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- Written by: Lake County News reports
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Lake County Public Works Department is planning an emergency road closure this week in order to conduct bridge repairs in the Middletown area.
The agency said that Santa Rosa Avenue will be closed to all traffic from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in order to repair and replace the bridge deck at mile post marker 0.25.
Public Works said that if residents need to leave their property on that day, they must do so by no later that 8 a.m. They should be prepared to not have access to their homes until after 5 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Public Works, 707-263-2341.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Californians are urged to be a part of the oldest and the largest anti-drug effort in the country, National Red Ribbon Week, observed this year October 23-31.
Red Ribbon Week is observed nationally in states across the country. During the week, Americans wear red ribbons and pledge to live drug free.
There also are a number of anti-drug use events held within local communities for the public to attend.
The California Highway Patrol promotes a drug-free lifestyle and encourages all Californians to take a stance against drug abuse this week, and every week.
“Drugs destroy lives,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “Red Ribbon Week gives Californians an opportunity to stand united against an illegal, life-destroying behavior.”
The first statewide Red Ribbon Week was sponsored in California in October 1986 in response to the murder of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Agent assigned to a case in Mexico.
“Red Ribbon Week not only honors a fallen hero, it is also an opportunity to open the lines of communication with your children about the dangers of illegal substances,” added Commissioner Farrow. “It is important that parents and guardians remember that they are role models who play a vital role in influencing a child’s behavior.”
The Red Ribbon campaign is sponsored by the National Family Partnership. The theme for this year’s Red Ribbon campaign is: “The Best Me is Drug Free.”
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man has been identified as the suspect in the burglary late last year of a Clearlake business.
Doyle Jeorge Harris, 23, of Clearlake, is facing charges in the case, according to Det. Sgt. Nick Bennett of the Clearlake Police Department.
In December 2011 Clearlake Police investigated a burglary at Sullivan Tires located at Old Highway 53 and Olympic Drive. Bennett said unknown persons had smashed out a window and attempted to remove the cash register from the business but were unsuccessful.
During the investigation Officer Mike Carpenter collected evidence left at the scene that was later submitted to the California Department of Justice, Bennett said.
This month, the Department of Justice notified the Clearlake Police Department that a DNA match had been made connecting the submitted evidence to a person in their data bank, according to Bennett.
That person, said Bennett, was Harris, who was contacted by Det. Tim Alvarado at Lake County Jail, where Harris was in custody on an unrelated case.
Jail records show that Harris has been arrested Oct. 13 and is being held on a misdemeanor probation violation.
When questioned about his involvement in the burglary and confronted with the DNA evidence, Harris admitted to the burglary, Bennett said.
Bennett said the case has been forwarded to the District Attorney’s office for charges.
The Clearlake Police Department is asking anyone with additional information on this case to contact Detective Alvarado at 707-994-8251.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A popular annual event that has showcased Lake County’s natural beauty and unparalleled abundance of wildland is coming to an end.
The Heron Festival, which has developed into a springtime tradition over the past 18 years, is being discontinued, according to Marilyn Waits, president of the Redbud Audubon Society, which sponsors the event.
Waits told Lake County News that the pontoon boat tours to see birds and wildlife on Clear Lake, which was an original part of the event and has remained its fundamental nature education activity, will continue.
She said the tours are why Roberta Lyons started the festival in 1994, giving people a chance to get out and learn more about and see, firsthand, the nesting herons, osprey and grebes that breed during the spring and summer months.
“The rest of it really got added to give people more fun,” said Waits.
They’ve already set Saturday, May 4, and Sunday, May 5, as dates for the 2013 pontoon boat tours, Waits said.
The Children’s Museum of Art and Science plans to incorporate the same raptor show that the festival had featured for several years into its annual day camps. Waits said Audubon is going to pay to have the live owls and raptors brought to Lake County for that camp, which reaches local children, many of them low income.
“So we’re very happy that that part of the festival will continue,” Waits said.
However, Waits added, “Nobody else has approached us to do the other parts of the festival.”
The Heron Festival – which has continued to grow every year – appears to have been a victim of its own success.
“It was wonderful but eventually it just became too much for us,” Waits said, adding it wasn’t the best use of the chapter’s people resources.
Waits credited Lyons and Susanne Scholz for being the visionaries who created the Heron Festival, one of the very first birding festivals in California.
She said Lyons and Scholz steered the festival through the first nine years, then a new team headed by Tina Wasson, Robin Chapman and Waits guided the festival to new growth in the years at Clear Lake State Park.
Waits said the annual festival required four months of organization plus the work of 200 volunteers to pull off the event, which featured a popular owl and raptor show, nature fair, booths, children’s activities, silent auction and raffle, as well as the lake tours.
Attendance during recent festival weekends had grown to nearly 2,000 people, said Waits, with more than 550 people going out on the pontoon boat tours in both 2010 and 2011.
She said Redbud Audubon attempted to downsize the event from two days to one, with it being held this past spring in Clearlake’s Redbud Park. However, even with only a one day event, Waits said the work of planning the festival took just as much time as if it had remained a weekend long.
The festival has been positive for the community at large, drawing visitors from outside the county.
“It’s really a shame, because birding is such a fabulous industry,” Lake County Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Melissa Fulton said of the decision to end the festival.
While the chamber hasn’t done an analysis of the Heron Festival’s impact, “If they’re getting 2,000 people, we know that those 2,000 people are not all Lake County residents,” Fulton said.
That, in turn, leads to a positive economic impact for local accommodations, restaurants and gas stations, Fulton said.
While the Redbud Audubon Chapter is sad about the festival’s demise, Waits said it will allow chapter members to work on Redbud Audubon’s four-year grebe conservation project.
The Heron Festival typically coincided with the beginning of grebe breeding season, which Waits said limited their grebe project-related activities.
The project, now beginning year three, involves public outreach to educate people who use the lake about avoiding colonies when there are nest, eggs and babies, Waits said.
She said the collaborative work with two other Audubon chapters has already generated significant public awareness about protecting nesting grebe colonies.
“It’s been a really exciting thing to do,” said Waits, noting that it also resulted in the chapter’s grebe Web cam, believed to be the only one of its kind in the world.
She said the chapter has received “tremendous positive praise” from the project’s funders.
In addition, the Redbud Audubon Society – like all Audubon chapters – has a mission, said Waits. “It’s become very important to focus on bird conservation and habitat conservation.”
She said Audubon is concentrating on the four flyways that cross the United States. In California, there is the Pacific Flyway, which extends from Alaska to South America.
“There’s so much that we can do for birds and for conservation that we’re kind of refocusing to narrow our activities primarily to that,” Waits said.
Visit the Redbud Audubon Society’s Web site at www.redbudaudubon.org/ .
Email Elizabeth Larson at