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- Written by: Dr. Tony Phillips
Note to sky watchers: Put on your winter coats. What you’re about to read might make you feel an uncontrollable urge to dash outside.
The brightest planets in the solar system are lining up in the evening sky, and you can see the formation Saturday night.
Go out at sunset and look west. Venus and Jupiter pop out of the twilight even before the sky fades completely black. The two brilliant planets surrounded by evening blue is a beautiful sight.
Venus and Jupiter are converging Saturday night. In mid-February they are about 20 degrees apart. By the end of the month, the angle narrows to only 10 degrees – so close that you can hide them together behind your outstretched palm. Their combined beauty grows each night as the distance between them shrinks.
A special night to look is Saturday, Feb. 25, when the crescent Moon moves in to form a slender heavenly triangle with Venus, Jupiter and the Moon as vertices.
One night later, on Sunday, Feb. 26, it happens again. This arrangement will be visible all around the world, from city and countryside alike.
The Moon, Venus and Jupiter are the brightest objects in the night sky; together they can shine through urban lights, fog, and even some clouds.
After hopping from Venus to Jupiter in late February, the Moon exits stage left, but the show is far from over.
In March, Venus and Jupiter continue their relentless convergence until, on March 12 and 13, the duo lie only three degrees apart – a spectacular double beacon in the sunset sky. Now you’ll be able to hide them together behind a pair of outstretched fingertips.
There’s something mesmerizing about stars and planets bunched together in this way – and, no, you’re not imagining things when it happens to you. The phenomenon is based on the anatomy of the human eye.
“Your eye is a bit like a digital camera,” explained optometrist Dr. Stuart Hiroyasu of Bishop, Calif. “There's a lens in front to focus the light, and a photo-array behind the lens to capture the image. The photo-array in your eye is called the retina. It's made of rods and cones, the organic equivalent of electronic pixels.”
There’s a tiny patch of tissue near the center of the retina where cones are extra-densely packed. This is called “the fovea.”
“Whatever you see with the fovea, you see in high-definition,” Hiroyasu said.
The fovea is critical to reading, driving, watching television. The fovea has the brain's attention.
The field of view of the fovea is only about five degrees wide. Most nights in March, Venus and Jupiter will fit within that narrow cone. And when they do – presto! It’s spellbinding astronomy.
Standing outdoors, mesmerized by planets aligned in a late winter sunset, you might just forget how cold you feel. Bring a coat anyway …
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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- Written by: Dennis Fordham
Getting affairs in order is important to you and your loved ones at multiple levels.
First, a comprehensive, well drafted estate plan may afford you protection against an otherwise avoidable conservatorship of your own estate; against a costly and time consuming probate; and against financial abuse.
Second, a thoughtful estate plan can promote your legacy with your surviving loved ones when you are no longer there to assist them.
Third, your estate plan can also protect your loved ones’ inheritances against creditor actions by their own creditors; it can protect a beneficiary who receives needs based government benefits from becoming disqualified due to receiving their inheritance; and it can control and manage their inheritance so that it is not wasted or abused by them or others.
Let us consider this in more detail.
Incapacity planning
You owe it to yourself and your family to plan for and authorize who steps in to manage your affairs, personal care, and health care decisions, when you are unable to manage them for yourself due to a mental or physical incapacity.
A well drafted durable power of attorney for financial affairs and a separate property management and a durable power of attorney for personal care (not to be confused with an advance health care directive) can authorize your named agent(s) to exercise the rights of control and management over assets held in your name (and not in a trust), in the manner prescribed in the instrument, for your benefit and the benefit of your dependents. These instruments are different.
A power of attorney for financial affairs and property management is usually much broader and speaks to managing your financial accounts, assets (e.g., bank accounts, retirement plans, and brokerages), exercising legal rights (e.g., government benefits, contractual rights, and rights to sue), and fulfilling legal responsibilities (e.g., filing a tax return and paying support).
It becomes effective either upon signing or upon your incapacity. It either ceases upon the principal’s death or at a date certain; and, it can always be revoked sooner by written revocation and notice by the principal to the named agent so long as the principal has capacity to revoke.
A separate power of attorney for personal care, however, specifically addresses your personal care, living arrangements, maintenance of personal property, and maintaining the residence.
A personal care directive allows your health care agents to make personal care arrangements (e.g., hire nurses). Either a financial account would be made available to the personal care agent or he would need the assistance of the financial agent (or the trustee) that controls the financial accounts).
Lastly, the advance health care directive authorizes your agent to make medical decisions affecting medical care. It also authorizes your agent to dispose of your body after you die, and to authorize an autopsy. Special health care instructions may be included.
Legacy planning
Discussed here are when a probate is needed, how assets are distributed, and how to protect your loved ones’ inheritances.
Estates with an appraised date of death value at or below $150,000 that would otherwise be subject to probate now qualify as small estates for summary administration procedures. No probate and or creditor notification is needed under summary administration. (See the “Settling Small Estates under $150,000” at www.DennisFordhamLaw.com/blog.)
Persons with larger estates can avoid probate by transferring their assets into a living trust. The trustee controls the assets both during life time and at death for the benefit of the settlor(s) and their loved ones, as relevant.
Trusts allow you to designate who is in charge of trust assets during your incapacity and how the trust benefits you and any dependents.
Not all assets are transferable to one’s trust. Retirement accounts, annuities and life insurances pass pursuant to designation of death beneficiary forms wherein you name your primary and alternative death beneficiaries.
The distribution scheme at death varies with the circumstances and goals. You may choose to make outright distributions of assets to those who are without creditor problems and who are not receiving needs based government benefits.
Otherwise, you may transfer certain inheritances into an irrevocable special needs trust those receiving (or expected to receive) needs based government benefits and into an irrevocable discretionary asset protection trust for those who would likely lose what they received due to improvidence or debt problems.
The trustee is given absolute discretion to make distributions to or for the benefit of the named beneficiary. In California such further trusts can last for up to 90 years.
If you treat your surviving heirs unequally, or disinherit an heir completely, then your estate planning must be drafted to withstand later scrutiny by a disgruntled/disinherited heir. This entails including appropriate disinheritance and no contest provision.
The drafting attorney will need to preserve documents that evidence your intentions. Sometimes a physician’s capacity determination showing that you had testamentary capacity is needed.
A handwritten letter by you stating your reasons and wishes may be helpful to show that you expressly intended the unequal results of your own accord. All of this requires the guidance of a qualified attorney.
Also, if you wish to leave something to a person not related by blood or marriage, especially a person who has provided care giver services (e.g., such as a friend who takes you to the doctor and prepares your meals), then a certificate of independent review may be necessary to support the validity of your estate planning gift.
Estate planning also involves adequate contingency planning for what happens to inheritances when the intended beneficiary does not inherit (due to death or disclaimer – refusal to receive).
Do you wish for the assets to go to a deceased beneficiary’s own surviving children? The same answer is not true for all persons.
Unintended consequences, including probates, happen when unforeseen events occur without adequate contingency planning.
Tax planning
Estate planning also involves tax considerations such as the estate and gift tax, income tax, and local real property taxes.
Presently, the estate and gift tax is only a concern for the very wealth because the first $5 million of a deceased individual, or of $10 million in the case of a married couple with effective estate tax planning, are exempt.
Uncertainty exists as to what happens come Jan. 1, 2013, when present law states that these amounts shall revert to $1 million to $2 million, respectively. Most likely, Congress will again enact last minute legislation preserving the existing generous exemptions.
Income tax considerations, however, concern everyone. Congress preserved the so-called “stepped up” basis that allows the assets of a deceased person to receive a new income tax basis equal to their appraised date of death value.
With appreciated assets, any unrealized gain accumulated over the decedent’s lifetime is eliminated. With depreciated assets, any unrealized loss is unfortunately lost. Thus, it may help your beneficiaries if you sell or gift depreciated assets while alive and hold-on to appreciating assets till death.
Income tax considerations are important in selecting your death beneficiaries on your tax deferred retirement assets. Typically, one wants to preserve the stretch out of required minimum distributions over your beneficiary’s lifetime in order to defer income taxes.
For this reason, trusts that continue in existence (after you death) for the purpose of administering assets over the years for your loved ones, are not usually named as designated death beneficiaries, except in extenuating circumstances (e.g., a special needs trust or a creditor protection trust) where the income tax considerations are less important than other non tax considerations.
Local real property tax rules favor one’s surviving spouse and surviving children and grandchildren from a deceased child. Gifts to them of real property are not subject to reassessment.
Sometimes it is better to leave real property assets only to those children who will hold on to the real property and not include other children who want to be cashed out.
Final considerations
Implementation of one’s estate plan usually entails the assistance of multiple professionals, including, at a minimum, a qualified attorney and a financial planner, and the cooperation of competent and trusted persons to act as one’s agent, trustee and executor. The qualifications of those you entrust are of great importance to the probable outcome.
Procrastination is frequently why people fail to get their affairs in order. It is simply too easy to delay, especially when thinking about one’s mortality. That said acting when one is free from compulsion is less risky and more pleasant than delaying until when it is absolutely necessary to act. Consider the peace of mind that you enjoy when you know that you and your family are protected.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Hidden Valley Lake man has received a six-year prison sentence for the April 2011 sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl.
On Wednesday Frank Joseph Vivero, 21, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Stephen O. Hedstrom to six years and eight months in state prison for sexual assault.
Vivero had pleaded guilty to one felony count of violating Penal Code section 261(a)(3), rape of a juvenile female, and one felony count of violating Penal Code section 261.5(c), statutory rape involving a second juvenile female, according to the Lake County District Attorney's Office.
According to investigation reports, on April 18, 2011, at approximately 5:20 p.m., sheriff’s deputies responded to the Coyote Valley Elementary School in Hidden Valley Lake on a report that several juveniles were drinking alcohol on school grounds.
As deputies arrived in the area it was further reported that a 14-year-old girl was lying unconscious near the rear of the school. Vivero was detained at the scene by deputies, officials reported.
Further investigation revealed that Vivero was previously acquainted with the unconscious girl. She had allegedly contacted him on the afternoon of April 18 and suggested that they hang out. She and a juvenile female friend obtained a 1.75 litre bottle of vodka and met Vivero at Coyote Valley Elementary School.
The three spent the rest of the afternoon consuming the vodka, according to the investigation. At one point Vivero began kissing one of the girls who was extremely intoxicated. Shortly afterwards Vivero began having sex with the intoxicated and unconscious juvenile, and at some point had sex with the other juvenile.
During a subsequent interview with a sheriff’s investigator, Vivero admitted to having intercourse with the two juveniles, officials reported.
Vivero was represented by David Markham. The case was prosecuted by Senior Deputy District Attorney Ed Borg from the Lake County District Attorney’s Office.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it had reached a $10 million, multi-party settlement agreement to settle cleanup costs for seven sites in California, Oregon and Idaho that were used for mining mercury, tungsten, stibnite and scheelite.
The sites include the Sulphur Bank Mine in Clearlake Oaks and Mt. Diablo Mine in Contra Costa County; the Opalite Mine and Bretz Mine, both in Malheur County, Ore.; the Springfield Mine and Stibnite Mine in Valley County, Idaho; and the IMA Mine in Lemhi County, Idaho, according to court documents.
The parties to the agreement include the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bradley Mining Co., the Worthen Bradley Family Trust and the Elem Indian Colony of Pomo Indians of Clearlake Oaks.
Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for EPA’s Pacific Southwest region, said the settlement – which he called “significant” – took three years to hammer out.
“The result is a win for Clear Lake and a win for the Elem Colony,” said Blumenfeld. “This settlement will help the Clear Lake ecosystem recover, including reducing the risks due to mercury in fish. It also demonstrates EPA’s strong commitment to supporting the environmental cleanup of tribal lands.”
Messages left for Elem Colony tribal leaders and administrators were not returned on Thursday.
The settlement, lodged in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.
The settlement and accompanying document can be found here: https://semspub.epa.gov/work/09/1133544.pdf .
The settlement calls for the Bradley Mining Co. and Bradley Trust to transfer nearly all of their land holdings at the Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine to a new trust created to retain the lands pending EPA cleanup.
In addition, the Elem Indian Colony will receive approximately 380 acres of uncontaminated land – more than seven times the size of its current land holdings totaling 50 acres – as compensation for natural resource damages from mining operations by the Bradley Mining Company, the EPA reported.
The EPA said it will receive nearly $7 million in federal funds to reimburse its costs for cleaning up contamination at the Elem Indian Colony and the access road to the colony, a project which occurred several years ago.
The settlement requires proceeds from insurance policies and any future income from the Bradley Mining Co. to be divided among the seven mine sites for future cleanup, with Bradley Mining retaining a share of the proceeds.
The Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine Superfund Site, located at the southeastern end of the Oaks Arm of Clear Lake, includes the Elem Indian Colony, is located directly adjacent to the mine property.
The U.S. EPA said the Sulphur Bank site initially was mined for sulfur from 1865 to 1871, mercury ore was mined intermittently by underground methods from 1873 to 1905 and open-pit mined from 1915 to 1957.
Court records stated that Bradley Mining operated the mine – once one of the largest producers of mercury in California – from at least 1937 to 1957, when it was finally closed.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Bradley Mining reportedly sold mined materials to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for use on road and housing projects on the Elem Indian Colony, documents stated. Those mine tailings were among the removed materials in a cleanup that took place in 2006 and 2007.
EPA said that from 1991 to 2008 it has conducted a number of projects at the Sulphur Bank Superfund site, including stabilizing mined materials located on the shoreline between the mine and Clear Lake, removing mined materials from a wetlands area, constructing a chain-link fence along the main road leading to the site, building a surface water diversion pipeline, sealing three abandoned geothermal exploration wells and removing contaminated soil – which was replaced with clean soil – in residential areas in the Elem Indian Colony.
Even so, the EPA said three million cubic yards of mine wastes and tailings remain on the mine site, mercury is present in the bottom sediments in Clear Lake and mercury has bioconcentrated in the food chain of Clear Lake, leading to the state issuing an advisory to limit consumption of fish.
The agency told Lake County News on Thursday that it is currently evaluating solutions for the mine area, including the Herman Pit, the mine's impoundment pond.
They’re expecting to propose a cleanup plan for the mine area within the next year. This summer the EPA will conduct a pilot study to cap mercury-contaminated sediments in Clear Lake and determine how effective the cap is in reducing exposure to mercury.
Once the EPA has determined an appropriate technology to achieve environmental protection for the area – likely several years away – the agency will make a decision on how to deal with the sediments, officials said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at