hours, the planet lies so close to its star that some of its rocky surface on the daytime side may form pools of molten lava.
The third – and possibly fourth – planets orbit HD 21749, a K-type star about 80 percent the Sun’s mass and located 53 light-years away in the southern constellation Reticulum.
The confirmed planet, HD 21749b, is about three times Earth’s size and 23 times its mass, orbits every 36 days, and has a surface temperature around 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius).
“This planet has a greater density than Neptune, but it isn’t rocky. It could be a water planet or have some other type of substantial atmosphere,” explained Diana Dragomir, a Hubble Fellow at MKI and lead author of a paper describing the find. It is the longest-period transiting planet within 100 light-years of the solar system, and it has the coolest surface temperature of a transiting exoplanet around a star brighter than 10th magnitude, or about 25 times fainter than the limit of unaided human vision.
What’s even more exciting are hints the system holds a second candidate planet about the size of Earth that orbits the star every eight days. If confirmed, it could be the smallest TESS planet to date.
TESS’s four cameras, designed and built by MKI and MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, spend nearly a month monitoring each observing sector, a single swath of the sky measuring 24 by 96 degrees.
The primary aim is to look for exoplanet transits, which occur when a planet passes in front of its host star as viewed from TESS’s perspective. This causes a regular dip in the measured brightness of the star that signals a planet’s presence.
In its primary two-year mission, TESS will observe nearly the whole sky, providing a rich catalog of worlds around nearby stars. Their proximity to Earth will enable detailed characterization of the planets through follow-up observations from space- and ground-based telescopes.
But in its month-long stare into each sector, TESS records many additional phenomena, including comets, asteroids, flare stars, eclipsing binaries, white dwarf stars and supernovae, resulting in an astronomical treasure trove.
In the first TESS sector alone, observed between July 25 and Aug. 22, 2018, the mission caught dozens of short-lived, or transient, events, including images of six supernovae in distant galaxies that were later seen by ground-based telescopes.
“Some of the most interesting science occurs in the early days of a supernova, which has been very difficult to observe before TESS,” said Michael Fausnaugh, a TESS researcher at MKI. “NASA’s Kepler space telescope caught six of these events as they brightened during its first four years of operations. TESS found as many in its first month.”
These early observations hold the key to understanding a class of supernovae that serve as an important yardstick for cosmological studies. Type Ia supernovae form through two channels. One involves the merger of two orbiting white dwarfs, compact remnants of stars like the Sun.
The other occurs in systems where a white dwarf draws gas from a normal star, gradually gaining mass until it becomes unstable and explodes.
Astronomers don’t know which scenario is more common, but TESS could detect modifications to the early light of the explosion caused by the presence of a stellar companion.
All science data from the first two TESS observation sectors were recently released to the scientific community through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
More than a million TESS images were downloaded from MAST in the first few days,” said Thomas Barclay, a TESS researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “The astronomical community’s reaction to the early data release showed us that the world is ready to jump in and add to the mission’s scientific bounty.”
George Ricker, the mission’s principal investigator at MKI, said that TESS’s cameras and spacecraft were performing superbly.
“We’re only halfway through TESS’s first year of operations, and the data floodgates are just beginning to open,” he said. “When the full set of observations of more than 300 million stars and galaxies collected in the two-year prime mission are scrutinized by astronomers worldwide, TESS may well have discovered as many as 10,000 planets, in addition to hundreds of supernovae and other explosive stellar and extragalactic transients.”
TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.
Francis Reddy works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Mrs. Torres’s kindergarten class at Kelseyville Elementary School in Kelseyville, Calif., pictured here on Tuesday, January 8, 2019, was the top donating class in the “Pennies for Paradise” effort with $416.62 donated. Courtesy photo.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Children in the Kelseyville Unified School District are lending a hand to the community of Paradise as it begins its recovery from the devastating November Camp fire.
When the students at Kelseyville Elementary returned to school, after having an extra week off during Thanksgiving break due to smoke conditions from the Camp fire, they were ready to hit the playground running and give back to the Paradise Unified School District.
The Kelseyville Elementary PTO ran a two-week long Pennies for Paradise coin fundraiser in 24 classrooms.
The students at Kelseyville Elementary know what it’s like to be affected by wildfires.
The 2015 Valley fire forced the students to start school late. They also have been impacted by the 2015 Rocky and Jerusalem fires, and the 2016 Clayton Fire in 2016.
Last year’s Mendocino Complex also delayed the start of schools in local districts.
Teachers, students and parents came together to support the Paradise Unified School District.
Together the Kelseyville Elementary raised $2,400 and $95 in gift cards.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A special Lakeport Unified School District Board meeting that had been called to discuss the transition regarding the district superintendent’s position has been rescheduled, the district reported.
Originally set for Saturday afternoon, the special board meeting has now been moved to 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, according to Tami Carley, the district superintendent’s secretary.
The Monday meeting is meant to discuss the transitional team the board wants to establish in the process to choose a new superintendent.
Carley said the special board meeting had to be rescheduled “due to a lack of available board members for a quorum.”
She said the agenda will be posted on the district’s Web site 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
Board member Jennifer Hanson separately reported on social media that a regular board meeting will take place at 5 p.m. Monday.
At that point it’s expected that the meeting location will be confirmed. Normally, the meetings are held at the district office 2508 Howard Ave., but this week’s meeting had a large audience that spilled out the front lobby.
Hanson stated on Facebook that Holmes’ resignation led to the need to reschedule the meeting from Saturday to Monday.
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.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – At the annual organization meeting held on Dec. 20, new officers were elected for the Yuba Community College District Board of Trustees.
At the Jan. 10 regular meeting of the governing board, a newly elected trustee was sworn into office.
“I would like to offer my hearty appreciation to these trustees who have assumed critical governance responsibilities. Our board members are truly dedicated servants of their communities providing countless hours in leadership for our colleges and students. I am humbled to serve with such civic-minded community leaders who have committed to becoming a 'best-in-class' Governing Board," said Chancellor Douglas B. Houston.
Dr. Jesse Ortiz – who represents Trustee Area 5, which includes a portion of Yolo County that includes the city of Woodland and the Woodland Unified School District – was sworn in by his wife of 41 years.
Dr. Ortiz retired in 2018 as the superintendent of Yolo County Office of Education where he had served since 2014.
He has a bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University and a master’s degree from Sacramento State University. His Educational Leadership Doctorate degree is from Brigham Young University. Trustee Ortiz was a Guidance Counselor at Woodland Community College for 20 years.
Trustee Richard Teagarden was re-elected to YCCD Trustee Area 1 and was elected as President of the YCCD Board of Trustees. Trustee Area 1 includes a portion of Yuba County and includes Marysville Joint Unified School District, was elected as the President of the Board.
Teagarden retired in 2010 as the superintendent of Yuba County Office of Education where he had served since 1994. Prior to that appointment, Teagarden was a principal and teacher in the Marysville Joint Unified School District.
He is a graduate of Marysville High School and Yuba College; his undergraduate degree and his master’s degree in public school administration is from North Texas State University.
Trustee David Wheeler was re-elected to YCCD Trustee Area 3 and was elected as vice president of the YCCD Board of Trustees. Trustee Area 3 includes a portion of Sutter County including Nuestro, Franklin, Brittan, Meridian, and Winship Elementary School District, Live Oak Unified School District and Yuba City Unified School District.
First elected to the board in 2010, Wheeler is a graduate of Yuba City High School, has an associate’s degree from Yuba College, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from San Francisco State University in Theater Arts.
From 1976 until his retirement in 2010, Trustee Wheeler was professor of theatre arts and film studies at Yuba College. During his tenure he directed more than 125 major productions, and received numerous awards including the first Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Award for Excellence in Theatre Education.
Susan Alves was elected as clerk of the YCCD Board of Trustees. She represents Trustee Area 6, which includes a portion of Yolo County (Woodland Unified School District) and a portion of Colusa County (Colusa, Pierce Joint, and Esparto Unified School District).
She was appointed to the Yuba Community College District Board of Trustees in October. Her current term expires in December 2020.
Alves retired in 2018 from public education where she served in the Woodland Joint Unified School District for 22 years; 13 years as a teacher and nine years as an elementary school principal.
She attended Woodland Community College; her undergraduate degree is from Chico State University and she attended Sacramento State University where she earned a Multiple Subject Teacher Credential and an Administrative Services Credential.
Other members of the YCCD Board of Trustees are Brent Hastey, Michael Pasquale, and V. Richard Savarese.
The Yuba Community College District spans eight counties and nearly 4,192 square miles of territory in rural, north-central California. Yuba College and Woodland Community College, offer degrees, certificates and transfer curricula at college campuses in Marysville and Woodland, educational centers in Clearlake and Yuba City, and through outreach operations in Williams and on Beale Air Force Base.
The two colleges in Yolo County and Yuba County and the campuses in Clearlake, Colusa, and Sutter Counties, serve 13,000 students across the northern Sacramento Valley.
Dennis Fordham. Courtesy photo. In second marriages, it is common to find gifts to stepchildren, especially when the stepparent raised the stepchild during their minority and/or the stepparent has no other children of their own.
It is much less common, however, to find the parents of the stepparent naming the same stepchild as an alternative beneficiary to their own child; it is more natural that they would name another child or close family relative.
What effect does divorce – between a stepparent and the parent of a stepchild – have upon testamentary transfers from the stepparent or the stepparent’s own parents to a former stepchild?
California law is very clear with respect to gifts made to an ex-spouse.
Under section 922 of California’s Probate Code all bequests by a decedent to his or her former spouse – contained in a testamentary instrument (i.e., a will, a trust or a death beneficiary form, such as for a life insurance policy) while the couple was still married – are treated as though the surviving ex-spouse had predeceased the decedent: the former spouse fails to inherit, as would the former spouse’s own issue if the gift to the ex-spouse is, “by right of representation”.
So long as the status of the marriage was resolved by court order prior to the deceased spouse’s death, a surviving ex-spouse cannot claim any gifts made under the decedent’s will, trust or as a designated death beneficiary to any life insurance, annuity, or retirement account.
Exceptions exist, however, when the gift to an ex-spouse is reaffirmed after the divorce and also when the original document specifically provides that the gift should survives a future divorce.
When marital dissolution proceedings were still ongoing when a spouse died, the court may sometimes retain jurisdiction to enter a nunc pro tunc (retroactive) court order. That is, if either a status only judgment, as to the termination of the marriage has been entered, or the dissolution case was fully submitted – i.e., just awaiting a decision – then the family court retains jurisdiction.
California’s Probate Code, however, is silent about whether gifts to stepchildren are nullified by the divorce when the gift instrument was signed by the stepparent prior to the divorce from the stepchild’s parent.
California case law offers guidance as to how gifts to former stepchildren are treated. In Estate of Hermon (1995), 39 Cal. App. 4th, 1525, 1531, the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, opined that, "… when a testator provides for his spouse's children, he normally intends to exclude children of an ex-spouse after dissolution, unless a contrary intention is indicated elsewhere in his will. (Underlining added).”
Then in Estate of Jones (2004), 122 Cal. App. 4th, 326, the Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, reiterated the foregoing rule but said the Court could look beyond the instrument also and consider evidence of the deceased stepparent’s ongoing relationship with the stepchild after the divorce to see if the deceased former stepparent would likely have wanted the gift to the former stepchild.
Without evidence of an ongoing relationship, however, the Court in Estate of Jones presumed that the deceased former stepparent did not intend to provide for the children of his ex-spouse.
There is no case law speaking to gifts by grandparents to their children’s former stepchildren (“stepgrandchildren”). Nonetheless, the foregoing analysis would logically appear to be relevant to such gifts.
Uncertainties regarding gifts to former stepchildren, or former step grandchildren, are best addressed by the person who is making the gift, while still alive, proactively updating his or estate planning documents. Even during a pending divorce, a stepparent can still make, or revise, a will.
The stepgrandparents have no restriction on updating their estate planning documents, while their child’s own divorce is pending, and so are free to address all gifts made by them to their son’s own stepchildren prior to the conclusion of the divorce.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235. His Web site is www.DennisFordhamLaw.com.
This artist’s impression shows how J043947.08+163415.7, a very distant quasar powered by a supermassive black hole, may look close up. This object is by far the brightest quasar yet discovered in the early Universe.Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, M. Kornmesser. Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered the brightest quasar ever seen in the early Universe — the light received from the object started its journey when the Universe was only about a billion years old.
Quasars are the extremely bright nuclei of active galaxies. The powerful glow of a quasar is created by a supermassive black hole which is surrounded by an accretion disc. Gas falling toward the black hole releases incredible amounts of energy, which can be observed over all wavelengths.
The newly discovered quasar, catalogued as J043947.08+163415.7, is no exception to this; its brightness is equivalent to about 600 trillion Suns and the supermassive black hole powering it is several hundred million times as massive as our Sun.
“That’s something we have been looking for for a long time,” said lead author Xiaohui Fan (University of Arizona, USA). “We don’t expect to find many quasars brighter than that in the whole observable Universe!”
Despite its brightness Hubble was able to spot it only because its appearance was strongly affected by strong gravitational lensing. A dim galaxy is located right between the quasar and Earth, bending the light from the quasar and making it appear three times as large and 50 times as bright as it would be without the effect of gravitational lensing.
Even still, the lens and the lensed quasar are extremely compact and unresolved in images from optical ground-based telescopes. Only Hubble’s sharp vision allowed it to resolve the system.
The data show not only that the supermassive black hole is accreting matter at an extremely high rate but also that the quasar may be producing up to 10 000 stars per year.
“Its properties and its distance make it a prime candidate to investigate the evolution of distant quasars and the role supermassive black holes in their centres had on star formation,” explains co-author Fabian Walter (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany), illustrating why this discovery is so important.
Quasars similar to J043947.08+163415.7 existed during the period of reionization of the young Universe, when radiation from young galaxies and quasars reheated the obscuring hydrogen that had cooled off just 400 000 years after the Big Bang; the Universe reverted from being neutral to once again being an ionised plasma.
However, it is still not known for certain which objects provided the reionizing photons. Energetic objects such as this newly discovered quasar could help to solve this mystery.
For that reason the team is gathering as much data on J043947.08+163415.7 as possible. Currently they are analysing a detailed 20-hour spectrum from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, which will allow them to identify the chemical composition and temperatures of intergalactic gas in the early Universe.
The team is also using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and hopes to also observe the quasar with the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
With these telescopes they will be able to look in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole and directly measure the influence of its gravity on the surrounding gas and star formation. Notes
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
The results were presented at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society and will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The international team of astronomers in this study consists of Xiaohui Fan (University of Arizona, USA), Feige Wang (University of California, USA), Jinyi Yang (University of Arizona, USA), Charles R. Keeton (Rutgers University, USA), Minghao Yue (University of Arizona, USA), Ann Zabludoff (University of Arizona, USA), Fuyan Bian (ESO, Chile), Marco Bonaglia (Arcetri Observatory, Italy), Iskren Y. Georgiev (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany), Joseph F. Hennawi (University of California, USA), Jiangtao Li (University of Michigan, USA), Jiangtao Li (University of Michigan, USA), Ian D. McGreer (University of Arizona, USA), Rohan Naidu (Center for Astrophysics, USA), Fabio Pacucci (Yale University, USA), Sebastian Rabien (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany), David Thompson (Large Binocular Telescope Observatory), Bram Venemans (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany), Fabian Walter (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany), Ran Wang (Peking University, China), Xue-Bing Wu (Peking University, China).
This image shows the distant quasar J043947.08+163415.7 as it was observed with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The quasar is one of the brightest objects in the early Universe. However, due to its distance it only became visible as its image was made brighter and larger by gravitational lensing. The system of the lensed images and the actual lens is so compact that Hubble is the only optical telescope able to resolve it. Credit: NASA, ESA, X. Fan (University of Arizona).
Lakeport Unified School District Board member Lori Holmes. Courtesy photo. LAKEPORT, Calif. – The morning following a heated Lakeport Unified School Board meeting in which the superintendent was released from her contract, the board member who was the dissenting vote in that decision tendered her resignation.
Board member Lori Holmes told Lake County News that she notified Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg on Thursday morning that she was leaving the board.
Separately, Lakeport Unified Board Chair Dan Buffalo told Lake County News that they received an email about Holmes’ resignation on Thursday morning, and that he confirmed Falkenberg had been notified.
Holmes is the senior board member in time served, having been first elected in the fall of 2011.
Last month, Buffalo, Carly Alvord and Jennifer Hanson – who had been elected in November in a united campaign effort – took office. Since then, they have participated in two regularly scheduled meetings, in addition to a special meeting called Dec. 27, when the district was closed and both Holmes and Superintendent April Leiferman were on vacation.
Holmes, who was in Mexico on a family vacation, had nonetheless managed to call in and participate in the Dec. 27 meeting, during which the board majority voted to hire its own attorney to advise it on its relationship with Leiferman. Holmes had disagreed with that action, pointing out that the board had access to legal help that had been paid for already.
Then at the board’s meeting on Wednesday night, Alvord, Buffalo and Hanson overruled Holmes and voted to terminate Leiferman’s contract without cause, as Lake County News has reported. Board member Phil Kirby abstained.
Leiferman, hired in May 2017, has a three-year contract that stipulates that she must be paid a year’s salary totaling $154,234 and health and welfare benefits not to exceed $14,500 each year.
Much of the impetus for the decision to end Leiferman’s contract appears to stem from the previous board’s October decision to remove Terrace Middle School Principal Rachel Paarsch from her position. Paarsch was then transferred to a teaching position she refused, and she said she is suing the district.
Paarsch’s removal by the board was based on a formal district investigation led by Leiferman that found many instances of serious misconduct — including issues with job performance and personal behavior — reported by numerous witnesses, according to a copy of the document obtained by Lake County News.
Paarsch, who has denied the allegations, is the daughter of Kirby and a longtime friend of Alvord, and was present for the Wednesday night announcement of Leiferman’s contract termination.
Holmes had told the other board members after the termination decision on Wednesday that she didn’t agree with them, and that Leiferman’s intent had always been focused on what was best for children.
She also told them that they were moving really fast, that she found it scary and that they were spooking district staff. Holmes also had told them that their decision to hold the special closed session on Dec. 27 was a bad move.
Holmes said on Thursday that since the three new board members took office, they didn’t meet with Leiferman and actually rebuffed her requests to sit down with them to discuss district business, which Holmes said made it difficult for Leiferman to do her job.
On Thursday, Holmes took swift action herself, deciding to step aside. “It was just time for me to go.”
In her resignation letter, which she shared with Lake County News, Holmes wrote:
“After 8 years, it is with great reluctance that I resign my position as a member of the Lakeport Unified School Board. Serving the people of this wonderful school district has been one of the greatest honors of my life. Over the years, I have met so many capable and committed employees – superintendents, administrators, department heads, certificated and classified staff – who put the children they teach, support, and care for at the center of their work. I thank them for their service to our community.
“As a board member, I have taken seriously my legal obligations. A school board is designed to have independent-thinking individuals meet at open public meetings and use board policies and laws to do what is in the best interest of the students. Until recently, that has been the established practice of the Lakeport board. Now, however, I believe critical decisions have been made recklessly that do not serve the best interests of this district. Because I do not share the new board's vision, I believe it is time for me to step down.
“I wish the new board success. The future of our students depends upon on their ability to do what is best for the district.”
She told Lake County News that the new board needs to slow down and listen, and to meet with the district’s administrative team, and the teachers’ and classified employees’ unions.
“I want them to succeed. I feel like the district depends on them succeeding, but I’m just sick about what I’m seeing,” she said.
The board has called a special meeting at 2 p.m. Saturday at the district office to discuss its superintendent recruitment and transition.
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.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Upper Lake Unified School District is seeking community members interested in serving on a newly formed bond citizens’ oversight committee.
The district established the committee to oversee expenditures of Measure I and Measure J bond funds, which were the bond measures approved by District voters on Nov. 6.
Measure I, also known as the “Upper Lake Unified School District High School Renovation and Modernization Measure,” is a $10 million bond that will raise an average of $527,000 annually to repay bonds through maturity from levies of approximately three cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
The funding would be used to construct and modernize classrooms, upgrade career Technology education, enhance safety/security, provide 21st century learning environments at Upper Lake High School and provide the local match for state grants.
Measure J is also known as the “Upper Lake Unified School District School Facilities Improvement District No. 1 (K-8 Area) Elementary and Middle School Renovation and Modernization Measure.”
It’s a $12 million ballot that would raise an average of $665,000 annually to repay bonds through maturity from levies of approximately six cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
Measure J is meant to construct, modernize and rehabilitate K-8 classrooms, improve access to modern technology, install shade structures, improve play areas, enhance safety/security and provide the local match for state grants.
The district is presently accepting applications from interested persons, on a voluntary basis, to serve on the committee.
The committee will consist of seven members who will meet and review reports prepared by district staff relating to bond fund expenditures to ensure money is used on voter-approved projects.
Maintaining a committee to review expenditures is required by law and was promised to district voters as part of the transparency and accountability provisions in the bond measures.
Interested persons may obtain an application from the Superintendent’s Office, located at 675 Clover Valley Road, Upper Lake, any of the school sites (Upper Lake Elementary, Middle or High School) or download the application from the district’s Web site at www.ulusd.org.
Applications are due by 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, at the office of the superintendent.
Fresh off being sworn into office this week, new California Treasurer Fiona Ma has announced that she intends to kick off a statewide listening tour beginning Jan. 17 to gather ideas and feedback from the public about how her office can help increase the supply of affordable housing statewide.
The listening tour will visit five cities – Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco – and allow Treasurer Ma to gather information, collect insights and learn about regional housing issues and challenges.
“This listening tour will be a time for me to hear from people about how well the state treasurer’s office has been providing service in their area and how we can do better going forward towards making affordable housing available,” said Treasurer Ma. “I intend to sit quietly and listen directly to the ideas and feedback from people of each of the communities that we visit. It will not be the time for me to make promises or commit to specific objectives.”
The State Treasurer’s Office has two programs in place that offer assistance to those in need of affordable housing. Both programs promote private investment in affordable rental housing for low-income Californians.
The California Debt Limit Allocation Committee, or CDLAC, manages the state’s tax-exempt bond allocations for affordable housing projects and the Single-Family First-Time Homebuyer Program.
In 2017, CDLAC’s allocation for tax-exempt bonds helped to finance more than 12,000 units of housing, including more than 10,000 affordable units, and assisted over 2,000 new homebuyers.
Another program offered by the state treasurer’s office is the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, or CTCAC, which administers the federal and state Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Programs.
In 2017, between CTCAC’s three Federal Credit Awards programs more than 13,000 low-income housing units were financed.
According to Ma, the listening tour will help her understand how best to organize and deploy these and other resources that her office has to offer.
Additionally, it will allow her to assist Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has called for 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, which amounts to 500,000 new homes each year. That’s 6.25 times more than California currently produces – an average of 80,000 homes a year.
Treasurer Fiona Ma’s Affordable Housing Listening Tour calendar follows:
Thursday, Jan. 17
9 a.m. Los Angeles Ward Village Senior Apts. 1177 W. Adams Blvd.
3 p.m. San Diego San Diego Housing Commission 1122 Broadway
Friday, Jan. 18
10 a.m.
Sacramento The Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency 801 12th St.
3 p.m.
San Francisco Recology Golden Gate 900 7th St.
Friday, Jan. 25
9 a.m.
Fresno Legacy Commons Community Center 2255 S. Plumas St.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Only a month after they took their seats, three new members of the Lakeport Unified School District Board voted Wednesday night to terminate the superintendent without cause, a move that will cost the district a year’s worth of salary and benefits and one which school staff said could lead to a mass exodus.
Superintendent April Leiferman went into two separate closed session meetings with the board on Wednesday evening, emerging ahead of them after the second one, with the board coming out separately less than an hour later to report the termination decision.
Board Chair Dan Buffalo, and fellow members Carly Alvord and Jennifer Hanson voted to terminate Leiferman’s contract, with Lori Holmes voting no and Phil Kirby abstaining.
The previous board had hired Leiferman in May 2017, approving a three-year contract with an annual salary of $154,234 and health and welfare benefits not to exceed $14,500 each year.
Buffalo said both the state education code and Leiferman’s contract call for her to be paid for a full year after termination without cause. He said the district is letting its attorneys figure out how Leiferman’s severance amount will be paid.
Alvord, Buffalo and Hanson ran on a unified platform in the November election. From the beginning they took an antagonistic stance toward district leadership, including Leiferman, particularly after the previous board in October removed Rachel Paarsch from the Terrace Middle School principal’s job, a move Paarsch and her supporters blamed primarily on Leiferman. Paarsch is Kirby’s daughter and a longtime friend of Alvord.
The stage for Wednesday evening’s action appeared set late last month, after the new board called a special meeting two days after Christmas – while the district was closed and Leiferman was on vacation – and hired its own attorney to advise it in matters including its relationship with the district superintendent, as Lake County News has reported.
That attorney, Kristin Lindgren of the firm Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, was directed at the board at that time to prepare a report on a personnel matter topic for the special closed session held Wednesday evening, ahead of the board’s regular meeting.
After the board’s decision on Wednesday, Buffalo said that there will be “a very deliberate process” to find the district’s next leader.
He told Lake County News that the board asked him to start seeking potential candidates for an interim transition team, and he’s talked to several community members about an interim superintendent.
“I think it’s clear we’re not as prepared as we’d like to be,” he acknowledged.
Asked for an estimate of when a permanent superintendent could be in place, Buffalo said April and May are big months for hiring school administrators.
With Leiferman’s departure, the district now has two key leadership positions to fill – Business Manager Lynn Thomasson has tendered her resignation and is returning to Kelseyville Unified, where she previously worked. Thomasson was at the board’s special Dec. 27 meeting, at which time they asked to do an exit interview with her to discuss her reasons for leaving.
Several district employees have told Lake County News that Leiferman had strong support among them. They’ve said they’re afraid of speaking out publicly out of concern they will become targets of the new board.
Some of those who spoke with Lake County News at the Wednesday meeting said they were considering resigning from the district because of the increasingly difficult atmosphere.
They also said they believe the situation is leading to numerous students being pulled from the district to attend schools in Upper Lake and Kelseyville.
Closed sessions ahead of termination
The board convened at 5 p.m. Wednesday in open session at the district office before a standing-room-only audience, many of them teachers, staff and other district personnel, along with parents.
Kirby, the board’s clerk, opened the meeting, explaining that Buffalo had texted him to say he would be late.
They opened up to public comment, none was offered, and then moved into a closed session in another part of the district office building, leaving the dozens of audience members waiting for them.
Leiferman went into the closed session with them and emerged along with the board at 6 p.m., at which point Buffalo – who had joined them after they went into the private discussion – saying they were still discussing several items on the agenda and planned to go back into closed session.
The board then took public comment from several individuals, including parent Joe Szupello, who said he was sick and tired of the drama the new school board had created. “It is time to focus on our kids.”
He blamed the new board for carrying out personal vendettas, saying people are afraid of speaking up due to fear. Szupello faulted them for the Dec. 27 decision to hire another attorney to deal with the superintendent.
They also heard from a parent concerned that her son suffered a concussion at school, having been knocked down by another student. Buffalo at that point directed Leiferman to investigate the situation and report back.
Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen also notified the board that his agency is planning active shooter training at the campus during spring break and that he is working to begin a new police dog program that he plans to use to enhance school safety at the district.
Also during public comment, Rob Alves, a math teacher at Clear Lake High School, submitted a letter from the school’s staff in support of keeping the current administration – including Principal Jill Falconer – in place.
The letter credited Falconer’s leadership for establishing an island of calm and helping students thrive. It said a change in the current administration could result in the loss of highly qualified staff and would counter the campaign platform of the new board members.
The Clear Lake High School letter addressed concerns that numerous staffers have shared with Lake County News about a major shakeup in the district’s leadership, and which would be echoed by other employees later in the meeting.
The board then left for another closed session at 6:23 p.m. Kirby came out at 7:53 p.m., noting he had to recuse himself. Rachel Paarsch and her husband were both in the audience, waiting for the rest of the board to come out.
At approximately 8:11 p.m., Leiferman emerged, looking into the meeting room from a side door. She appeared visibly upset, and disappeared minutes later.
Buffalo came out at 8:33 p.m. to get Kirby, and then at 8:41 p.m. the entire board emerged with Tami Carley, the superintendent’s secretary, but without Leiferman herself.
Kirby announced action taken on several other closed session items before Buffalo announced that the board had voted to terminate Leiferman’s contract, without cause.
He then said they were tabling the rest of the night’s agenda and ending the meeting just after 8:45 p.m., with plans for a special meeting – initially called for 10 a.m. but later moved to 2 p.m. Saturday at the district office – to discuss the transition. The goal is to have an interim superintendent in place by Monday.
Kirby, who is a retired school administrator with a lifetime credential, said he would be available in the meantime to take on any superintendent’s duties.
At that point the Paarschs and some other audience members left.
Employees ‘sick and tired’ of new board
However, about three-quarters of the audience, most of them district employees, stayed in place, with several individuals – among them, Darren Wells, the classified union representative – haranguing the board about the decision to abruptly end a meeting for which they had approved the agenda.
Wells, slapping a paper on his hand, told them he had union matters to discuss with them and they needed to keep the meeting going. When it looked like they might continue with ending the meeting, Wells said, “Now you're just being terrible.”
An audience member turned to Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg and asked if there was anything he could do.
“They’re the board,” Falkenberg said.
“We're new, bear with us” said Buffalo as one female staffer rose and left in anger.
Buffalo apologized and said ending the meeting incorrectly had been his fault. Kirby suggested they reconvene and Buffalo said they would continue with the rest of the meeting.
During the next hour, as the board worked through the remaining items on its agenda, including a discussion on signage for vehicle searches that ultimately was tabled for future consideration.
As the meeting continued, numerous questions arose about who would act in the superintendent’s place. Buffalo said the board would be discussing it. Some agenda items also had to be held over, as Leiferman had been set to present them.
Then Wells went to the podium to tell the board how he and fellow classified employees felt about them.
He said staff is concerned about the money the board has spent from the general fund for another attorney. Paraprofessionals also are upset about a letter Buffalo had sent out about hiring more of their number when some of them have very few hours as it is and work for only $2 more an hour than minimum wage.
Wells read comments from a number of fellow employees, who were not named. “Everything that is happening in this district is scaring the crud out of me,” one wrote, noting the situation made them not want to come to work.
Others complained that Alvord, Buffalo and Hanson had trashed the district’s reputation during the campaign. The employee statements told the board they needed to observe the schools more before making drastic decisions, with staff reporting that only Holmes and Kirby have been seen on campus.
The board also was admonished that to remove anyone without first letting a good working relationship develop would be flat out wrong.
“The board has district employees fearful for the future of LUSD,” one individual wrote.
The statements Wells read also accused the new board members and Kirby of not working in the best interests of students but instead taking purely retaliatory actions on behalf of their wife, sisters, best friends and daughters, apparent references to Buffalo’s wife and Alvord’s sisters, and to Paarsch, Alvord’s friend and Kirby’s daughter.
The comments also accused the new board of using word of mouth and social media to make uninformed statements about Lakeport Elementary School. They were told they needed to meet with that school’s principal, Aaron Carter, and form an opinion of his ability.
Wells told the new board, “Our classified employees are sick and tired of you guys already,” adding that people are calling him around the clock, every day of the week, with their concerns, and that he has his union team on standby.
“It is retaliation, most people feel,” Wells said.
Buffalo responded that the new board has a desperate desire to open up communication, honesty and deliberately. “We want to move forward together, as one unit, as one organization.”
Wells then raised the issue of the special, last-minute meeting called during Christmas week, when it was pointed out by another audience member that both Holmes and Leiferman had been on vacation. Holmes, however, had called in and participated by phone.
“Transparency, I think not,” Wells said.
During the meeting, Holmes said she did not agree with firing Leiferman, noting she felt she was a competent superintendent.
“Her intent was always what's best for the kids,” said Holmes. “I'm sad to see her go.”
Holmes also told her fellow board members, “You guys are moving really fast for me,” and that she finds it very scary. Similarly, she said they’ve spooked a lot of the district staff. She said she felt the Dec. 27 meeting, while the district was closed, was not a good move.
“When I started I made mistakes, too,” she said, and recalled the help Tom Powers and Dennis Darling – who were defeated in the November election – for their guidance and experience.
She said there are difficult decisions ahead and that the board needed to focus on its own education and training. She asked that a series of board policies be brought back for future discussion. “There are laws we have to follow and if we break those laws, there are consequences for it.”
Holmes said she, Hanson and Alvord had attended an effective governance workshop at the Lake County Office of Education and said it was very helpful. She said the trainer will come and work with new boards, and she encouraged Buffalo to take training.
She also brought Christmas presents to the new board members, copies of a book Holmes was given by former Superintendent Erin Hagberg when she joined the board, titled, “How Not To Be A Terrible School Board Member.”
She requested they not make big decisions until they had more training, and that they slow down a big. “I'm just a little bit scared,” she said, with the audience giving her a round of applause.
Kirby asked staff to maintain their sense of commitment and passion as they work with the district’s children every day. He said he would check with the Lake County Office of Education on Thursday to make sure there isn’t any potential conflict in being both a board member and the acting superintendent.
Buffalo thanked Holmes for her comments. “We did move very quickly. I take full responsibility for that,” he said.
He added, “In my case I felt we had to do that, we had to do what we did.”
Alvord asked for patience, tolerance and help. “We've known each other our whole lives.”
She continued, “Let's help each other. Let's stop tearing each other down.”
Former Board member Lynn Andre, who hadn’t sought reelection in November, told them that superintendent candidates do their homework before applying to districts. “They're not going to be lining up to come to this.”
She said the board needed to learn its roles, understand its responsibilities and try its best to mend the situation.
Steve Newnham, who teaches government, economics and world history at Clear Lake High and is the teachers union president, told the board that the money they are having to pay out on Leiferman’s contract is coming from the general fund and that it amounted to taking a 4-percent raise away from every district staff member.
He said the supply of teachers is very low and they can go elsewhere, so Newnham suggested they be creative and find a way to get district staffers raises.
Newnham said the teachers union is not a radical group, and is here to help. However, he warned, “Don’t confuse our willingness to help the district as a weakness.”
He added, “I'm worried that you're going to see a mass exodus.”
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.
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